Chapter 31
Mess
She isn't used to walking in hallways, and there's a problem in this one. Several problems, actually. She thinks of them as a numbered list. She doesn't know why, but it feels somewhat calming to make a numbered list, and she needs all the help she can get.
1. She is with Megatron, a bad-vibe mech and supreme leader of the Decepticons.
2. Megatron's legs, like the rest of him, are huge; therefore, his stride is long.
c. She has to really hurry to keep up with him.
d. She isn't used to this sort of exercise.
di. Her leg injury hurts.
dii. She will need to slow down soon, and she doesn't know how Megatron will respond to that.
She doesn't think it will be a response that she will like.
Her cooling fans are starting to gust hard, trying to deal with the exertion and the pain and the panic, and she wants to stop and rest. Well, no, what she really wants is to go back in time and fix this mistake.
She should have just taken her stupid medication tab when it was time and then taken the annoyingly inevitable nap that always followed.
She sighs amid her panting.
She could trip and fall; that would work. Then he wouldn't know she was stopping on purpose.
It should work.
She tries it.
She catches the tip of one pede on the armor of her other pede and yelps as she falls. Her hands and knees make a small clattering thud as she lands on them, and she winces at the stinging sensation that lances through the impact points.
"Ow." She doesn't have to fake the pain in her tone as she starts to pick herself up.
Megatron leans over and takes her shoulder and upper arm, hauling her to her pedes lightly.
"Clumsy as well as bored?" he asks, his hand steadying her for an extra moment before he takes it away.
"A little," she says. "My leg was injured a while back, and it still gives me trouble. It's not too bad if I walk slowly." She pokes at the leg's armor and moves the limb gingerly. The fall didn't do it any favors, but it's still a relief to not be walking for a few moments.
"When was this?" he asks.
She shrugs. "I don't know exactly," she says truthfully. "Maybe in the past year or so."
Oddly enough, he doesn't say anything. He just looks slightly contemplative. Does he know something?
She turns her gaze back to her leg. She doesn't know anything, really, it feels like. She sighs.
"Do you want to visit the med-bay before we go to the mess hall?" Megatron asks after another moment. "Knockout has more vanity than intelligence, but the place is well-stocked with painkillers."
The thought of delaying the inevitable mess hall is enticing, but she shakes her helm slowly. Better to get this whole outing over as quickly as possible.
"I think I'll be okay if we walk a little more slowly," she says. She wishes she could run. Run far, far away.
"Very well then," Megatron says, motioning ahead. "You may set the pace. And we can always go to med-bay on the way back if you wish."
"Thank you," she says, dipping her helm in unfeigned gratitude. Then she starts down the hallway again, walking at a much slower pace, one that is comfortable for her aches and pains. Megatron walks beside her, not quite abreast but back about half a step.
"Better?" he asks after they've gone down that hallway and turned into another. "This slow pace?"
"Much better," she replies, putting enthusiasm into her tone.
"Good." He takes a moment and then he asks a question. "So, you are lamed and have memory blocks and haven't been going anywhere outside of Soundwave's quarters… what do you do with your existence?"
She shrugs to mask the annoyed flick her wings give before she can stop them. He'd been nice enough through the hallways, but now that question. It was just rudely worded. Demeaning.
"Oh, well, there's the art," she says first, referencing her cover story for continuity's sake. "And I've been reading a bit. And learning Kaonic."
"Kaonic, really?" he sounds amused and interested. "That is my first language. Let's hear some."
"Ummm… I has fifty… cube energon… but… six crumbs," she says haltingly in Kaonic, and he chuckles at her and her clumsy accent. He is genuinely amused, and it's both unsettling and a relief.
"And the translation?" he asks, optics twinkling knowingly.
"I have five energon cubes and six oilcakes," she says promptly, eliciting another chuckle.
"Not exactly," he says. And then he explains which words she'd gotten wrong and which ones to use instead.
She listens and nods and repeats like a good little scholar, but she learns very slowly by all appearances, and her accent still isn't very good. She could do better. But, she could also do worse; she's faking her poor grasp of Kaonic. She could have rattled off that sentence and longer sentences with perfect grammar and proper vocabulary and a fair accent, but it was to her advantage not to. There was power in knowing more than she let on, and she needed any advantage, however slim and seemingly insignificant.
With a lot of innocent curious questions about vocabulary words, she manages to extend the Kaonic lesson all the way to the mess hall.
There are voices in the mess hall, and she falters. Of course, there would be Decepticons in the mess hall, eating, drinking. She'd spent plenty of time with red-optic Cybertronians before, but for some unknown reason, the prospect of these ones unsettles her. She wants to know why. Soundwave had said some weren't friendly to him, but her instinctual fears seems bigger, more real or lived in, than what that knowledge should have elicited.
