So why'd you really do it?

by Dreamingsinger

The last thing the Autobots expected was that Knockout would ever switch sides to join them. But why'd he do it? It's out of character. There are bound to be a few trust issues. But when he is badly injured, saving his team without even thinking about it, the 'bots begin to discover that their suspicious defector is far less confidant than they thought, and far more broken.

18. Chapter 18

Notes/ Another one up. This one is a bit all over the place in terms of almost entirely unrelated events all in one chapter. But the alternative would have been to post several little tiny chapters and yeah, lets not. I only hope that this end up making sense, haha.

I'm both happy and honestly surprised to hear that people actually liked the romance angle this took. There's more of it in here, but I'm still hoping this stays real instead of becoming silly and over the top.

"So I musta bin in that junk yard for a good twenty earth minutes, thirty maybe, convinced… sure as could be, that I was talking to Bumblebee's vehicle mode," Wheeljack laughed loudly while relaying a story to his teammates in the common room. He nearly spilled a half full energon container all over the floor in the middle of doing so. "Well, of course, wouldn't ya all just know it. I'm carrying on about traffic laws and how that parking ticket slapped on my windshield was just a great big stick up the tailpipe. And Bumblebee rolls up beside me and transforms with this completely confused look on his face! No idea in the foggiest, why I'm standing around ranting like a lunatic to a fragging car!"

"Ha. I'll tell you, I sure laughed the whole way back to base," Bumblebee said, laughing himself. His expression changed in an instant however and in the very next second or less, he just looked simply confused. "What I never did figure out is why exactly you drove into that junkyard in the first place… or why you thought that old clunker you were yelling at looked anything like me."

"Ya sayin' 'Bee's car form looks like old old piece of junk," Bulkhead laughed. In his clumsy Bulkhead fashion, he managed to spill part of the contents of his container into his own feet. He ignored the mess he had made, or more likely he was simply oblivious to it entirely, and moved to sit down on one of the benches, saying "'Bee is certainly not a piece of junk."

From her place, sitting across the room with Knockout, Arcee shook her head at the nonsense and gave a tiny laugh over the whole matter. A few of the bots had decided earlier that evening, to open and partake in some of the high grade no one had wanted a few nights before, when they got back to Cybertron base. Arcee kept a wiry optic on her teammates, more than a little concerned after the mess that had happened the last time they got the bright idea to drink together. But there had not been any sign of such trouble now, and she had lightened up a little. She shook her head again, and then laughed out loud, when Bulkhead missed the bench he'd tried to sit in, and landed confused on the floor. He got up quickly, and just fine. Clearly his mishap was pure and simply Bulkhead clumsiness – he was hardly that effected after a small amount for a bot his size.

"You wouldn't take me for a junker, if you saw even half the list of my engine and battle mods," 'Bee said, laughing loudly. Clearly there was something hilariously funny, at least in his own processor, about the idea of being mistaken for an old junk car.

"You sure you don't want any?" Bulkhead asked, once he was finally managed to get his wide framed and bulky body into the bunch.

Arcee shook her head firmly in response to that. It was the third time one of them had offered and the third time was had politely refused to partake, not at all in the mood that night for the effects of even a small amount of high grade energon. She was relieved when Knockout shook his head, declining as well. She had no idea what even a slight high grade buzz might do to him in his physical condition, but she could only imagine it couldn't possibly be any good. She finally voiced her concerns out loud, much to the dismay of the other bots in the room.

"Actually, a small amount would not likely hurt him," Ratchet said from behind the group. He'd walked into the common room from the hall leading away from the workshop, with Speedbreaker close beside him and carefully pushing a wheeled contraction that made the group of bots look at each other in baffled confusion.

"In my experience, so long as it's consumed only once in a while, and in small amounts, a little bit of high grade can actually be helpful to a recovering bot." Ratchet stepped away from the odd contraction, leaving it sitting in the middle of the common room, and went on, if for no other reason then Bumblebee, and certainly Knockout would probably find it most interesting. "I did some good research back in my academy days, on very small amounts of the stuff used in medical clinics."

"What's that wheeled contraption of yours?" Smokescreen asked after a moment and speaking up for the first time in a good while. Others mumbled their own curiosity about the very same thing.

"This," Ratchet said, nodding toward the odd looking thing with an expression indicating he was thoroughly pleased with himself about it, "is Knockout's new – and we are still hoping, temporary - mobility device."

