"You Are A Fool!" Screeched the air commander as sky blue servos smacked against the screen in frustration, "I need those materials! You think I can finish this just from using human technology?! They're obsolete!"

Around him the Decepticon warriors watched with slanted optics and sidelong looks, used to Starscream's usual fits. But Shockwave wasn't a pushover so it was fifty-fifty on who would win this argument. Swindle sidled up to Hook to make a bet. The others didn't even bother to pretend they weren't observing and waiting to see the outcome, energon cubes in hand like movie snacks. Only a few drones scattered around continued with their work in the large room. On the monitor, the violet cyclops replied as stoically as ever.

"That is true Starscream. However, I've already sent you what materials I can spare. If I give you everything then I cannot work on my projects or finish repairing Cybertron. That is my assignment."

A lone optic shifted on screen as the head scientist turned to a drone that was trying to get his attention. He ignored the seeker for a moment before returning to the conversation. Starscream was seething from the blunt power play Shockwave was displaying by ignoring him and clenched his servos into fists. Ruby optics glowed with pent up hate.

"Shockwave..." he started slowly while trying to rein in the urge to shout. He knew the troops were watching and hoping for a show. The jet continued in his high-pitched tone as if talking to someone who was slow, " Lord Megatron gave me responsibility over this project and he ordered that anything that would speed it up was to be used. Therefore, I'm ordering you to ship me some more parts!"

"Is there a problem here Starscream?" A gravely voice rumbled. Speak of the devil.

White and red striped wings jerked up in surprise, "Yes Lord Megatron! Shockwave is selfishly refusing to give me the things I need to complete your plan!"

The leader of the Decepticons looked down at the slightly smaller con with an unimpressed expression, "Your plan Starscream. You are the one who claims this will work. I've yet to see results."

A sneer crossed his faceplates and gave Megatron a cruel but smug look as he crossed dark gray arms. The lead seeker hunched just slightly at the jeers from his fellow cons as they snickered in the background. Turning to the screens, the warlord spoke to Shockwave.

"Send more supplies, as much as can be spared from rebuilding Cybertron. It can wait until after the Autobots are crushed."

The purple goliath sighed and nodded, "Yes Lord Megatron. I assume another space bridge has been built in the wake of the last one's destruction?"

Megatron nodded and the monitors returned to their normal schematics. Everyone else suddenly scurrying to do something as he gazed around the room. Within a moment it was nearly empty as the lower ranking troops all went off to do whatever work seemed important. The gun-former turned back to his air commander.

"Do you have results?" He questioned.

Starscream puffed up his armor slightly, "Yes my lord. It appears to work on a small scale and for a short amount of time. However,..." he trailed off as if trying to find the right words to explain.

Not falling for it, Megatron became impatient, "Explain. Now."

"I need more energy to power the machine. Otherwise we'll only have a small sample to work with that won't last long enough to unleash upon the Autobots. Theoretically, I can set up a generator as a long term power source but it will take a while longer, and more materials, to do so." The seeker's voice lost some of the normal scoffing quality as he tried to explain the science in simple terms.

Megatron thought it over before replying, "How long?"

"Roughly six to seven months."

Not very long in Cybertronian terms but lengthier than what he wanted. The large monochrome decepticon growled, " Seven months?! You said only a couple."

"That was just to see if it could be done! Actually utilizing it in large quantities requires a much larger time span and a generating power source. There's complex coding and many fine calibrations that need finished!," Starscream's lip curled up over sharp denta as he gave his leader a pointed look, "I would have perfected it first and then shown you but someone had to snoop." He made a mental note to get back at Reflector for this. Those stupid camera-cons just had to go sneaking around in his lab.

"You would have finished it and used it against me Starscream." Retorted Megatron.

Starscream looked aghast, "Why my lord! I would never..."

"Can it Starscream! I'm in no mood for you lies. Now, I will allow you that much time to complete the project and have it ready. If it is not completed or if it fails, then it will be your helm that decorates these walls. Understand?" A clawed servo came up as if to demonstrate just what he was going to do, "I want to see something that actually works soon Starscream!"

The tri-colored flier quickly jerked into a salute, "Of course Lord Megatron!"

As soon as his leader left, Starscream dropped his servos and snarled, "Do this Starscream. Do that. Get it done quick," he tried to mimic Megatron's deeper voice with horrid results. Anyone would have described it as static and gargling marbles but the room had emptied save for a few drones and they hardly counted, "Science can't be done in a day! Can't that fool see that?! Idiotic... Why does anyone listen to him..." The muttering continued as the trine leader stalked back to his lab. He had work to get done.

