*Kicks door open* Honey, I'm Hooooommmmeeeeeeeee! *Canned Applause*
Yes, that's right. After a couple of months of intense studies, writing a thesis, getting an A, graduating from university with honours and distinction, having a good long month worth of vegging out, reading books, and doing nothing, I am back in the fanfiction business! Finally! It feels so good to be back! After so long a break from this site and this story in particular, it's a good feeling to be getting back to what matters - giant alien robots and sexual tension! I meant to finish up this arc of the story with this chapter, but I was channelling my inner H. P. Lovecraft with all the slime-horror...and the chapter would have ended up 40 or 50 pages long if I kept going. I doubt anyone would have appreciated that. So, enjoy the couple of twists in this chapter! Don't be afraid to speculate in your reviews - I love a good hypothesis, and I love replying to those reviews the most because it's fun to drop crazy hints! I'm eager to hear if I managed to creep anyone out!
Psi ex Machina – So, a note about this minor plot point because I wanted to say something about it...mostly because I thought I was really clever coming up with it. A lot of you may be familiar with the Latin phrase "deus ex machina" meaning "god from the machine" - basically meaning a plot device where an unlikely source comes along at the end of a play and fixes everything. Go look it up on Wikipedia for more info, my time is short here. Anyways, I changed that a little for my own nefarious purposes. For anyone familiar with the Greek alphabet, you would recognize the letter "psi" (Ψ), which holds many meanings. In particular, psi is often the symbol for the inner workings of the mind as well as research into the paranormal world (psychology, psychiatry, parapsychology). With a little Greek-Latin hybridization (and by that, I mean bastardization), I meant for psi ex machina to mean "mind from the machine," among other more sinister meanings.
Also, readers of other War Eternal stories besides this one…well, you may want to keep your eyes peeled for No One in particular – if you know what I mean. =P
Thank you to all of you, my wonderful and patient readers: TransformersLover95, shantastic, StarscreamII, ReveilleWolfie, renegadewriter8, A Lurker, cmdrtekk, Psyche102, VyxenSkye, CNightJoy, Kai-Chan94, BoredTech, Daklog73, Poiseninja, Prowls-little-angel, DemonSurfer, Midnight Marquis, Birgitte LP, Darkeyes17, Jazz935, kathy3meme, Camfield, Pruhana, Wanderling, Optimus Bob, Luinrina, Peacewish, Cybela, Wisecrack Idiots, femme4jack, Jessie07, quasarsmom, Kidara, Imbrium, Sideslip, Faecat, Fianna9, Xenophobic Doll, Astsadi, uniasus, smoking caramels, The Dancing Bard, Miniquie, Qwertzu, SweetIndigo, VaRa129, Farky-farky and the Monkey Bunch, Gamemice, IBrokeThe4thWall, JenEvan, evilbunny777, SafaiaFureia, Chloo, Lackia, and Lecidre! Whew, there is a bunch of you!
Thank you so much for helping to make Where You and I Collide what it is today. I am grateful to each and every single one of you. I sincerely hope that you're all still out there, even after such a long wait. I promise, if you come back, read, and review, I'll be sure to glom all over you and, you know, write the next chapter quickly. =P
Chapter 37
If Prowl had considered their situation tense before, it was nothing compared to the ominous dread hanging nearly palpable in the atmosphere now.
He glanced down at his left hand, hanging slightly off-kilter due to the wound he suffered in his shoulder and the patch Jazz had welded over it. The state of his left arm was a rather good reminder of what a dangerous situation he and his partner were teetering on the edge of. They were in the spark of one of Shockwave's lairs. It was lethally obvious now that everything was not as it seemed. Even that which seemed innocuous, like a hallucination, or a seemingly white visor, or even a simple crate, revealed themselves to be unexpectedly foreboding in their own ways.
Even a moment's lapse in attention or judgement within Shockwave's domain could result in unfortunate consequences.
Prowl considered himself fortunate that the consequence of his brief lapse in attention only resulted in an injury to his shoulder. His encounter with the drone could have easily resulted in a fatal shot to the head. Were it not for Jazz's shout alerting him, Prowl might not have been quick enough to dodge. The throbbing he felt exerted on his pressure sensor grid from the concave section of his armour reminded him that vigilance was the key to survival when combating the likes of Shockwave.
Mistakes, even one like a temporary lapse in judgement, were not an option when the mission was this dire.
Prowl had made too many mistakes so far.
From the very beginning of this mission, he had been making mistake after mistake. As if he were fledgling officer for Security Response again, but even then he did not make as many mistakes as he did now. Arrogance and ignorance were the instruments of his downfall this time. An overestimation of his own considerable abilities and too much emphasis on Jazz's skills blinded Prowl to the distinct possibility that there were warriors at Megatron's disposal even more dangerous and less publicly known than Jazz. An embarrassing amount of naivety concerning Shockwave's powers, abilities, and mastery over macabre sciences only further stunted Prowl's foresight concerning their current situation.
The long joors he had spent during their journey preparing for this encounter, overtaxing his battle computer in order to compete with the massive number of variables they were dealing with... none of it had been enough.
Not enough by far, and it was his fault not to have seen it coming-
"Stop that," Jazz snapped curtly, causing Prowl to jerk out of his brief downward spiral.
A beat of silence followed.
A low rev vibrated from within the saboteur's chassis. "Ah might not be looking at ya, but Ah know what you're doing."
Prowl's arched an optic ridge, though he did not turn his attention away from their surroundings. One lapse in judgement was enough for one orn. "What am I doing?"
Jazz made a noise of annoyance, as if that was answer enough.
Prowl stood his ground under the brunt of his partner's irritation, which manifested in a flare in his electric field and the apparent frown pulling down on his mouthplates. A flaring field was of little concern and Prowl did not deign it much attention, and a scowl from Jazz was less than that. His cool gaze remained on the saboteur in expectation of an answer, though it was unfair of him to do so while Jazz was occupied with getting them through the security locks Shockwave had placed on his labs. Nevertheless, his partner deigned to answer after relenting under scrutiny.
"You're doin' that stupid thing where everything is your fault," the saboteur groused while flexing his clenched fists against the wall that held his weight. There was an edge to his voice, more than just irritation roughening his normally smooth accented voice. He shifted his feet, beginning to get stiff from the tension and his awkward stance hunched over the control panel.
It was the tactician's turn to feel a moment of irritation. "I was not aware that one of your many talents was mind reading."
"Don't try ta be cute – Ah'm not in the mood right now," Jazz grunted, sending a quick glance to his left to reveal the grim set to his faceplate. The effort it was costing him to mentally do battle with whatever Shockwave had set into his locks was effectively taking its toll. "Ah got a splitting headache from this and Ah gotta contend with ya berating yourself. Ah can feel ya right up against mah armour, Prowler. It's too distracting for meh right now."
A spike of regret for his momentary petulance lanced through Prowl. "My apologies."
"Whatever," Jazz sighed, returning his full attentions back to the task at hand. "Just...think happy thoughts or some slag like that. And make sure no one sneaks up on meh while Ah got my back turned. If Ah get shot, Ah am not gonna be happy."
"I do not imagine you would be," Prowl replied, his hands tightening briefly over his charged weapon. "I will not be distracted again. No one will be able to approach."
A tight smirk ghosted over the saboteur's mouthplates. "So long as they don't have the colour red on them?"
"I believe you are enough to inspire me to see the colour red," Prowl replied evenly, leaving it up to his companion to decide whether it was an honest statement that he would endeavour to work beyond his current disability...or if he was simply hinting at Jazz's incredible ability to raise a temper in the normally implacable tactician.
Either way, Jazz spared a low chuckle.
Prowl was careful to angle himself in such a way that he could watch the quiet base around him and still keep Jazz in the periphery of his view. In spite of the eerie stillness which reigned over the yard and the assorted buildings which dotted it, Prowl redoubled his vigilance. He was especially keen to keep Jazz in top form, since the saboteur was unquestionably the key to solving the elusive question that was Shockwave's existence.