Megatron nudges her wing, and she moves one step forward.
"They won't bite," Megatron tells her. "I warned them all. This way." He saunters ahead, leading the way at the slow pace that she'd set in the hallway. She's grateful for that, not having to hurry and strain her leg.
As she follows Megatron through the mess, she senses a decrease in conversation volume from the Cons in the room, and she suspects it's because of her. She glances around as casually as she can. Several mechs sit together at a table, their expressions a mix of curiosity, calculation, and derision. Two other Cons at another table seem to be doing a decent job of ignoring her. Another table of three, pleasure bots by the scantiness of their armor, seems to be ignoring her fairly well until the mech in the group glances over and makes optic contact for the briefest of moments. Then one of the femmes glances over for a second as well. Both seem neutral.
Neutral is good, she thinks.
Then she catches sight of a tall femme in crimson armor staring daggers through her from a corner booth. It's a furious look, almost punishing. She's not sure if she's seen or met this tall femme before, but the femme looks like she's just about to stalk over and start demanding to know what the frag she's doing here. Or something like that.
She moves her optics away, hoping the femme won't cause trouble since Megatron is with her.
Megatron!
He's a number of steps ahead of her now. She'd stopped, pinned in place by the viciousness of the tall femme's look.
She hurries to catch up.
Megatron has a large energon cube now, and he turns as she reaches him.
"Here you go," he says. He chuckles as her optics widen when he places the large cube in her small hands. "You can save the rest for later. Or pour it on the floor to make some of you 'art,'" he teases.
"Okay," she says, processor still catching up. "Thank you! Um…"
He pats her on the helm. "Find a table, little one. I have something to discuss with Blackout."
She opens her mouth to protest him abandoning her, but he's already moving away from her again and heading toward a big, black, battle-scuffed mech.
Glitching slag.
This is not good. Not good.
She sweeps her optics over the mess hall again. There are plenty of empty tables, but there is also danger in solitude. Well, she's not sitting with those three mechs. Nor the dagger-optic tall femme. Sitting with the pleasure bots is probably a social taboo. It often is, unless one is also a pleasure bot. The pair that had been ignoring her is still ignoring her, and based on how their pedes are mingled together under the table, they probably don't want company. There is a mech sitting by himself and watching her openly with amusement. Nope. He looks a little too sure of himself.
She decides tentatively to go try her chances with the winged femme sitting alone at the table that seems to be in the middle of the hall. The femme had glanced at her but not given her any dark or threatening looks. Certainly better than the dagger-optic femme. The winged femme is clearly a flyer of some sort, not a Praxian, but maybe just having wings will be enough commonality.
She goes over cautiously, and as she nears the femme, she notes that her armor is well-polished. Most of it is a dark magenta, with black accent pieces and some metallic plating for contrast. It's a good look, she thinks.
The femme's red optics shift to meet hers as she nears, and there is something guarded in them. Possibly, possibly, the femme almost starts to shake her helm. There is some kind of aborted movement, at least. The femme is very still.
Door-wings shifting to telegraph peace, she hesitates but then takes the last few steps and gives the femme a bit of a smile.
"Hello. I like your armor colors," she tells the femme sincerely. "Would you mind a little company?"
The femme doesn't smile back, but she doesn't frown either. Her expression is mostly opaque, but possibly there is a hint of sympathy. Apology?
"This is the table of shame," the femme states, her voice steady and quiet but firm. Perfectly neutral. "One can only and must sit here when they've transgressed some social mores."
"Oh," she says, surprised. Of all the answers she'd been expecting, this hadn't been like any of them. Then she halfway smiles in amusement. "Did I transgress just by asking to sit here?" she asks, only partially joking. She'd rather sit at a table of shame with a neutral party than sit alone in a room with that dagger-optic femme glaring at her.
She sees a flicker of something lighter in the winged femme's optics for just a second before the winged femme looks down at her own energon. "Not badly enough, I imagine," the femme says. She glances up again, a hint of pity or sympathy or both in her expression, before looking away again. "Letting you sit with me would bring additional consequences. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she answers, even as she feels a sinking feeling of dread drag her spark down. "I… I guess I can't really just stand here either…?"
The femme shifts her optics to look at her again, but then a mask of blank politeness drops over the femme's expression as her optics track up.
Someone is approaching from behind, and she turns to see who the winged femme is looking at.
Megatron.
"That took fewer words than expected," Megatron says, coming up and setting his own large energon cube on the table.