The room full of bots, looked at the thing again, and this time, now with some point of reference, it made far more sense. A bot sized seat, complete with a harness system. Four little wheels underneath the base of the thing. At what was now clearly the front of the machine, mounted to the front of some kind of side bar that probably lifted up and down, was a flat little metal surface designed to carry one or more objects on there. On the far left side of that little shelf was some kind of hand control. The bots sat exchanging impressed mumbles, all except for Knockout, who sat open mouthed yet speechless as he understood for himself exactly how it might work.

"I can hardly take the credit for this," Ratchet said, grinning. "Speedbreaker did much of the building herself, after she worked out how a thing like this could be done. I only described what it was I had in mind, and she got busy." The old medic smacked the little orange and silver bot on her shoulder panel, and gave a look of far more approval than he tended to show with most new bots he'd met over the years. "Young one's got some talent if I may say."

"I… don't even know what to say..." Knockout, who had always been eloquent and well spoken, stumbled uncertainly over words.

"I remembered a few times back on Earth seeing humans rolling up the sidewalks on machines a bit like this," Ratchet explained, both tone and expression still indicating he was quite pleased with the machine. "I would imagine they didn't get around the best, and that way they could. If it works for a human on Earth, it should work just as well for a bot on Cybertron." He looked toward the red bot. "Ready to see if you can drive this?"

"Left hand is functional enough that it should be able to work this control. That will leave the right free to reach and grab things," Ratchet explained, after he had quickly and efficiently lifted Knockout off the bench and placed him onto the machine's seat, and as he positioned the bot's limbs so that he could power and steer the contraption. "Right foot on foot pedal to go. Left foot's going to go where it goes, as long as it's off the floor, and sitting on the machine. This runs on a rechargeable battery pack under the seat. When we put you on your recharge station at night, we'll plug it in and let it charge back up." The old medic fussed for a couple of minutes with the harness straps, which were entirely necessary because of Knockout's difficulty in fully holding himself up. He strapped one of them in behind him, using the wheels of his vehicle mode to hold him upright, and another in front so that it clipped firmly in over his chest-plate.

"Come for a walk with me," Arcee grinned at him.

"I want to go outside," Knockout said, after he'd spent several minutes giving wordless looks of thanks to Speedbreaker for her work, and as soon as Ratchet had finished double checking the safety of the straps.

"I suppose you would," the old medic said, understanding. Knockout had not seen the outdoors at all since his health disaster, and time since then had passed quickly before anyone had really noticed how long it had really been. "Alright. I'll give clearance to Arcee to take you outside. But please, don't wander too far. I mean it. Be careful, both of you."

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Ratchet had spent several minutes down on his knees on the hard floor of the medbay, busily sanitizing the base of one of the repair tables. When he stood again, the slight creaking of both of his knees reminded him for a second that he was hardly so young anymore. A second later he brushed it off, ignoring it as he promptly began to spray down the table surface with sanitizer before scrubbing hard with a clean white rag.

He turned away from his work for a second and watched as Knockout rolled himself across the far side of the room to a rolling work table that still contained a set of surgical tools, that had been used earlier in a minor repair of a badly pinched and twisted wire in Smokescreen's arm. Ratchet watched as the red bot reached with his right arm to grab the tools one by one in his hand and place them onto the tray of his mobility cart, before he proceeded to roll back across the room to load the tools with his good hand into the little sanitizer machine mounted to the far wall.

"Don't worry about it Knockout," he said with a hint of a good natured laugh. "I was just about to do those in a second."

"I can do it," the red bot answered at once. But Ratchet saw the problem in seconds. The sanitizer was started by pressing a button on the wall, a fair ways above to the machine. The big blue button was not necessarily out of reach, even for a bot seated on the mobility cart. But seated on the cart, it was nearly above the height of his head. And while his right arm was certainly the far stronger and functional of the two, his reach was still far from perfect, when it came to reaching up. Sure enough, Ratchet saw him try once and then again, but not come within a foot of touching it with his fingertips. With the palm of his left hand on the steering control, Knockout made the cart turn as he glanced around the room. He rolled himself a short ways to a work station and picked up a rigid metal measuring stick that had been left laying out neatly, rolled back and promptly used it to hit the button on the wall.