A long stretch of silence followed while the saboteur worked. He was adept at hiding his deepening discomfort, though the signs were becoming more pronounced the longer he managed the locking sequence.
More mindful of the unintentional affects he imposed on his partner while Jazz was in his...hyper-sensitized state, for lack of a better description of it, Prowl took a deep drag of air and let it rush out through his vents in as calm a manner as he could manage. His task now was to consciously endeavour to grasp a firm hold of his emotional state and refuse to let it affect him any further.
He could not decide if there was irony in this task, considering the terrible emotional outburst he had suffered the last time he and Jazz had attempted a lesson in control. It would have been so much easier to simply turn off his emotional centre, leaving his thoughts clear of guilt and his faculties unmolested by incidentals like insecurity. But Prowl was not the type of bot to give up so easily on something he set his mind to. He would learn to be his own master, or die trying. He preferred the former option. It was, unfortunately, a deeply ingrained habit of his to critique himself to the point of self-abuse. Since he and Jazz had only shared one exclusive attempt at emotional control, one lesson which ended disastrously between them, Prowl was forced to instead rely on other tricks of the mind that he was more familiar with. One such trick was to engage his battle computer in some activity that would partially divert his attention from himself.
Use of his battle computer was among one of his oldest and most effective tools. Once assigned a particular task, his mind would be divided into two processes capable of working simultaneously on two separate agendas. A useful trick when a bot happened to be as busy as a Head Tactical Adviser tended to be. The module set into his head was segregated from the larger processes of his mind, though capable of working in tandem when required. Generally speaking, it allowed Prowl and others of similar programming to himself to engage in numerous tactical calculations even while distracted in the heat of battle. Quite literally, a battle computer – or a "detached tactical analysis module" as they were known before the war – could operate as a secondary thought-process in a bot's mind, working parallel to the actual processor. Prowl's many successes, both in battle and in administration tasks, were evidence of the many advantages to possessing a battle computer.
Admittedly, this detached part of the tactician's psyche was also the only side of himself which remained free of emotion no matter if his emotional centre was turned on or off. It was the reason his processor immediately defaulted to his battle computer when his emotional centre was turned off.
Prowl settled his battle computer to the task of puzzling over the contents of Shockwave's crates. The disturbing revelation of what Jazz had discovered had yet to leave the frayed edges of Prowl's mind, but in the short while between being shot and waiting for Jazz to hack the lock on the door, the tactician had not spared the grotesque nature of Shockwave's castoffs much thought. There was cold comfort in how he felt his battle computer taking in all available data and beginning to churn it over and over. Prowl felt the fission of consciousness between his two tasks, neither one distracting from the other due to the unique programming of his mind.
This new delegation was clearly no distraction to Jazz's senses. If anything, it seemed an odd comfort for the taxed saboteur to be reminded of something so familiar and simple as Prowl's reliance on his battle computer. Jazz shifted his weight and relaxed a fraction, remaining silent.
While one side of Prowl's mind worked on his current task of ensuring that no one was able to shoot Jazz in the back, another side of him worked on the gruesome understanding what possible purpose a Cybertronian had for organics. Prowl was a relatively sheltered bot compared to Jazz, due to his comparative youth and lack of travel beyond the planet. His contact with organic species was severely limited to a few sources. His knowledge was basic, and his opinions reflected the general opinions of Cybertron: organics were weak, primitive, and technologically stagnant compared to the many splendours a planet like Cybertron offered. There was no overt purpose to associating with them, aside from anthropological curiosity.
Prowl was highly doubtful of Shockwave's anthropological interest in organic aliens.
What scientific reason could there be for gathering so many organics? Prowl recalled the contents of the crate that Jazz had briefly shown him before attending to the conundrum of the door. He recognized eight distinct species from neighbouring galaxies, none of which were in contact with Cybertron anymore due to the war. There seemed no specific pattern to Shockwave's abductions: he took the old, the young, biological males, females, and various other sexual manifestations. There were avian, reptilian, and mammalian samples amongst the rotting corpses. As far as Prowl knew, there were few commonalities between the species. He did not know if the planets they belonged to were even allied with each other.
And then there was the question of the graft lines. What purpose did they serve? What Shockwave merely investigating the primitive creatures for his own amusement, doing so in the most efficient manner he knew how? Or was there a more sinister design meant behind the fine black lines etched upon the rotten skins left to disintegrate in the create?
There was a brief stutter in information in Prowl's mind, and then a rapid rewind as his subconscious hooked on a detail of data. It was brought to the fore to be examined immediately.
Of all the thousands of variables between Cybertronians and other lesser beings, there was only one evolutionary advantage afforded to organics that Cybertronians were forever exempt from: the ability to procreate amongst themselves. Some organics did so through sexually dimorphic means, combining two sources of deoxyribonucleic acid to formulate a new combination of genetic material which would constitute the next generation. Other organics procreated through asexual means, such as sporing or fission. Cybertronians did not fall under either category. They produced new forms of life through the Allspark. It was their sole form of reproduction, and it left them as a highly vulnerable species when that one outlet was threatened.
The use of the Allspark as a form of highly regulated reproduction was extremely efficient for a species such as theirs. No spark came to life unwanted or without purpose. The Council Pantheon monitored all applications for new sparks, balancing demand against current populations and death rates. Considering that Cybertronians were a long-lived species who were extraordinarily hard to kill, it was an immensely important job to regulate population or else risk problems of overpopulation and poverty that plague organic worlds.
The opposite was now a distinct problem. With the Allspark sequestered for its own protection, there was no means for the Cybertronian species to replenish itself. War diminished their numbers with each passing orn. Factions were desperate for new warriors to replenish their ranks.
Finding an alternative means of creating new warriors would be advantageous to either faction...
"Ah'm in," Jazz suddenly announced alongside the obvious releasing of the locking mechanism of the door.
With that said, Prowl quickly ended his session with his battle computer, tucking the information away to cycle through at a subconscious level. He stepped away from the wall to briefly assess his partner. Jazz was obviously bearing the brunt of exhaustion from the mental exercise. A small tremor, barely noticeable, travelled through him. The building itself was unchanged, despite the monumental accomplishment of hacking through the lock. Prowl's brief assessment confirmed that the low, squat building was still heavily armoured, cast in a shadow that seemed wholly unnatural, and flirted with an illogical sense of foreboding which the tactician could not narrow down in source.
After the brief assessment, Prowl was quick to turn his attentions back to the rest of the empty yard in case they were ambushed during his lapse. It was entirely possible that releasing the lock triggered yet another trap set by Shockwave. Perhaps all the drones left on the base would be set upon them like a plague. Or the risk of magnesium powder shooting out of hidden vents followed by a single spark of electricity would effectively incinerate all intruders. At this point, Prowl was not even willing to cast off the chance that a giant hole in the ground would open up, dropping Jazz and himself into some sort of bottomless pit.
Jazz seemed to be waiting on the same thing, holding himself frozen over the open access panel. A breem passed, followed by the long exhalation of the saboteur. Clearly, if something was going to happen, it would have happened by now.
"That was anti-climatic," the silver bot commented, straightening to his full height.
"There's still time for something unfortunate to happen," Prowl reasoned, still watching the open yard for any sign of an approaching threat.
"Ah don't think so – not here, at least," Jazz replied, retracting his cable into its holding unit in the small panel on his chest. He swayed for a moment, a wave of dizziness snatching at his sense of balance. Prowl saw the disorientation and offered an arm to help, which Jazz surprisingly accepted without complaint.
"Are you alright?" Prowl asked out of polite habit.
"Took more outta meh than Ah thought," Jazz breathed, air shuddering out his vents. He peered up at his partner, who watched him with enquiring pale blue optics. "We're safe here, though. Aside from the traps he set up around this place, there's nothing inside the sanctum."
Doubt flickered behind the tactician's optics. "How can you be sure?"
"Same way Ah'm sure about everything else. Shockwave never thought we would get this far," the saboteur explained. "Ah'm willing ta bet that he thought we'd never find his base in the first place, and even if we did find it, he figured his traps would kill us first."