She has a sudden bad feeling about this, but before she can figure out what to do, he lifts her easily to sit on the stool across from the winged femme.
'Okay, rude, excuse you!' she thinks, but she doesn't dare say anything, and she keeps silent as he settles his massive frame next to her.
"Twitch-something, isn't it?" he asks the femme across from her.
"Switchblade, my lord," the femme answers. Perfectly neutral aside from the meek dip of her helm.
"That's right." Megatron chuckles. "I remembered it was something unsuitable for your profession."
Doorwings lifting in alarm, she realizes that she can't remember her own name. Megatron nudges her shoulder with his elbow.
"Switchblade is one of our techy ones," Megatron says. "Not a melee fighter, as her name might suggest."
"Oh," she says inanely. Mentally, she's trying to figure out what her name is. She's running through everything Soundwave and the cassettes have called her that she can remember, and no actual names are coming up, just endearments and descriptions. Femme, Femling, Little One, Sweet Spark, My Spark, Bright Spark. These aren't proper names.
"Now, isn't this the table of shame?" Megatron asks. "What did you do?"
One of Switchblade's wings shifts slightly. "I was seen fraternizing with a pleasure bot," she answers, tone still perfectly neutral.
"What's this?" Megatron sounds amused and intrigued, laughter tingeing his tone. "If that gets you at this table, it should be a whole lot more crowded."
Switchblade shrugs slightly. "There is a difference between employing one in your quarters and being seen conversing amicably in the corridors with one. The latter is an offence."
The discussion continues on between Switchblade and Megatron, but she doesn't listen very closely to them. Nuances and mores and norms are interesting, of course, but the fact that she can't remember her own name is overwhelming and troubling, and it's hard to spare the processing power to focus on anything else.
Why can't she remember her own name? How did she forget in the first place? What is it? Why hadn't she noticed before that her name –her name, for glitch's sake– was gone? Had she known it earlier and forgotten when the claustro-neurosis started to set in? That wasn't on the listed symptoms list, was it? She needs to check when she gets back. Why hadn't anybody called her by her name? Soundwave would have known her name, right?
Her helm starts to ache, and she wants to go take a med-tab and take a nap.
Megatron taps the cube in front of her. "Not hungry?" he asks.
"Not really, not right now," she answers. "My helm sorta hurts."
"Poor femling." He rubs her helm gently and briefly, but she finds it neither soothing nor comforting. She realizes belatedly that he's gotten to his pedes and isn't sitting beside her. "Some Autobots afts need thrashing, so I'm off to do that, but Switchblade can take you by med-bay on the way back to Soundwave's quarters. She isn't doing anything important."
"Oh…" She's vaguely bothered about at least three things he's said, but she doesn't know what to say.
"She'll look after you." He bumps a finger lightly under her chin. "Just don't get caught talking to whores in the hallway, eh?"
"Uh- no…"
"There's a good trinket," he says.
"I'm not a tr-" she starts to say, but he's already moving away. 'Good riddance!' she thinks, but she's also uncertain as to the level of protection she has from the other Cons now.
She darts a gauging look at Switchblade, but Switchblade is still looking unreadable.
"I'm not a trinket," she mutters.
"In his data-pad, you are," Switchblade says and then takes a drink of energon. "But… what's your name?"
She stares down at her oversized energon cube. "I don't know. I have memories blocked, and…" She stops, afraid of breaking if she voices anything else.
Switchblade, frowning, puts her half-empty cube of energon into subspace and rises. "I've been here long enough. Let's go."
No objections. She puts her cube away as well and gets to her pedes. Her leg hurts more badly now, and she winces. She's going to limp more badly now, but she has to keep going. She looks to Switchblade. Switchblade is a lot taller than her, but not huge like Megatron. And not unsettling like Megatron either.
No one bothers them as they leave the mess hall. No one bothers them as they walk slowly through a corridor.
"Do you want to go to med-bay?" Switchblade asks presently.
"I don't know…" she answers softly. She would know if she knew what the medic was like. "Would… um… I guess I mean, do you…" She can't think of how to ask the question.
"He doesn't make me uneasy," Switchblade says. "If that's what you're asking. And I'll stay with you. Megatron's orders, anyway, so nobody can go against it."
"If it's not much of a detour, then, I guess so," she decides softly.
"It isn't."
"Okay."
It feels like a long way, but then again, she hadn't been outside of one room for a while.
The med-bay is clean, though some of the counters are somewhat untidy, and there's nobody in sight.
"Knockout?" Switchblade raises her voice slightly. "You in here?"