"Got it," he said, grinning as he rolled away again. The measuring stick took up a place across his tray. It was joined a moment later by a couple of data pads containing patient records, which he promptly rolled over to put away inside a cabinet. Its sliding door was handy as he could simply slide it open and shut while reaching beside him, with his cart stopped sideways.

"I'm impressed with your level of function," Ratchet commented. He turned back to his work, scrubbing down the repair table. But a second later he had stopped again and turned to look back at Knockout, who had picked up another data pad and began to use it to mark off an inventory of medical supplies inside another of the cabinets within his seated reach. His writing, even just simple checks inside boxes, was considerably messy. But still the inventory made perfect sense.

"You don't need to be in a rush however to get yourself back into any work detail," the old medic went on after a moment of watching him continue to take inventory. "I'm still not eager to pull you off medical exemption status."

"I simply have to be doing something," Knockout responded in a tone somewhere between casual and almost complaining. Ratchet nodded slightly, understanding. He set down his sanitizing cloth and walked over to join the red bot in front of the cabinet.

"So really," he said, questioning, interested, "Honestly, how are you?"

"A bit vague of a question," Knockout observed without looking way from his task.

"I suppose so," Ratchet chucked a little. He reached for the red bot's arm, so that he would stop and look at him.

"Really, I'm fine most days," Knockout said. He let his left hand rest on top of the control switch, but took his foot away from the power pedal, and sat on his machine just looking up so that he could look the older bot in the optics. "Well maybe not fine exactly but… okay. Being able to move again, to get where I want, when I want to get there, even if I'll never actually do it again walking, is making all the difference. Sitting still day in and day out, watching life go on without me… the thought of that for much longer was honestly horrible.

"Speedbreaker will be glad to hear that."

"I wish I could express my thanks to the Autobot team. Not only for a way to move again by myself, but for so much more than that." Knockout sat for a moment with his mouth slightly open and looking exactly like he was going to say more. But he didn't. He didn't exactly need to, in any case. The old Autobot medic gave a look of unspoken understanding and a little nod.

"You've gotten very good on that machine," Ratchet said after a moment, giving another rare grin, realizing that Knockout had only had the machine for three Earth days, and was already riding around the base, and even outside, with the confidence to move at roughly a bot's typical walking speed. He had mastered perfect turns, starts and stops and could line the thing up to rest along side a work table within an hour of first trying to do so. "If I'm honest, I wasn't sure how well the thing would work, and certainly had no idea how well you'd be able to ride on it. I'd worried at first, you'd at the very least, be banging into the occasional door frame trying to get from room to room, and at worst, I was prepared to you to wedge the machine in against a wall in a place where reversing it would be difficult. But neither of those things happened even once."

"I was a finely tuned automobile. Precision handling is something I think I know a few things about." Knockout gave a slight laugh, but the sudden sadness that little laugh was so obviously trying to hide, was painfully clear.

"One more thing we have not ever tried to start to work with yet," Ratchet mused, without much clue of exactly how Knockout might take it. "Transformation, and motion of your vehicle mode."

"I'd have no control over anything on the left side of the vehicle," the red bot, was very well aware of course without ever having needed to be told that. "No functional left wheels, the back especially. So no moving. But it would be more than that. Left side doors might not open. Steering will be gone. Gears won't shift." He wiggled a little against the safety harness of the machine awkwardly, mostly attempting to get into a more comfortable position. He gave motion of dramatics with his right hand waving in the air, and laughed nervously. "Basically, I'm a beautiful junker…. At least as an automobile."

"Still, we can't say what the future will look like. How much function you will regain. Transforming is an action you still need to maintain. We need to start to put weight back on your wheels, and shocks. I can't honestly say I've worked out yet how to actually get you to safely go into vehicle mode yet. The fact that you can't hold yourself up is obviously a problem there. Hmm… I'll get back to you on that soon."

"Do you suppose that could be a workable goal?" Knockout questioned. "Trying to hold myself up, or even to pull myself to sitting on my own?"

"I think that could be possible with a fair bit of work at it," Ratchet answered with honesty. Knockout had tried that before, and it was plainly obvious that his frame lacked both the strength and the balance and stability for it. But he already much stronger now, and balance could be relearned. He had also began to show far greater determination to set his own goals and to meet them. He had been working so much harder now in twice daily rehabilitation sessions. "If you want to set that as your next goal to achieve, we will try to work on it a bit tonight."