Prowl inclined his head, the ghost of a mild smirk appearing across his mouthplates. "It is nice to have someone underestimate us for a change instead of it being the other way around."
"It's just too bad that after this, Shockwave is gonna know he can't underestimate us anymore. It'll be that much harder ta find him, and that much harder ta kill him. He's not the kind of bot ta make a mistake twice."
Despite the grimness of the statement, there was one particular aspect of it that caught Prowl's attention. "Us?"
"What?"
"Us – you said Shockwave can not underestimate us," Prowl reiterated. "That is the first time you have ever acknowledged that Shockwave is not your lone mission."
Jazz appeared momentarily perturbed, having not even realized his own verbal slip.
Deciding that this was not the time to get the saboteur's defences up about issues of "I" "me" "we" and "us", especially considering that Prowl was equally disinclined to consider changing aspects of their relationship from semi-professional to something else. Under normal circumstances, it was daunting enough to consider. Amidst danger and risk of death? There was no place for it. He quickly offered an out in the form of a segue:
"Of course," he intoned, "you are currently disorientated from your hacking efforts and I imagine your processor is out of sorts. Verbal gaffes are bound to happen, even to one such as yourself."
"Yeah, exactly," Jazz readily agreed, happy to latch onto the ready-made excuse Prowl offered.
"Contrary to what many believe, you are not invincible," Prowl continued lightly.
"Ah'm close, though," Jazz shrugged with equal reasonability.
Prowl arched an optic ridge. "That is the longest I have ever seen you struggle with a lock before. Perhaps you are losing your touch?"
Jazz huffed, turning his olfactory sensor up as if mildly insulted. "It wasn't the hardest lock Ah've ever dealt with. Just took meh a while ta find a way in – plus, you were distractin' meh, remember?"
One dark optic ridge arched up to join its mate high on Prowl's brow. "Ah, right. Wasn't I thinking too loudly for you?"
"Somethin' like that," Jazz replied, the grip of his hand on Prowl's arm tightening for a second. "Ah might not read minds like some bots can," - to which he was obviously referring to one of Soundwave's more insidious abilities - "but Ah was taught other ways that are just as good as mind reading. One look and Ah know all Ah ever need ta know about a bot."
"Except for me," Prowl reminded, though at the mentioning of "looking" he did cast his gaze and sensors out to confirm that no trouble was on its way. Jazz proved himself correct that Shockwave had not anticipated their success; nothing worth deeming 'dangerous' was approaching. With that matter settled in an astrosecond, Prowl pressed on, "I do recall you attempting several very painful looks at me and you still did not see me."
Jazz's visor flashed, and a rakish grin broke out across his handsome faceplate. It seemed a very odd place to laugh when they were about to face down untold danger and horror inside the lab of a psychotic scientist, and yet a very handsome laugh escaped the saboteur.
"Ah didn't see ya properly until ya managed ta slow meh down enough for everything ta stop spinning," said the silver mech. "Ah'm still looking and Ah find new things ta see every time."
Prowl canted his head, not sure if he was being paid a compliment or not.
Jazz did not expound on his meanings, but instead carried on with seeming nonchalance: "Just because Ah don't know everything there is ta know about ya doesn't mean Ah don't know enough about ya ta know when you're doing something. Ah don't gotta be lookin' at ya ta feel when you're being hard on yourself. It's just...something Ah feel. The same way Ah feel things around here but can't explain them ta ya."
"You are an exceedingly odd Cybertronian."
"Right back at ya."
There came a natural pause as the pair recognized that their levity could last no longer. They stood on the threshold of something possibly horrific, and beyond that door was a place not meant for humour. The foreboding of their looming task rose up like a physical weight in the air, heavier and more oppressive than ever before.
Jazz disentangled himself from the arm that offered him support. He wavered only slightly on his feet before he cycled air and stood straight. The disorienting headache his hack job had given him was pushed aside, still a nuisance but no longer allowed to impede him. All traces of humour melted from his features to be replaced with that of a calculating saboteur, one whose abilities were as infamous as they were dangerous.
One sharp claw traced its way down the seam of the door, coming away with a cold layer of slime that only caused the silver mech to scowl.
"While Ah was working on the lock, ya turned on your battle computer."
"I did happen to assign it a specific process," Prowl replied, equally sinking into a battle-ready stance. Though his control over his emotions was not as finely tuned as Jazz's, Prowl was still a formidable warrior – he simply did not remind himself of that fact very often. Before Jazz had ever come into his life, Prowl had managed to become Head Tactical Adviser of his division and create a formidable reputation for himself. He was still that same bot.
Jazz did not need to wonder about what specific process his partner had assigned to his battle computer There was no question that Prowl had been trying to puzzle out the same enigma that dogged Jazz: what the pit was Shockwave doing with organic aliens?
"What did ya come up with?"
Prowl cast his partner with a shrewd look that said more than words could express. Needlessly, he reported, "You do not want to know."
"Figured," Jazz sighed. "Enough puttin' this off. Ya ready?"
"As I will ever be."
"That's gonna have ta be enough."
At Jazz's command, the door hissed open. Foetid air wafted out, warm and rank with the heavy stench of rot. Prepared for the assault of rancid stench, Prowl and Jazz immediately turned off their olfactory sensors. Alleviated of one abused sense, that singular countermeasure did little to protect their other highly acute senses. Most affected was their tactile sense. Humid air steamed out of the gaping black doorway and settled across their surfaces of their armour, slick and filthy, heavy with organic particulates. Cold air condensed the steam into a white cloud, and then freezing into pale brownish-yellow droplets across whatever surface they touched. Steamy tendrils passed beneath slates in their armour, sneaking into their warmed innards, soaking into their inner workings.
Prowl steeled himself against the evanescent intrusion, tamping down on his shudder of revulsion.
"The atmosphere is much thicker than Cybertron's," he commented evenly, running an analysis of the content of the air. Concentrations of oxygen and carbon dioxide were notably high, both functions in organic respiratory systems. Other elements and compounds included those indicative of heavy decay.
"Atmosphere an organic could breathe. Ah'm pretty sure there are gravity adjusters in the building ta compensate for Cybertron's heavy gravity," Jazz added, taking his first cautious step into the building. The only illumination came from outside, the lighted force field doming the entire compound. Inside the immediate doorway was a small chamber, which Jazz realized was a pressurization chamber. He motioned Prowl to join him, allowing the door to slide closed at their backs. A single shallow light flickered on above their heads.
"A pressure chamber?" Prowl wondered, peering around himself as he felt machinery powering up, the air pressure slowly shifting from low to high density. "Evidence seems to suggest that Shockwave went to great length to accommodate organic species."
"Easier ta experiment on live prey than on dead ones," Jazz rejoined darkly, and there was a hint of experience lingering in those ominous words.
A moment later, the process finished. Machines powered down while an automated message chimed over a small speaker, announcing the set of the gravity and the new air pressure. Prowl and Jazz readily took their cues from the offered numbers, resetting their internal pressurization to best suit this new environment. A door directly across from the one they had entered slid open, admitting more humid air to press in on them, slick tendrils of slimy condensation clinging to their metal exteriors and interiors.
A long, empty corridor beckoned them.
Much like the previous buildings in the compound, there was eerie order to the path which laid before them. The lights overhead were stark white, casting a glaring shine over polished metal and glass surfaces. Shadows were thrown into sharp relief, so sharply delineated that they appeared carved from the blade of a scalpel. There was clinical precision in the design of the corridor, its tall and narrow passageway both accommodating to trespassers and ultimately foreboding. There was no detail out of place, no measurement off by a single fraction. Not even the cut of a diamond could possibly be sharper or straighter than the nature of the narrow entryway which stretched out before them.
This was deeply in contrast to the rest of the details Prowl catalogued with optics.
Evidence of Shockwave's dealings manifested along the seams of the corridor, where the walls met the ceilings and the floor; in these narrow lines, organic debris from the air gathered and festered, clinging to the metal as it rotted and spread like a disease. Brown and black, veins reaching outward as the mould and bacteria spread in search of more decay to consume. Rivulets of murky fluid leaked from these deposits of putrefaction, running down the walls and across the floor. In every case of a crack or chip, fluid gathered and inspired decay unique to metal: rust. Perverting the integrity of the smooth surface, destroying its shine and health; patches of rust could be found erupting like the spread of an infection.