"Almost," calls a voice from the next room. The red mech who comes through the doorway a moment later has an annoyed look on his face. His optics land on the two femmes, however, and the look vanishes, leaving an expression of interest in its place as his optics sweep over pink armor.
"Oho, we do have a Praxian," he says, obviously pleased, motioning her over. "Let's see you then. What's wrong? Clearly not your choice in chrome. It's -"
"Unicron, Knockout," Switchblade says flatly. "This is a med-bay, not a runway."
"And isn't it tedious that way?" Knockout retorts, flipping a finger rudely. Then his tone changes to drily sympathetic as he switches from one femme to the other. "Never mind, Praxi," he says, motioning her to a low berth. "Have a seat. Tell me your problems."
She sits on the berth uncertainly, optics tracking from Knockout to Switchblade and then back again.
"I have some old injuries that are aching," she says. "And I tripped and fell in the hallway, and that smarted."
Knockout nods as he takes out a scanner in an idle motion. "Where's it hurt most?" he asks, and she points. He scans. "And where else?"
She points again. And then again and again until he's scanned every section of her that hurts.
He eyes the results on the scanner like he's more or less bored. "Besides some general painkillers, I can give you an analgesic salve for these aches, old and new. It'll help them heal, too. But you should be doing some gentle stretches to work out the stiffness that's developed." He holds the screen so she can see it. "In there, where it's still healing, it's a bit tight. If you don't work that out by moving, it'll stay tight and continue to cause pain."
She nods. "I've been doing some stretches, but not a lot," she says.
Knockout puts the scanner away. "Well, do some more, try the salve, see how that works for you." He taps his knuckles lightly against her shoulder. "And add in a few transformations. It'll twinge, but you don't want to get entirely out of practice shifting to vehicle mode. Not with that fine model you picked."
"Oh…" She grimaces. She hasn't transformed into vehicle mode in… a long time. She can't remember when.
Knockout smirks. "Yeah, oh." He stretches. "You really don't want to waste such a delightful alt-mode as-"
"Seriously?" Switchblade cuts in.
Knockout gives her a flat look. "I did the business," he says, waving the scanner as evidence. "Now to pleasure."
"You haven't given her the meds or the salve yet," Switchblade says pointedly.
"Why don't you just go on a flight, hmm?" He throws Switchblade a sour look and then moves toward a counter with storage built in under it.
"I'm escorting her and not letting her out of my sight until she's safely inside Soundwave's quarters," Switchblade states.
"Ha! There's an oxymoron." Knockout scoffs. "'Safe' and 'Soundwave.'"
Switchblade doesn't answer, and Knockout rummages around a bit before returning with a bottle and a jar.
"Just rub a bit of that in wherever it aches," he says, handing over the jar. "And swallow… errrr…" He checks the label and then eyes her frame in a measuring way. "Swallow one every eight hours or less. We can probably formulate something more specific for you if this doesn't do the trick, but just try this out first."
"Okay." She puts it into her little subspace pocket. "Thank you."
"Not a problem." Knockout gives Switchblade a sideways look and then shifts his attention back to her, passing her a small bottle in a more covert manner. "And this is a mild emetic."
She takes the small bottle uncertainly. "Uh…"
"It'll make you puke," Knockout explains, which isn't helpful.
"I know that," she says. "But why…"
Knockout motions a little dramatically and clarifies. "Because sooner or later, our mighty and delightful leader, Lord Megatron, will want to see your little face…" He points at her wings. "Or rather, your little wings, again. And you will want to avoid that. A cranky tank is a good excuse not to leave your quarters, especially if you can back it up with some well-timed vomiting."
"Oh…." So many thoughts try to crowd into her processor that she can hardly think.
"Usage directions are on the label," Knockout adds. "And, obviously, don't tell anybody about this."
"I… I won't. Th-thank you." She feels like a little like she's already taken a dose of the emetic-
"Don't mention it, as I said. We wheelers have to watch each other's fenders. Now, anything else?"
"Umm…" She can't think. She shakes her helm slightly.
"Well, aside from your older injuries, everything else in the scans says you're in pretty good condition. I can give you a copy if you have a data-pad."
She takes her data-pad from her subspace pocket with a vague feeling of confusion and hands it over to him.
"I… um… what about trauma?" she asks slowly, not exactly sure why she's asking, but some bundle of code in a corner of her processer suggests that it could be relevant. Relevant to what? she wonders.
"No notable trauma since the old injuries," Knockout says idly, fiddling with the data-pads to initiate the transfer. "Some recent mild stresses, sure, but nothing outside of the ordin... er, why?"