Shay was planning. Which wasn't that uncommon as she tended to try and plan out anything of importance. However, this one wasn't quite as simple as she wanted it to be. She knew exactly what she needed to do, but was hesitating to do it. Not to mention actually getting there.

The woman hummed quietly to herself as she tightened the hair band that held a braid in place and finished putting away the exercise equipment at the end of her shift. The gym closed late and she'd been there for several hours longer than her regular ten hour shift. Getting snowed in sucked. But thankfully it was cleared up now that a plow had come by and everyone who'd had to wait was finally leaving. Shay had spent the extra time thinking and turning ideas over in her head. What it yielded was neither good nor bad and she wasn't sure if she was going to go through with it. Certainly her Dad would have a problem. Cass and Andrew would definitely be more concerned than they already were.

This apathy had to stop. Not caring over small and useless things, or even her own health was okay, sort of. Not caring over actual people was most definitely not alright. Especially when it was starting to put up walls between her friends and herself. Shay was finally starting to realize that things were far worse than she'd first thought and it was time to put an end to it.

So the apathy was out of control and Shay had grown tired of the pain. What she had to do was obvious. The hard part was letting go of her pride and admitting she made a mistake.

But Shay was. Walking through slush and white powder on the way home, she plotted and rolled consequences over in her mind. What she needed was a vehicle. Her new job did pay much better than her old one, and with several months put in she could almost afford one now. If she took a small loan that would be paid off in a couple months than she'd be set. It helped that the woman had put in a lot of overtime lately.

If she had a vehicle and the snows cleared up...

Then when spring came, there was nothing to stop her from going back west. Even though she was quite sure she'd have to face the repercussions for the choice she made. A sigh worked itself out to turn to condensation in the frosted air. Oh yes, there would definitely be hell to pay for her mistake.

Just another body moving along in the darkening and cold lit city, she stomped past building and snow stacks as her plan grew.

Far away, on the other side of the continent, someone else was contemplating the state of things.

Sunstreaker looked up from his sketch to see his twin staring at him, again. A glare yielded no response. Sideswipe wasn't even paying attention, as lost in thought as he was. Glazed optics bore into the space Sunny was currently occupying.

Giving into the urge to nail his brother, the frontliner picked up a broken game controller and threw it at Sideswipe. It smacked into his face with a 'thunk.' Startled, he jerked up and nearly fell off the bunk. Bewildered and hurt optics looked over at Sunny lounging on the couch.

A derisive snort, "Turbo-puppy optics don't work on me bro."

"Aw, come on Sunny..."

"No. Quite staring at me."

Sideswipe vented and lay back against his berth. These last few months had been okay, but just a little bit off. Every once in a while one or the other twin would feel these shadow sensations. Almost like their twin bond but not quite. Sideswipe liked to call them 'ghost butterflies' because it was just barely there, so little they hardly felt it. Sunstreaker stated that it was a stupid name. Either way, the feeling wasn't coming from him or Sunny and when they went to Ratchet about it the doc couldn't find anything wrong. That ended with the medic complaining about people wasting his time and to not come back unless they were actually hurt. But they didn't think they were imagining it.

Sideswipe knew Sunstreaker was afraid that something was wrong with their sparks because it had started since they'd come back from being "dead" or in the spark container of so long. But Ratchet said everything was fine so they were just going to ignore it. Sideswipe had his own theory but his twin refused to listen.

"It's not the human. We're not dealing with her!" He'd shouted when Sideswipe tried to bring it up. Yeah, that hadn't gone well.

But it made sense! Sunny just refused to see that. Pig-headed brothers...

That was actually a really interesting insult. Pig-headed. Why would someone have a pig head? Humans had awesome insults, so creative. Wait! Focusing!

Shaking off random thoughts, the red Autobot got up and meandered out of his room in search of a quiet spot to do some digging. If Sunstreaker wasn't going to help him then he would just have to do it himself. Finding no one in the recreation room, he quickly sat down and pulled out a data pad. Getting onto the internet, it didn't take long to find the information he was after. Just a little bit of narrowing down the search and a tiny tiny bit of hacking. It wasn't a bad thing to do if one did it for a good cause, right? Oddly enough, the large carnelian bot didn't think the command staff would agree with him there.

All that mattered though, was the fact that he got what he was after. Or he thought it was the right number. Only one way to find out.

Using his comm link, Sideswipe heard that irritating beep that meant the call was going through. By the second ring someone picked up. A rough female voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Um...hi. Is Shay Carpenter there?" Please please please say he'd gotten the right number.

There was a pause, "No. May I ask who you are and why you want her."