The most unnerving detail of all was the silence.
Pure silence. An utter absence of sound which, in itself, seemed deafening. It surpassed the eerie stillness of the compound outside, burgeoning on a deathlike presence that crept over armour and chilled the spark.
Jazz took his first step, tensing as he listened to the metallic echo of his foot that seemed to carry on forever.
"Keep your guard up," the saboteur needlessly murmured.
Prowl, likewise, needlessly nodded.
As they travelled onward which wary intent, hating how each step they took echoed too loud and too long. The deeper the travelled into the inner sanctum of a monster, the more the walls seemed to press in on each side. Prowl had no issues with confined spaces, but he knew of Jazz's particular weakness to being closed in. It couldn't be classified as a fear, per se, but more of a psychological discomfort ingrained in the bot after a lifetime of running wild and insane on pure freedom with no boundaries to hem him in. He watched his partner from the corner of his optic and noted with grim confirmation how the silver mech reached out and trailed the tips of his claws along the wall, coating himself with liquid decay in the process. Disgusting as it was to voluntarily submit himself to it, it was Jazz's way of assuring himself the walls were staying exactly where they were.
To their great relief, and mounting tension, nothing happened during their journey to the end of the corridor. No trap doors to swing open beneath their feet, no magnesium powder to spew from the vents. There was not even an oil spill for them to slip on. Jazz's observation that Shockwave had not calculated their success in infiltrating his labs appeared to be holding true. Nevertheless, the longer nothing happened to them, the greater the sense that something terrible was looming just around the corner was impressed upon their psyches. At the end of the corridor, the pair were presented with a fascinating choice in directions. True to organizational form, Shockwave had posted a placard on the wall to list the options that laid in each direction. To the right was Administration, Maintenance, and Record Keeping. To the left was Examination, Experimentation, and Holdings.
Jazz tapped his long finger over the latter option. "This sounds promising."
"That depends on what you consider promising," Prowl replied reservedly, once more casting wary optics around himself. He sent out every scan he possessed in order to render some idea of what laid ahead of them. The readouts he received moments later were a jumbled mess of unreadable signals. Largely inorganic signals, the run of energy through conduits in the walls, the ring of empty space in corridors like the one they stood in. But then organic readouts smeared across his sensors, touching every surface and throwing off all his calibration – no doubt in thanks to the heavy concentrations of debris that clung to the air and surfaces. Deeper still was evidence of organic and inorganic life signs, perverted somehow as if Prowl's scanners could not distinguish one from the other.
Jazz was already several steps ahead of him before Prowl realized he was being left behind.
This new hallway was as bright as the first, possessed of the same contrasting elements between clinical exactness and accumulated filth. The walls were thankfully spaced further apart, with several tracks set into the floor and ceiling meant for automated gurneys and tables. One such gurney was parked halfway down the hall, large enough to accommodate a Cybertronian of minibot size. Though it appeared innocuous in its immobile state, Prowl and Jazz did not miss the way light played off the reflective metal surface to reveal telltale signs of blue staining.
As they passed the singular table, Jazz ran his hand over it. He took note of the small details; scuff marks along the centre of the table denoting the struggles of the victim where the armour of their backs dug into the table; deep stress marks where restraints were anchored into the sides of the table, marking that multiple bots had been struggling very hard. Despite clear efforts to clean the metal of its staining, the repeated spills of energon over a long period had permanently warped the metal. Beneath his hand, he could almost feel the lingering touch of spark energy in the last moments of life before it was dashed out.
Jazz was not in the habit of believing in ghosts, though he felt as if he would hear them screaming if he only just shuttered his optics and listened.
Prowl turned his attention away from the gurney, peering into the room which came into sight on his right. A sharply cut door was inset into the flat face of the corridor's wall, and on either side were clear crystal panels which allowed for the observation of the interior of the room. Light spilled into the darkened recess, casting the figures of medical equipment into ominous shapes. More gurneys lined the floor, paired with tables that still boasted of their tools. Large surgical lights hung from the ceiling, among other shapes that could not be distinguished from where the tactician stood.
To get a better look, Prowl stepped closer. He noted the floor was pockmarked with drainage covers, each one grimy with the presence of congealed energon and a crusty brown substance that Prowl could only assume was dried haemoglobin from organic iron-based blood. He squinted against his own reflection on the crystal pane, leaning in to discern the curious shapes he could make out hanging from the ceiling. His initial perusal found them odd and without distinctive shape; some were small and others were large. A small breeze in the examination room from the air exchange vents caused the objects to flap, proving they were flexible and lightweight. Colours were obscured in half-light to muted tans and browns. Black dotted lines followed across the uneven surfaces, following a pattern which seemed logical thought not yet comprehensible.
"Skins," Jazz observed, peering around Prowl's shoulder with a grim expression. "Those are skins with graft lines. A lot of skins, by the looks of things. Shockwave was doing a lot of his version of examining."
Prowl jerked away from the window, feeling a cold chill run through him. He turned and jerked his optics briefly to the second observation room that Jazz had no doubt already peeked into.
"What is in the other room?" he enquired.
The corner of the saboteur's mouthplates kicked up in a humourless smirk. "Everything else." He held up his hand, revealing a nondescript data pad. "Found this, too."
"Does it contain anything?"
"Numbers," Jazz sighed. "Just a bunch of numbers. Ah can't make anything of it."
"Hold on to it. We'll be able to analyze it better once we're out of here."
Jazz gave a curt nod, slipping the data pad into subspace. Their echoing footsteps synchronized as they passed through the rest of the corridor, their optics sharp for any danger. Darkened windows continued to line up along their sides, revealing tantalizing hints of the horrors that went on within. A spiral fracture in the glass where a patient got loose and attempted to escape. Claw marks down the gurneys as someone clenched their fists against the pain and terror. Cybertronian parts laid out in the examination rooms, neatly labelled and prepped, right next to the grotesque organic approximations of the same innards, preserved and floating in jars. Each sight offered the jarring contrast between orderly neatness and black grime of unforgivable endeavours.
All of it served as unparalleled insight into the clinical practices of a mad mech.
They passed through a double door entryway into the Experimentation section. Had their olfactory sensors been turned on, they would have scented the acrid stench of fear in the air, coupled with the increasing stench of putrefaction and nameless other things. The deeper into Shockwave's labs that they travelled, the more the air became thicker, deeply permeated with corruption. A layer of malaise that grew thicker with every step, settling upon every surface, warping everything it touched. Stark lights above were just as bright and intrusive – save for one that was dying, flickering with a strobe effect that was disorientating and disturbing. The floors were dirtier, obscured by a thin layer of organic debris and flakes of rust that had accumulated over time. Cutting through the mess were the sharp tracks for the automated gurneys and the sharply delineated tracks of fast-paced bots.
Jazz crouched over the prints on the floor, his fingers tracing the outline with purposeful attention. "Shockwave," he announced, tracing the largest set. Then he traced a second set of prints, smaller than the first, familiar in a perturbing manner. The gait was carefully measured, an extremely efficient and brusque pace by the looks of things. Almost drone-like, but not quite. Jazz narrowed his optics on the set of prints, scowling at them.
"This is the one that shot ya," the silver bot announced darkly.
Upon that remark, Prowl leaned over a silver shoulder to assess the prints. The size marked the owner as a general-sized mech, or else a minibot with large feet. He recognized the shape of the print and the manner of the walk. "The drone."
Jazz nodded slowly, pursing his mouthplates. He studied the prints, and then admitted, "It wasn't a drone."
"No?"
"Almost looks like a drone, but there's..." he trailed off, shooting Prowl a half-shrug and a pursed look. "There's too much inflection in the gait."
One dark optic ridge arched, accepting the explanation. "Shockwave's possible apprentice or accomplice, then?"
"Probably. Ah can't tell if he's walking like this out of habit or doin' it on purpose ta try an' throw us off his trail," Jazz replied shrewdly.