Knockout nodded in firm commitment to it. Then he moved his hand slightly over the control of the mobility cart, just enough to roll it back slightly. He wiggled again against the harness straps, and looked the old medic in the optics. "There was… something else I wanted to talk with you about."

At that, Ratchet pulled a nearby chair closer and sat himself own in it. If they were going to continue on with any serious discussion, he wanted to at least sit at the red bot's level instead continuing to stand over him. He nodded to him to go on speaking.

"You care a great deal for every bot on this base," Knockout observed carefully. "But Arcee it seems, especially so…."

Ratchet blinked in surprise at the sudden, and seemingly out of nowhere, remark on that. But the fact that just that morning he'd discovered Arcee in Knockout's recharge station, curled up against the red bot, with their hands in each others, for the sixth morning in a row, told him the comment was not so out of nowhere at all. He decided to give both a bluntly honest answer and a serious look all at once. "If there was ever one young bot I took true pride in seeing come into their own, both as good Cybertronain, and as an Autobot soldier, it's Arcee. I never had my own younglings. That was all thanks to the war and not for lack of ever having wanted to. She would be about the closest thing being a daughter, who I would easily tear the spark from the chest plate of any bot to protect were it ever to come to it."

"I give you my word, I would never hurt her," Knockout said. His voice was far more serious then even before, and he looked the medic right in the optics.

"I believe you," Ratchet smiled, almost amused in a way, at the sudden nervous terror that was so clearly seeping through Knockout's otherwise serious and intent expression. He reached out to tap him gently on the side of the shoulder panel. He lowed his hand again to his lap and sat leaning forward in the chair, he was fast becoming thankful he had had the good sense to sit down on. "I think you really do love her."

"Yes, I do. I… I told her to give up on me and wait for someone functional to come along…."

"Well based on the last six mornings that I've come to move you – Arcee just looking up half asleep and with a look somewhere between 'love sick puppy' and 'I swear I'm innocent,' - I can hardly imagine she's even considering such a thing. And I don't think you really want her to give up on you either."

Knockout shook his head at once, confirming what the medic already knew all to well. He spoke up, as he tried again to get comfortable on the cart. Clearly he was trying to sit up straighter, and turn his body a little, away from an increasingly awkward position, where his body had been turned slightly toward the left. But his awkward and mostly ineffective movement had only made his positioning, and therefore his discomfort with it, far worse and much more awkward. "You've never said a thing about it. I've been meaning to thank you for that."

Ratchet huffed slightly, as he stood up from his chair. "Not my place to say a thing about it. I told you I'd not hesitate to scarp a bot or ten for the sake her of safety – though I do believe she might well scarp them herself and leave me only a bolts and wires. The very fact that you are still alive and well, and that I've never said a word about it to you until you spoke up yourself, should let you know I'd give my support to both of you."

"Thank you," Knockout said. The shocked surprise, and the utter relief in his voice were more than a little obvious.

The old medic, carefully undid the harness straps installed on the mobility cart and, pulled the red bot's weight against him, so that he could then lift him up slightly in the seat. Still supporting his weight, Ratchet reached down carefully to re-position Knockout's left leg so that his foot could rest comfortably at the front of the cart. He leaned him back again against the seat back, sitting him straighter and upright, before he quickly refastened the harness straps again.

"There. That looks far better for you," he said, and then quickly admonished him with, "You really need to learn to ask for some help, if you ever can't get out of an uncomfortable position like that."

"It truly doesn't offend you that Arcee's clearly determined to love a busted up former 'con?" The tone of Knockout's question was still disbelieving as Ratchet pulled the straps snug to hold him safely on the cart.

The old bot placed a hand on his shoulder panel, and shook his head firmly. "She doesn't see you that way at all. Not as busted or broken. Arcee has a good spark and all she will ever see if the bot she came to know you as. As for faction – like the rest of us now, she only sees a fellow Autobot."

"I… I want to ask her to be my sparkmate," Knockout blurted quickly. Clearly he said so, before he lost all nerve to say it at all.

"Well," Ratchet only gave a laugh and a grin. "If you don't hurry and do that soon, it seems to me a safe bet that she'll give up on waiting to be asked, and she'll end up asking you instead. Of course it's not important who asks who. But if you really wanted to be the one that asked first..."

"I would imagine it is still actually possible for me to bond with another bot..." Knockout said. It was part understanding, but also part question.