He'd wilted when she said no but perked up again quickly. This human knew Shay. Maybe she could help him, "I kinda need to talk to her about something important. Oh, and this is Sideswipe." Another pause, longer this time. Had the call dropped? Maybe this female couldn't help him after all. The nervous bot fretted as he waited.

"Autobot Sideswipe?" No emotion. He couldn't detect any trace of either disbelief or curiosity in her tone.

Hesitantly he answered, "Uh-huh. I really do need to speak with Shay so if it's not too much trouble could you tell me her number? Or..."

The frontliner never got to finish as he was interrupted, "This is Shay." A weary sigh came over the speakers as he froze, suddenly realizing he was talking to the person he was trying to get ahold of. Over in North Carolina, Shay pinched the bridge of her nose and took a seat on the couch. She got the feeling that this would be a conversation best held when sitting.

"You lied!" Exclaimed Sideswipe.

She shrugged although there was no one to see it, "I didn't know who you were. It wasn't personal."

"Oh." A single syllable as everything Sideswipe wanted to say got stuck in his vocalizer. He'd thought over and over about what he'd say once he'd met her but right now none of it actually seemed to want to come out. An uncomfortable pause settled over the phone as both parties weren't sure how to respond to each other. Finally the bot's mind latched onto something. "Can I ask a question?"

"Is it why I left?" It seemed like a hand clenched around her lungs at the moment but Shay thought it was better to just get to the point instead of dancing around it. She'd been doing enough of that in the last few months.

Sideswipe replied instantly, "No, I mean yes! But that's not what I was going to ask first. I mean..." Giving a grumble he vented again to get back on track, "Can you still reach out to Sunny and I?"

The woman on the other end of the phone frowned in confusion before kicking off her slippers and pulling her feet from the cold floor, "You mean you remember being in that jar?"

"Um yeah." the bot stated instantly, "Well some of it. We remember you being around."

She rubbed her forehead in thought, "Your medic said you wouldn't remember being in there. Anyways, no I can't. I haven't been able to since I left."

"Is that why you left? 'Cause you thought we wouldn't remember you?" Sideswipe's optics twitched to the door as some bots came in, just finished with patrol. Bluestreak looked like he was coming over to chat but turned away when Sides tapped his audios to show he was on the comm link. The frontliner continued, "Were you just scared of us or the others? 'Cause we're not really that bad. I promise."

The human flinched from his tone. It was so bland. Like he was afraid of upsetting her. Why wasn't he mad? He was supposed to be angry at her! She thought he'd be furious and here he was just calling to talk. Taking a deep breath Shay slowly replied, "It wasn't that at all. I just...it's sorta complicated. But answer me this; was being able to pick up on your emotions before normal?"

Dead silence. In the rec room a couple heads turned when they noticed the wince on Sideswipe's face. They looked curiously at each other but didn't go over to bother him. Shay punched the pillow at the end of the couch before answering in a dry almost whisper, cell phone cupped to her cheek.

"That's what I thought."

"Tha-... you were afraid of..." The lambo twin didn't get it, a scowl of frustration crossing his faceplates, "It wasn't about us?!"

"Not really. I... why would you want a human around you anyways!" She exploded, "You were back in your home and safe. I was supposed to go back to my home! That's the way it was supposed to go. Not this... weird funny emotions thing and psychotic rages and pain..." The woman jumped off the sofa and started pacing, all the weeks after weeks of pent up hurt and guilt for her mistake, "Do you even know what any of this is?!"

Everyone in the rec room watched confused when Sideswipe almost jerked out of his chair. A flow of emotions, none of them good, swished across his silver face. Tracks leaned over his cube to mutter to Inferno that he was probably getting grilled by one of the officers for something or other. Inferno shrugged and downed the rest of the liquid so he could go check on Red.

Carefully Sideswipe replied, rubbing the back of his black helm, "Not really. It's kinda out there for us too."

"So you don't know."

"Yeah, I mean, no. We don't know."

"Okay."

Her voice nearly cracked but held. Just barely. There goes her plan to figure this out and fix it. They didn't know. Which most likely meant no one had the answers. Which meant she was basically screwed. Shay stared hauntingly into space in the empty apartment before robotically moving to sit down again.

Silence reigned as both tried to configure their thoughts into something coherent. Sideswipe replied first, "What did you mean, about rages and pain...?"

"I keep getting angry at random times. Actually, the first time was when some people tried to steal you away. I almost killed them," she choked off remembering how horrible that night had been before Margaret and Peter had taken her in.

Sideswipe gave a half smile to no one as she couldn't see him, "Oh that. The others found a video of it. Have to say that was pretty outta there. It looked like you'd gone mad." It turned into a wince, "Not that almost killing some people is a good thing...but uh, I'm glad you didn't let them take us." The Autobot hunched over when Shay didn't reply and he thought he'd said the wrong thing. People did believe the twins were blood thirsty sometimes. What she shouted next took him by surprise.