"Outside, he likely adjusted his gait if he meant to throw us off. He would be less guarded in here. These prints are likely an example of his habitual walking pattern, which is, as we can see, drone-like."
"Yeah, Ah buy that." It was obvious in the guarded manner of Jazz's expression that he was holding something back, as he seemed to have been holding back when he first encountered the prints outside. A mild moment of disturbance crossed his features, but was gone an astrosecond later. "He must have hidden his spark signature when he snuck up on ya, or else ya would have sensed him coming long before he got too close."
Prowl did not press about what held Jazz's attention about the prints. He readily nodded and agreed to his partner's assessment. "This is true. It is why I assumed it was a drone – there was no spark signature. Instead, we find ourselves dealing with a very clever bot of Shockwave's company. An exceedingly clever one, it seems."
"Makes ya wonder why this bot got left behind."
A cold chill passed over Prowl's armour as his mind raced to calculate the thousands of viable reasons why Shockwave might select one of his entourage to stay behind. The resulting answers were not encouraging.
"Perhaps," said the tactician, measuring his words very carefully. "Perhaps Shockwave did anticipate us coming this far and he left someone here to deal with us in that eventuality."
Jazz rocked to his feet, straightening to his full height without a word. His expression shifted as he considered the possibility.
"Ah-," he words tapered off as his attention immediately darted down the hall.
Prowl tensed, fingers tightening around the blaster he still held clenched at the ready. "What is it?"
"Movement," Jazz murmured, assuming a low pose as he slid soundlessly down the hall on the wheels of his alt mode that comprised the partial structure of his feet. He was as graceful as he was predatory.
Prowl watched tensely while his partner took the lead, easing down a short distance before rolling up on a window that seemed to radiate darkness rather than reflect the lights of the halls. It was one of the experimentation rooms, and Prowl did not like the way the temperature of the corridor suddenly and inexplicably plummeted when in close proximity of this specific space.
Jazz gave a sudden jerk, his forearm raising to his faceplate as if to shield himself from an attack.
A moment later, Prowl learned the reason for the defensive move. It was not a physical attack Jazz protected himself from, but an airborne one. Rancid stench overpowered the small space, so rank and vile that it was enough to drive a bot to their knees. The smell... it was not of organic decay this time. For all its overpowering putrid stench, this stink was different; stale and cold and dry like the decrepit tomb of some old, forgotten mausoleum. The ionizing putrefaction of Cybertronian death, as a frame lost its life force and returned to its original state of inanimate metal; rust set in, eating away at once-living metallic tissues. Energon congealed and dried up. This was death in a far more familiar and concentrated manifestation, making the experience that much more unnerving for the pair of Cybertronians caught up in it.
It caused Prowl's processor to spin out in confusion as he failed to understand how his olfactory sensor could spontaneously come back online.
Jazz did not question the anomaly. His expression turned fierce, a little wild.
Prowl sensed the saboteur's urge to move before the silver bot had the chance to dart away. The feeling of it surged through him like a strike of lighting, inspiring him into action faster than what his optics could track. A dark hand shot out, shackling Jazz's wrist with a powerful crushing grip. It was the wrong arm, though. Prowl's injured arm. The effort of such quick and violent movement sent fire screaming up his neural circuits, shocking him with the sudden fervour of pain. Like his olfactory sensor, he had not meant to turn his neural circuits of that arm back on, but they were on now and alerting him to his folly of movement with a vengeance.
Nevertheless, he was committed to his action. He followed through by locking his fingers, his wrist, and his arm to ensure that the only way Jazz could escape was if he tore the arm out of its socket. A distinct possibility, judging by the surging power now whipping through the saboteur with tidal force. Prowl felt the electrical snap of power lashing through the sleek, compact silver frame as a physical forced against the palm of his hand, he could feel it effervescently smart against his own personal field. His armour bristled of its own accord as a measure to brace himself for the moment when Jazz truly started to fight the hand that shackled him.
If Prowl had not grabbed him, Jazz would have run.
He would not have run in fear. An urge like that had most likely been beaten out of Jazz long ago. Prowl knew fear, he knew the feeling of it and what it sounded, smelled, and tasted like, and there was not an ounce of it radiating from Jazz's frame. Instead, he sensed the sudden and intense bout of wild madness that had struck, as if the stench itself had borne the power to send Jazz spiralling back in time to moments when he was as uncontrollable as a whirlwind.
Jazz's optics glared so bright behind his visor that they outshone the white light of the crystal. Two piercing points of light that even outshone the stars themselves. A full-frame shudder worked its way through his handsome frame, starting from the point where Prowl continued to anchor his partner with all the strength in his failing frame.
And then the saboteur blinked. His body language calmed a fraction, only enough to realize that someone was in pain and that, although he should enjoy such a feeling, it left him feeling cold instead. His visor flipped up, head twisting around to see the remains of the temporary patch he had applied to Prowl's shoulder ripped up from its welds from the ferocity of the tactician's movement.
Prowl saw a fraction of sanity return to his partner, allowing him to loosen his hold and let his arm fall back to his side awkwardly, dangling askew to his frame.
"Good," grunted the storm-grey mech. "You're back."
Sharp claws traced the broken weld the followed along the front of Prowl's shoulder. Energon coated his fingers where it dribbled out in a lazy stream.
"That was stupid of ya," Jazz admonished. "Now you're all torn up again."
Prowl frowned darkly, trying to get a grasp on his pounding spark and the nearly out-of-control emotion that struck the moment Jazz almost took a runner. "You nearly ran off again, and this time it would have been for good. This pain is nothing compared to what I might have felt if you got yourself killed."
The words seemed to startle Jazz, only then realizing how far gone he had been thrown in a matter of astroseconds. This was followed shortly by the outrage Prowl had been expecting. Furious, boiling insult that anyone could have gotten the better of him without even laying a hand on him. There was also an underlying sense of concern for what might have happened if he did run. A disturbed sense that he had lost control, but it was not of his own doing.
Prowl felt a trickle of pity for this partner, though was immensely careful to keep any trace of it away from his expression or body language. He subtly shifted his weight, turning his shoulder away and shutting down effected energon lines to stop the leakage. "I could not risk you darting off and getting yourself killed. I depended on you to keep me safe while I was incapacitated by the atmospheric EM charge and I do not mind repaying my debt by keeping you safe with me now."
There was a long stretch of heavy silence, thick with leashed violence while Jazz battled a knee-jerk urge to deny he needed anyone to keep him safe. Prowl watched the many gears and cogs of the saboteur's complex mind spin at warp speed as he thought his way through his current predicament. His piercing white optics looked away for a moment, zeroing in with fanatical intensity on the darkened window that laid so close to his shoulder.
"Fine," the saboteur finally sighed. "Ya wanna keep meh safe? Suffer for it."
"I do believe that is what I have been doing all along," Prowl replied dryly.
Jazz cleared his vents as a means of non-reply, ignoring the slimy yellowed contaminants that sputtered out with the gesture.
"About earlier-"
"Qualify 'earlier'," Prowl sighed.
"Just a breem ago. When Ah...lost it," Jazz replied. "It was the smell, Ah think. There's something about it. Ah got distracted by it."
"The smell?"
"Ah've smelled it before," Jazz continued shrewdly. "It reminded meh of something from... a long time ago. Ah don't know exactly where. Something just clicked inside mah head - one moment mah olfactory sensor was flipping on and the next moment..."
"I was grabbing you before you could go off and get yourself killed," Prowl finished reservedly, leaning back and crossing his good arm across his chest to rest absently on his injured shoulder. "The more I consider the anomaly, the more I believe we inadvertently walked into a psychometric control field. The smell was meant to distract us from the immediate attack so that we would be more susceptible to it. If there is another bot in here with us, it would not have required much from him to set up something like that to waylay us."
It made perfect sense, really. A psychometric control field was of the same ingenious and insidious design as magnesium powder; a trap that could, when planted right, be completely innocuous until it was too late for the victim to escape. But, instead of physical assault, psychometric control tapped into the electrical pulses of a bot's processor and took control of them in the basest manner.