Ratchet chuckled a little at that, before he again looked serious. He also sat back down on his chair. "You know of course that I've never seen a case quite like yours. We're flying by the seats of our pants here, as our human friends might say. First I didn't expect you to live. Then I didn't expect you to come so far, once I had seen what state you had been left in after the malfunctions, and processor failures. I can say thought that the kind of… er… function, you hint at… should indeed function just fine. Might take a little thinking to get it right in your case, due to physical limitation, but..." he left his explanation at that, unfinished and easily assumed from there.

"Do you suppose we would be rushing things?"

"I do think this is very fast for both of you. But I'm not sure that's a bad thing actually. I've known many pairs that knew each other for a far short time than the two of you. More than a handful who met only once in meetings arranged by carriers and creators, in a long tradition of choosing suitable mates for their younglings who were barely adults yet. On the other hand, more than once, I've seen good pairs lose each other, or simply drift apart and go their separate ways, never to find anyone that made them quite so happy again, only because they waited and waited and doubted and questioned it."

"The custom you mentioned of arranged pairings," Knockout mused, reflecting, recalling. "That was once the common way of the city I came from. The practice was fading out by the time I came of age and left to live my own life. But still hardly unheard of… I knew many such pairs. Most of them were old bots by then…." He let his words die in the air and said no more.

"Well, my friend, I suppose we should discuss a practical matter." Ratchet sat straighter in his chair, but he didn't bother to get up all together. He took on his best take charge voice, though he generally as a rule detested the idea of taking charge of anything that was not entirely medical or related to such. "I've been planning to start the process of setting up and rearranging your room in a way what will be far more… accessible. A sliding shelf mounted to the immediate right of your recharge station would allow you to reach data pads or other things you may want, while laying down. Voice control set ups for the lights and your audio system, would mean you could turn both of those things on and off whenever you wish. Hmm… if I could connect the door to the set up too, it would mean you could lock your door if you ever wanted to as well. There are so many modifications I can think of for your wash station. I may just enlist Speedbreaker for that undertaking. Of course any time now it seems you and Arcee might just be discussing which of your rooms you are going to keep to use in the first place."

Knockout only sat on the cart nodding his agreement slowly. Both his face-plate and the general posture of his body, showed a great mix of his emotions as he took everything in. It was quite easy to guess that the idea of requiring modifications and adaptations to his living space was hard to think about, even if the idea of sharing that space made him happier about the whole thing.

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Ratchet had been in recharge for a while, but hardly long enough, when his comm unit dragged him back to wakefulness. For a second or two he lay still, on his recharge station, closet to the far wall of his living space, and groaned at the interruption to the rest cycle he had so badly needed. It took only those second though for his processor to catch up to him even in his still drowsy state, and he was up and on his feet in another quick second.

The page sent from the comm, had come from the main unit located in the common room of the base. And he all but ran there, partly fearing a medical emergency of some kind or other involving one of his teammates, and partly baffled as to exactly what he might find. What he found when he rushed into the room, were most of the small Autobot team all gathered, crowding in tightly around the monitoring equipment in the far corner. Obviously no one was sick or injured and at that he let out a silent sigh of relief. But they were all talking at once, pointing at the monitor and clearly engaged in some debate over whatever it was they were actively tracking.

"We figured you'd want in on this one," Arcee said, turning to quickly address the medic. She stepped a little to the side, in order to let him squeeze in between herself and Smokescreen. She gestured toward the monitor. "We've been keeping a good optic on some unusual 'con activity for a while now."

"Unusual it is," Smokescreen added. He pointed at the rough map of Cybertron, that was up on the monitor. His hand waved lightly over the top section. "We assumed at first it was an impending attack on our base, when a considerable number of life signals were read as heading right toward us and fast. We were about to call an alert, prepare to defend the base for all it was worth and wake you with instructions to prepare for possible mass casualties in a worst case scenerio. But then we saw them whip right around and head right around and move away from us again."

"Some of them disappeared, out of range of our scanners and where they are now is anyone's guess," Arcee explained. "But others stayed in rage for awhile and we watched them like confused Earth pigeons without any obvious purpose, until they worked themselves into formation and took off to the North and left our range too."

"That doesn't sound like any attack or battle strategy I was ever aware of," said Knockout, sitting on his cart and trying to be helpful. He gave a baffled wave of a right hand.