"They Got A Video!"

Light blue optics widened to an almost comical point as he wondered why that was bad, "Yeah..."

"Damn. They never told me that. Where the hell did they get a video..." She trailed off in thought, face screwed up exasperation.

A light bulb above his head, "Oh, so you didn't want anyone to know about that."

"No. I told Prowl. But I didn't want anyone to see me going crazy. It's not like wanting to violently tear people apart is a normal or good thing." Bitterness at the end, " Why did you call? Are you being affected too?"

His pitch servo made a 'so so' gesture until he remembered she wasn't there and the others were giving him amused looks. Sideswipe stuck out his glossa at them and returned to the conversation "Sorta not really. Not as much as you seem to be. Every once in a while one of us just gets this off feeling like someone's poking our sparks or something but it doesn't hurt." He heard a relieved sigh.

"That's good. If it's just that..."

Suspicion jumped in, "How exactly has this been affecting you besides the anger stuff?"

When she didn't immediately answer he whined, "Awwhh come one! I told my side, you gotta tell yours!" He threw his servos up in the air. Chortles floated around the room as bots watched the silent conversation play out, trying to guess what the subject was. None of them were even remotely close.

"How about a proposal?" The human female finally asked, catching his attention. Proposals and deals were right up his alley. An impish smile appeared and more than a few minibots made sure they were close to someone taller. That kind of grin usually meant trouble.

Sideswipe questioned, "What kind of proposal?"

Noting the definite purr in his voice, a corner of her mouth twitched up. The first time in a while that it wasn't just for her friends or co-workers but with genuine amusement, "I was actually planning to come see you guys anyway. I have to finish paying off a loan in the next two months but when the snow clears I was going to head west. Uh...if you are okay with that?"

An unseen nod, "Yep. Talking to you in person would kinda be better than comm link."

"Comm link?"

"It's like a phone, only for Autobots to contact each other."

"Ah," Shay didn't really understand but pretended to anyways, "But I'll be over in your state by late February or early March. If you still want to see me then, just call and I'll try to find a spot for us to meet... Are you ah...You really aren't mad at me for leaving?" Her low voice turned high pitched with skepticism.

Sideswipe fidgeted, "Well, kinda sorta. But if you come see us than you can explain it better. I told Sunny you must have had a good reason. So you can prove it."

"Okay then. I guess I'll see you in a couple months..."

"Why that long? You could take a plane and be here in a few days." The red and black lamborghini was only patient when it involved pranks. Waiting for this human was going to take forever.

"Because Christmas is in two weeks and I have plans with my dad and friends. Also," she sounded a bit funny now, embarrassment plain to hear, "I don't like planes."

He guessed, "Scared of heights?"

Shay rapidly shook her head as she got up to fix dinner, "Oh no. I love heights. I just don't trust those big metal machines to be safe...Uh no offense to you or anything."

The frontliner guffawed. Maybe he would like this human after all, "None taken. See you in the spring then." Images of seekers and Shay's apparent trust issues with planes made him giggle again.

"Wait, your brother agrees with this right?"

"Oh yeah. We'll be waiting." He lied smoothly.

"Okay, see you then." She hung up and the call ended. In her apartment, Shay leaned against a door frame and blew out a breath. That had seemed way too easy. Now what was the catch?

Across the country, Sideswipe got up to start plotting. Of course his brother was going to kill him for this. Now the question was, would he get over his anger by the time they went to meet Shay? Maybe not, Sunstreaker could really hold a grudge. It would be better to wait and tell him later. Yeah, he'd live longer if he waited.

In a different part of the base Eject looked over at his counterpart, "Should we tell someone about this?"

The black and white cassette mulled it over, "Technically it's a personal call and he didn't break any rules..."

Blaster leaned over them, "Why doncha give me a recordin' a that and not mention it ta anybody, kay?" The large red and gray cassette player took the disc and subspaced it, "Catcha later." With a wink and a grin he left his quarters to meet up with Jazz, waltzing down the halls as he danced to some music only he could hear.

"Heya Jazz-meister. You told me to keep my audios peeled and my bots found something interesting." He clapped a gray servo on the shorter bot's shoulder pad. In return, the saboteur gave a sly grin, optic band tilting.

"Did ya now? I appreciate that man." Taking the disc, the porsche put it in a slot on his arm and listened to the recorded conversation. Walking slower now, he puzzled over this new information before smiling grimly.

'You just keep making things complicated, don'tcha girl.' the spy thought to himself.

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Alright everybody, Shay meets the Twins in person next chapter.