Some bots, like Soudwave and Thundercracker, had perfected the use of psychometric attacks during interrogation and battle, inspiring instant and uncontrollable fear at their discretion. Others, like Firestar, could use their abilities as a means of inducing pleasure and bending others to their will. But, of course, the real weakness of such an attack was that it lost most of its power the moment it was discovered for what it was. The stronger the bot's willpower to fight against the control, the less effective the attack would be.
"Ah didn't even see it coming," Jazz sneered, rubbing the back of his wrist beneath his olfactory sensor where the stench of the hall still stung his very sensitive senses.
"I do believe that was the point. It's probably a general range psychometric control to influence the most prominent state of the victim," Prowl observed, looking down at himself as he realized that with his new knowledge, he was calming down increment by increment. The rushing of his energon and desperate pounding of his spark were slowing back to normal. He had not realized how elevated his vital signs were until the moment he realized he was coming down from the high of them. "You, of course, were already suffering from a bit of your madness. Under the influence here, it made you temporarily lose yourself."
"Luckily, Ah had ya ta catch meh." Jazz swept a glance over his partner before learning what he wished to know. "It made ya feel fear."
"Plenty of it, as you can imagine," Prowl informed wryly.
"Ya controlled it, though. Ya were scared out of your wits, but ya still held on long enough ta grab meh and made sure Ah didn't get mahself killed." A silver hand reached out to offer a light, teasing shove. "Ya sure ya need meh back in Iacon teaching ya this stuff?"
Prowl floundered for a moment. At the time, it had seemed very natural down to an instinctual level to reach out and snare Jazz before anything could happen to him. To look back on it, he could not comprehend how he had managed it in the first place when every sense inside himself had been drowning under the tidal wave of uncontrollable terror that had struck.
"It was a fluke," he reasoned unsteadily.
"A damn good fluke," Jazz countered, sliding his hand from Prowl's good shoulder down to his hand, wrapping his claws around the appendage. A moment later, Prowl's fingers closed around the hand that held him.
"There's still something in that room that's beggin' meh ta check it out," Jazz urged, inching backward toward the door, ending the embrace of their hands. He was getting back to business – they had had too many distractions so far. "Ah won't be distracted by the stink or by mah wild side. If there's something alive in there, Ah'll kill it."
"If it is a Neutral?"
"If it's a Neutral?" Jazz repeated, fitting his shoulder against the open doorway. He still faced Prowl, so the tactician could see when his expression shifted. A dark kind of knowledge instilled itself in the saboteur. "If it was Neutral, it's probably not anymore."
Like quicksilver, Jazz slipped himself inside the Experimentation room that was as lightless as a black hole. A whiff of air puffed out across Prowl's frame as the door slid shut in his faceplate, throwing a fresh breath of rancid stale air over him. Instead of warmth and humidity, there was frigid coldness and a dry emptiness of the air that chilled through his frame. Emptiness and silence like the pit of a grave.
Prowl scrambled to follow, jolted by a sudden rush of fear that clutched at his heels. Just because he was aware of being in a psychometric control field did not mean that he was now immune to the affects. It meant he was now armed with the tools to resist. Just as before, he had more to focus on than the intense tide of wretched fear that boiled up in him. There were more important things at stake.
He nearly head-rushed straight into Jazz's back. As a minibot, the saboteur was shorter than him, a little lighter, and Prowl grabbed him before they both tumbled to the floor.
Jazz expressed a surprised "oomph" as he rocked forward, quickly dislodging himself from Prowl's arms and stepping deeper into the experimentation room.
"No one's here," he exclaimed with stunned insult, his head rotating to examine every dark corner. "Ah could have sworn Ah saw something moving! Someone's gotta be here!"
He wandered deeper into the room, his hands exploring everything within reach. Crusts of brown and blue and every other sort of decayed colour came away on his fingers. Prowl shuddered, tucking his hands close to himself. He was dirty enough. Unlike certain company, he was a bit of a neat freak and preferred to keep as clean as possible when it was an option. Jazz could be a vain creature when he chose to be, but that did not stop him from getting dirty when the option arose.
"I imagine this place has a way of playing tricks on you," Prowl offered.
"Ah don't like it when things play tricks on meh," Jazz replied, making it sound very much like a threat.
An empty frame had been left on the central table in the room, strapped down even in death. It was a femme frame of mid-size featuring basic blue colouring. In the places where blue paint had rubbed away, she had turned grey without the power of her spark to keep her metal frame alive. By the looks of things, the frame had been expired for orns. The environs of Shockwave's labs allowed for quicker disintegration of the metal. Rust had taken root and festered like a disease.
Evidence of haste revealed itself around the frame, as if whoever had been working had left in a hurry. The wheeled table next to the gurney showed tools that had been left behind, gruesome things that were bladed and wicked, stained with all manner of dried, crusty fluids. Experimentation screamed from the details; in the manner of the sections that had been cut away from the frame, how neural circuits and other vital innards had been pulled free and exposed to the air. Strange filaments had been applied to the femme's exposed innards, leading away to machines that she was no longer hooked up to. Deep pits were carved into her exposed chassis, left open and dark. More black graft lines followed along inactive energy conduits, dotting her frame like a map of misery.
Jazz braced himself on one side of the examination table, Prowl mirroring the pose warily. They took note of the lack of faction insignias and came to the simultaneous conclusion that these were the remains of one of the unfortunate Neutrals. Death had not come easy. Upon closer examination, marks of long-term abuse became obvious. This was a creature who had risked life and limb in this unforgiving environment to escape the war, measuring EM-induced madness as a better fate than a violent death at the hands of an Autobot or Decepticon. In the place where she should have found solace and security, Shockwave had stolen her away and tortured her to her untimely death.
In an oddly sentimental gesture, Prowl traced the tips of his fingers down the empty frame's faceplate. For a dwindling species, every needless loss of life was a waste of precious non-renewable resources. It was easy to see that Shockwave did not hold the same philosophy.
"What a damn waste," Jazz spat, as if reading Prowl's mind. Considering their earlier conversation concerning that topic, that was more than a mild possiblity.
"Others might be alive," Prowl offered carefully.
"Or not. Who knows how long Shockwave has had these bots? It took Monracer time ta hear about this happening, time for her ta come, and it took us too long ta get here. Everyone might as well be dead by now," said the saboteur, plunging his fist into one of the dark cavities on the frame in a fit of frustration. Instead of the ring of metal against metal, there was a wet squelch as the saboteur impacted something he had not been expecting. He wrenched his hand free with an electronic shriek, revealing the thick, dark sludge that now coated him. It was thicker than the soup of corpses he had sorted through in the crate – the consistency of thick oil or runny tar, except for the thick chunks of spongy unidentified material of red reds and browns. The smell was horrendous, so vile that it seared its way up his olfactory sensor and caused the the backs of his optics to burn. He flicked his wrist to dislodge the mess, only to fling it across Prowl's front.
"That's disgusting!" Prowl exclaimed, jolting away from the offending mess. His olfactory sensors stung with the revolting stench of it, some foul mixture between metallic and organic rot. He scrambled to turn the sense off again, but found the controls locked. His only saving grace was the stained drying cloth left abandoned on the table next to the tool. He snatched it up before Jazz could steal it, viciously scrubbing his chest free of the mess his partner had so kindly bestowed upon him.
"Ah don't even know what this is supposed ta be," Jazz snarled, still shaking out his polluted hand. He spun around and ripped down one of the tanned alien hides that hung from the ceiling, using it as a towel to wipe off the gunk. "This ain't science! It ain't anything Ah've ever seen before! Only thing Ah've seen so far is a thousand and one ways ta gross meh the frag out!"
Done with his cursing and cleaning, Jazz threw the alien skin to the floor and kicked it. He shook out his hand when he could still feel organic soup sloshing around in his joints. "Ya know, when we finally find Shockwave, Ah'm gonna kill him extra good just for that."