"Thank you to whoever fetched Knockout," Ratchet said. He knew he'd personally put the damaged bot onto his recharge station earlier, and could easily imagine he would have anxiously waited for someone who could lift him, so that he could be moved again when the action had happened.

"No problem," Bulkhead shrugged, standing in his place at the edge of the group. "Moving him is not so scary as I thought when Arcee called me to help. I guess it's not like we're going to break him."

"No, you won't," Ratchet assured him with confidence. Knockout sat on the cart, rolling his optics in Bulk's direction.

"He told me how to strap him in there. All good?"

"All good, Bulk"

"I watched the recording of the footage twice," Knockout said back on task and clearly made uncomfortable by the implication of his own fragility. "The way several of them moved, and they way the rest scattered fast, it looked to me like a fight amongst themselves"

"'cons out to settle their differences above the sea of rust?" Arcee mused, thoughtful.

"Well it would hardly be the first time," Knockout said. His tone was almost regretful. "Autobots, I've discovered quickly, enjoy talking things over like civilized bots. 'Cons will just take their anger outside, and bash each others face-plates apart."

"Anyone we recognize?" Ratchet tapped a finger against the monitor map, over the one Decepticon marker that remained on the screen. The marker flashed and blinked out of sight, only to reappear again, still flashing. He knew well, that generally indicted a weak life signal, and realized at once that whichever of his enemies he was watching now, the bot was probably dying.

Knockout shook his head a little. "I double checked the signatures known in the record." He nodded toward a still activated data pad that sat on the tray of his cart. "It's not some common trooper. I know what their signatures look like, and that's not it. But this doesn't match any known officers either. The signature is scrambled all to slag, as well."

Bumblebee had been on monitor duty on that overnight shift, and he still occupied his place in a chair in front of the console, at the front of the now crowding group of his teammates. He kept an optic on the signature code that showed as a series of characters in the bottom right corner of the screen, and saw the charters suddenly shirt into a new set entirely before anyone else had noticed it. Every optic in the room stared at that changing signature as soon as he pointed it out.

"I've only ever known of one bot on either side that can generate a random fake signature like that..." Arcee said. Her face-plate looked grim. Knockout nodded, supporting her unspoken conclusion. On he monitor the signature shifted again.

"It's Soundwave," Ratchet stated. His tone was even, calm, serious. "And his life signal is clearly fading. He's not left his position."

Bumblebee tapped quickly on a series of control keys and called up a display on a smaller secondary monitor to his right. "Tracking signal. And…. zooming in a bit more… If this location is right and not another of his hacking tricks, something's very wrong. According to the placement of the life signal, he's on the ground, close to what would have to be an access road, and in the open."

"Like he fell from the sky..." Knockout mused, barely audible.

"Whatever happened, unless this is a trick, he's hurt and badly," Ratchet spoke up in a voice that clearly indicated he was not looking for a debate his course of action. "I can't just leave a bot, anybot, to go offline in the middle of nowhere, while he's still got a potential chance."

"It could still be a trap," Arcee said, concerned. She was not arguing with him. She knew well enough not to bother with even trying to convince him to override the medical instincts that drove him to save lives. She knew she would never convince him to let it go, even if she had truly wanted him to. Instead she was simply warning him to be aware.

Ratchet nodded at the point he had already considered well himself. "If this is a trap, well work that out when we get there. Everyone be ready just in case I need to call for backup. Bumblebee, you come with me. I might need help, from either a medical or a weapons standpoint."

"I'm going too," Arcee declared. Her own tone was just as final and closed to any debate as that of the medic. Ratchet and 'Bee nodded. Ratchet's hand already held tightly to his medical kit, and his optics trailed over the map again, committing a fix of the needed location to memory.

"Arcee," Knockout said, and she quickly stepped toward him. He held his right hand out toward her and she took it at once, smiling at him as she stood in front of his cart, facing him. "I would never tell you not to go out on this one. It's just what you do. But you be careful."

Arcee nodded, still smiling. "You take over for 'Bee on monitor duty. You'll be be able to reach the ground bridge control from a position in front of the console as well."

Knockout picked up the measuring stick, which he had taken to carrying on the tray of he cart, and by now quite regularly used as a reaching stick. He tapped on the ground bridge control with it, to indicate that he could reach perfectly well across his body with it, to easily a hit the bridge control to the left of him.