"Charming," Prowl replied, setting aside the cleaning rag when it became obvious that he could never wipe away the feeling of being so deeply violated. In his periphery, he spied the section of wall left exposed when Jazz had ripped down the skin. "There's something on the wall over there."
It took Jazz a moment to realize he was being spoken to as he continued his disparagement of Shockwave and every little thing that had gone wrong during their mission. Especially every drop of slime that happened to violate his figure. In this, Prowl actually felt a little validated – at least he was not the only one disliking being filthy, Jazz simply hid his opinion better.
"Jazz," Prowl cut in when the mumbling turned a little more violent. "The wall. There's something on it."
"Yeah? Like what?" Turning on his heel, Jazz inspected the exposed wall for what had caught Prowl's optic. "Oh, that." He stretched up to get a better look, bracing one hand against the ledge of an anchored table for better leverage as he traced the engraved lines. A low puff of air steamed out his vents.
"Well?" Prowl pressed, stepping to the side of the gurney and crossing his good arm expectantly.
"Ah know this mark," Jazz replied coolly. There was a pause as he reassessed the symbol, his head canting to the side as he thought deeply about it. "Never took Shockwave as the cultist type."
"Cultist?" Well, that wasa curious discovery. Prowl came the rest of the way around the table to get a better look, noting the dimensions of the craftily cut symbol. A wide circle delineated the outer edge while a single long line bisected the shape through the center. An arching line grew from either side of the central line, creating a trident-like design. A cold rush of recognition flooded through the tactician's frame, followed by an equally searing burn of reflexive anger.
Jazz immediately sensed the change in the bot beside him, and it caused the saboteur to suddenly bristle in response.
"Psi ex Machina," Prowl announced through clenched mouthplates. Part cultist group and part terrorist group, the Psi ex Machina were among one of the oldest groups of fanatics on Cybertron. Their ultimate pursuit was the purity of the mind, exempting all lowly distractions like friendship, family, and emotions. Even to the exemption of the spark itself. Members who adhered to the Machina tenets wished to ascend to what they believed was the ultimate form of Cybertronian potential – pure thought, pure logic, in a pure machine.
To Security Response, the Psi ex Machina had been shadows on the walls. They were there, no matter in the dark or light, but they were always too quick, too smart, too fast to be caught. The only evidence that they had been there at all was the damages they left behind – whispers in the dark, bots whose minds had been ravaged by attempts to rid them of their weaknesses, and a three-pronged symbol that announced exactly who was responsible for their terrible misdeeds.
They were responsible for more damages than Prowl was willing to admit to.
"Sounds like ya got history with them," Jazz noted carefully, reading more of his partner than Prowl wished to give away in that moment.
"Unfortunately."
"Did they invite ya inta their little fan club before the war? It's your kind of party, isn't it?"
"I would rather not discuss it here," Prowl replied brusquely.
"Fair enough," Jazz rejoined evenly. "We'll discuss it later."
Prowl let the threat hang in the air, staring straight ahead and refusing to acknowledge the knowing expression on his partner's faceplate. Of course Jazz would be able to read him like an open book. What was the point in bothering to hide anything from him? No longer able to stand staring at the mark that shared a dark history with him, he turned on his heel and drew to an abrupt halt.
"Where is the corpse?"
"What?" Jazz spun around at the query, bracing his hands to his hips. "It was just there a moment ago."
"Ah," creaked a new voice that had Prowl and Jazz nearly jumping out of their armour, "but that is the trouble with moments ago – they are here and gone before you know it."
Pinpointing the source of the voice, Prowl narrowed his glacial optics on the speaker... and suddenly discovered where the wayward corpse had wandered off to. Appearing to stand under its own power, the dead Cybertronian stood silhouetted in the open doorway on its crooked, broken legs, a little lopsided and shaky from the condition of its expired frame. In all ways it still appeared to be dead, from the darkened metal that was slowly consumed by rust and other manifestations of decay, to the slackened mouthplates that hung open at an angle; the gaping holes in the frame slowly drained of their congealed dark sludge, pooling across the grimy floor.
Its frightening liveliness appeared to be concentrated in its optics. Dark only astroseconds ago, the cloudy lenses now shone with intense amber light that seemed to pierce the darkness like devilish twin stars.
"Ain't ya supposed ta be on the table?" Jazz suddenly intoned, sounding impressively mild in the face of something so... unusual. "Ya know, more ta that, ain't ya supposed ta be dead?"
A burst of laughter bubbled up from a static-laden vocal processor, shrieking out like claws down armour, flapping a dislocated jaw with every tide of noise. It moved in a combination of jerky resistance due to the limitations of damage and death and a bizarre gracefulness that was entirely out of place on a corpse that, for all intents and purposes, should still be very much dead. One arm swung up, a broken finger wagging at the as if they were being naughty younglings. There was madness in that dread expression as it watched them.
"That was then, and this is now," answered the corpse. "Then and now are, quite obviously, not the same thing."
"Dead and alive are also not the same thing, and they tend to be mutually exclusive. You appear to be violating that concept," Prowl observed, not quite managing the same level of nonchalance his partner exuded with aplomb.
"And here I thought you were supposed to be smart!" exclaimed their undead company. "Bah! I shall have to give you a lesson, my pets. You are in luck, because I am a very good teacher! Or a very bad one, depending on how you learn. Do you like hard lessons? Because those are the ones I like to teach."
Prowl raised his good arm and aimed his charged gun, though he could not bring himself to fire an acid pellet just yet. For one, he was not sure what effect acid might have on this creature if not even death seemed to keep it down. Secondly, if there was a way of capturing and interrogating it, further damage to the thing might impede any valuable information that could be gleaned.
Jazz was likewise holding back, daggers at the ready as he assessed this bizarre new twist on their adventures in Horror Land.
"Teach us the lesson," the saboteur invited in a tone that was at odds with his battle-ready exterior. Clearly he was of the same mind as Prowl: hang back and learn what they could before stepping in and... doing something. For as much life experience as Jazz had, he had nothing to relate to in terms of interacting with the seemingly undead. "What is the difference between now and moments ago?"
"Everything is the difference!" exclaimed the mad corpse, sludge sloshing down its front in excitement. "The world is never quite the same as it is from one moment to the next. We are here one moment and gone the next. Here to there, there to here. One moment cannot be the exact same as the next, or else that would be the same moment as the first, in which case you would be either going back in time or that time all together has stopped! What utter madness that would be!"
Prowl felt Jazz slide a sidelong glance in his direction, though resisted the urge to return a look of utmost perplexity. The storm-grey mech got the distinct feeling Jazz was able to follow along with the rambling much better than he could. That should hardly be surprising.
"And even then, to go back in time with awareness of time, those two moments would in fact be different even if they were the same! The mere act of going back in time would, for that one creature, be two moments, and for everyone else it would change the potential of a single moment," continued their odd company, swinging its loose arms as if directing an orchestra "And for time to stop… there would be no moments at all. Time is required to create a moment, and the creation of a single recognizable moment id defined by its difference to all other moments, requiring time to separate one from the other! But that is neither here nor there, because time is moving forward and I have, in fact, proven this by being there for one moment and now I am here the next. It is the simplest of lessons, my pets! The simplest!"
Jazz inclined his head, easing up alongside Prowl and staying the other mech with a discreet touch to his back. The saboteur's palm was a lukewarm presence that radiated through Prowl's frame. He felt as if he could not grow any tenser. He was quickly coming to the end of his tolerance for the bizarre.
"So," Jazz breathed calmly. "What you're saying is that one moment ta the next can be measured by the amount of entropy that changes its state."
"Entropy. Yes, entropy. I knew Entropy once, but he is better known as Chaos now. It is a promotion…or demotion… depending on what side of the floor you dance on. I like to dance on the ceiling. There are generally less dancers there."
That headache Prowl thought he had rid himself of was slowly coming back to him the longer he was forced to listen to the nonsensical monologue. In the course of war, he had always showed incredible restraint when it came to the temptations of being trigger-happy. In this instance, his trigger finger was beginning to itch.
Jazz yet again stayed him with a hand resting between the hollow of his doorwings, both a comforting and commanding touch.
"I see you there, listening to me. You're a good student, little silver pet. A good listener. But then, you look as if you have always been a good little student. Is that true? Have you always been a good little pet? Take what lessons you've been taught until – suddenly! - the student becomes the master. Are you the master yet? No? No, I don't believe you are. You are my pet. A pet cannot be a master if it is only a pet." There came cackling laughter that caused a renewed slew of congealed energon and other particulates to be dislodged from the slackened mouthplates. Debris flew out with every loud, chilling bout of madly mirthful noise.
Jazz was unfazed by the laughter, keeping himself cool as ice while his mind worked at a steady, deadly pace. "Ah was your pet a moment ago, but that moment is gone. Perhaps in this moment, Ah am now the master and you are the pet. As ya have said, moments change and the world is never quite the same when they pass."
"Oh! He knows how to the play the game! What a wonderful surprise! But, maybe I am not as surprised as I should be. The dead are very hard to surprise, and so are the things that are not living. It takes a special teacher to teach a special student. You had that didn't you, my pet. You had a very special teacher to make your optics so seeing, even if you are still blind," exclaimed the fiend, shifting with its slack mouthplates gaping and its leering amber optics turning sly. Amber optics that were, in a way, hauntingly familiar. A chill stole through the air with the sudden shift in the possessed frame's demeanour. The last thing anyone expected was for an ancient language to suddenly drop from those stained mouthplates, but there was no mistaking the aching familiarity of Kev reaching Jazz's audios.
"She taught you well, didn't she? That master of yours. That Xerxia."
Prowl might not have known what passed between the two bots in the astrosecond it took to speak the foreign language, though he was fully aware of what the result was. A moment's distraction left Jazz's psyche open again to the effect of the psychometric field, bidding him on the instant attack. This time, Prowl's reflexes were for naught. Jazz slipped through his numb fingers like mercury, leaping over the table in the center of the room to fly at the taunting corpse with claws unleashed.
Surprisingly spry for a dead thing, the possessed corpse leapt aside in time to avoid being tackled to the ground.
"My, my, it seems the little pet has a temper," said the creature, dancing away in jerking movements from the swipe of Jazz's claws.
"Jazz, it's baiting you! Don't fall for its tricks!" Prowl yelled.
Laser-like amber optics zeroed in on the tactician, locking on with stunning precision and malevolence.
"Tricks?" it chirped. "Oh no, I come only to play games. It has been so long since I have played a game. The one who was here before you, he was no fun. A very rigid toy that did not dance so prettily when I pulled his strings. I have a game in mind, if you would like to play with me." One hooked finger extended, hovering close to Jazz's faceplate, jerking back before it could be ripped from its socket. In rebound, it shot out and rammed the saboteur in the center of his visor, leaving a generous spiral fracture.
"Tag, you're it."
With a kick of its heels, the animated corpse leapt into the hall and sprinted away.
Prowl exclaimed several warnings as he watched Jazz take off after the creature. His warnings were followed by heated curses, quite sure his partner would not listen to a single one of his precautions. Not quite as fast as Jazz, Prowl kept as close as possible. The chase was not very long, though lack of distance was compensated by the thrill of the chase itself. The savage shattering of silence through the labs echoed like gunfire – pounding feet, vicious curses, and the laughter of a creature that Prowl could neither classify as dead or alive.
Double doors at the end of the hall were coming up fast. Block glyphs across the dull grey surface announced the space beyond as Holdings. There was a manual lock on the door. Heavy metal bars laid in parallel lines across the windows.
Prowl cursed a mean streak as he started to draw up before he ran headlong into the heavy doors.
Jazz barrelled on with single-minded determination, just as his quarry picked up speed as if it meant to run straight through the solid doors. With an enraged snarl, Jazz pushed the last of his strength into one last burst of speed, catching the corpse by a flailing wire and managing to whip the frame across the floor. It tumbled head over heels several times before colliding with the wall in a cataclysmic crash that should have stunned it for good. Before it could gather its wits, the saboteur was upon it with a flourish. He took the head between his hands and smashed it into the floor so that the weakened metal caved in, an optic popped out, and rattled pieces of processor came spilling out amongst slime and a concentrated version of horrendous stench.
"How do ya know about mah master!" Jazz snarled, hands cinching tighter around a neck he was near throttling.
"A better question would be how do you not know about her?" was the airy reply – which was received with another smash into the floor. The back of the corpse's head opened up to spill the rest of the processor in every direction. The victim seemed not to feel its assault.
"Ah'm not in the mood to play games!"
"Too bad, because I am a master at them. Mind games in particular." The one amber optic left glowing did so in a manner that all but dared the saboteur to squeeze hard enough to pop its head off.
Prowl hit the floor with a clang, both hands seizing Jazz's wrists to pry him away from his prey.
"You're going to kill it!"
The corpse peered up with a crooked smile. "I assure you, that which is not alive cannot die. I am, however, enjoying a delightful ride."
It was quickly silenced with a vicious shake that whipped its head back and forth, banging its chin to its chest and the back of its head to the floor.
"What are you?" Jazz spat viciously. "Are you Machina? Are ya one of Shockwave's experiments?"
"This is like asking if I am a single brushstroke of a painting! I am the paintings themselves! I own the art gallery!" crowed the corpse with insane delight. "This puppet I dance in, though. This is Shockwave's. It's beautiful, isn't it? What he does to them – how they scream and beg while he does such unspeakable things. If I own the art gallery, then he is the artist."
Prowl felt the wave of irritation as it radiated off his partner. He could hear the stress of joints in Jazz's frame as he loomed ever nearer to the taunting little nightmare. Hoping to expedite the encounter, he directed his next question to the creature:
"Who are you?"
"I thought you would never ask," it sighed, grasping Jazz's horns with surprising strength for something that had half its head smashed in. Amber optics held the saboteur in thrall as a sing-song rhyme fell past trembling mouthplates. "I am No One. Who are you? Are you No One too?"
All it took was a flex of Jazz's fists to cause the corpse's head to roll across the floor, though its laughter continued on down the hall as echos.
"You killed it," Prowl intoned numbly.
"It wasn't givin' us any good answers. Ah put it out of its misery," Jazz replied, falling back on his aft with a long groan.
"It said something in another language-."
"Kev. It spoke in Kev, and it knew about Xerxia. It had ta be some sort of Old One or...something. Ah don't know." He huffed a pained, mirthless sound while pressing the heels of his hands over his optics. "Maybe comin' here halfcocked wasn't such a good idea after all. We're in over our heads. Ah've never dealt with anything like this before."
"We have come this far," Prowl pointed out grimly, prying Jazz's hands away from his faceplate. "It would be illogical to back out now. Beyond that door will be our answer to whether the Neutrals survived or not. After we find that truth, we will leave this place. We will go home and reassess everything we have learned here, from the experiments to Psi ex Machina to whatever it is we will find in Holdings. If you still choose to hunt Shockwave, we will be better prepared in the future. After this, I doubt anything will ever surprise us again."
A wry smirk quirked the edge of Jazz's mouthplates. "So that's your pep talk?"
Prowl rocked back on his heels. "I suppose it is."
"It's not the worst Ah've ever heard. Not the best either."
With a grunt, Prowl eased to his feet and offered Jazz his good arm to help the saboteur up. Jazz gave one last good kick to the officially and unquestionably headless and dead corpse that still laid on the ground.
"I will take that under advisement," the tactician noted, craning to see through the high, barred window for any clue of what laid on the other side. It was too dark and grimy for any useful insight. He resigned himself to whatever fate awaited them in Holdings.
"So," Jazz intoned, resting his hands on the heavy manual lock before he released it to lurch open the door. "If we die in here, ya think we'll end up like that?" He nodded to undead company.
"It is a disturbing possibility, though I find it highly unlikely," Prowl sighed. "I will make a deal with you. If we make it out of here alive and in one piece, I will let you into my head to do whatever it is that would please you the most. How is that for incentive?"
Jazz disposition improved noticeably, heaving the lock to Holdings aside with sudden eagerness. "Ah'd say that's the best pep talk Ah've ever heard."