"Just curious, I guess," she says. It doesn't add up. If the Autobots had been torturing her or treating her badly enough to give her nightmares and flashbacks and awful memories, then the scans should show something related to that. Right? Maybe he doesn't know how to read scans. Maybe… Maybe she misunderstood something. Maybe… Maybe they didn't make her suffer physically, just psychologically…. But… even that could show up in the physical system, if she remembers correctly. Maybe? Not? She can't remember. She needs to do some more research.
Glossy fingers wave in front of her optics. "Hello-o," Knockout says.
"Sorry…" She takes the data-pad that he's offering her and looks at it. It has… oh, right. It's her scan info. It's her data-pad, too. Right. She'd given it to him so he could transfer the data onto it. She nods, trying to figure out what she's supposed to do next.
Knockout's fingers tilt her chin upwards so their optics meet. Delicately, he tilts her helm to one side slightly and then to the other side.
"Been getting enough energon?" he asks, a speculative frown dipping his optics ridges.
"Y-yes… I think so," she answers, feeling a frown of confusion on her own face. She doesn't remember, actually.
Knockout looks contemplative. "Have you… felt sick recently?"
She shakes her helm. Mental health aside, she has been feeling quite fine. Probably. She can't remember. She frowns. "Maybe more tired than usual…" she says hesitantly.
He crosses his arms.
She keeps still, trying to think.
"Something does seem off about her, though, right?" Knockout says to Switchblade after several very long seconds, uncrossing his arms to motion at her.
"A little," Switchblade says.
Wonderful.
Knockout crosses his arms again.
She hunches her wings. She wishes he'd make up his processor and let her go back to Soundwave's quarters already. Maybe he doesn't like Soundwave, but she has been okay in Soundwave's quarters. And she's been gone for a while now. Who knows what the walls and ceiling are doing there without her.
She darts a glance up at the ceiling out of habit, checking on it even though it isn't her usual ceiling. Wait-
"Oh," Knockout says. "Hold up. How long have you been aboard?"
A couple seconds pass, and then she realizes that the question was for her. "I… don't know."
"Hm, well." He tilts his helm. "Here's a better question, do you feel like you've been indoors too long?
She nods without a thought.
"That's it then," he says to Switchblade. "Praxians need a bit of sunlight, or something like that." He moves over and helps her down from the berth, still talking to Switchblade. "I recommend you take her to somewhere with some windows, if you can, or better yet, topside, so she can get some natural light."
"I just want to go back to Soundwave's quarters," she protests softly.
"Of course you do, bright spark, but you'll feel a lot better if you get some sunlight first," Knockout says. He passes her a comm. code and she files it away. "Run along now so Switchblade can stop cluttering up my med-bay with her flyer frame."
She wanders away from him and toward Switchblade, and Switchblade puts a hand lightly on her shoulder when she reaches her.
She loses track of turns in the hallways after a little while.
"Where are we going?" she asks, suppressing the urge to keep from looking at back at the walls that hiss quietly at her. She checks the ceiling for good measure, and the sheer number of rivets running up and down the corridor ceiling is almost processor-glitching.
"Topside," Switchblade says. "So you can get some sunlight. We're almost there."
She wishes she could read Switchblade better, but it's like there's a wall around her. Anyway, she's completely lost.
They keep going until Switchblade pauses and opens a door.
Sunlight.
She hurries into the sunlight, stumbling a little in her need. Her frame trembles, shakes hard, and she kneels on the open deck of the ship, shutting her optics against the overwhelming sensation of light rushing into the long unused solar-paneling of her wings. She feels dizzy, but the dizziness doesn't cut into the heavy calm that has settled into her.
She rests her hands on the deck, pressing them into the warm metal paneling as she sinks her weight downwards, melting.
"You okay…?" Switchblade's voice floats down from somewhere above, sounding somewhat indifferent or maybe just far away.
"Mmm-hmmm…" Now is the most okay she's felt in a long time, and it feels like she's getting drunk on it. She lets her arms fold, her belly lowering to rest on her thighs, her helm bowing to rest on the desk as well.
Child's pose, wings to the sun.
This is good.
Drunken good.
She wakes up sometime later, drowsy and indoors. Someone is jostling her and holding her upright on her pedes.
"Huhh?" She blinks her optics online as she steadies herself to stand unaided.
"You need to open the door," Switchblade tells her.
She looks at the door.
"Umm… I just woke up," she says. "What… or… how…? I mean…" She feels better and more lucid than she has previous days, but she's currently confused over the door.
"Sorry," Switchblade says, still with no inflection. "It's the door to Soundwave's quarters, and I'm assuming you have the code to get in."
"Oh!" Understanding rushes in, making her wings flick. "Yes, I do." She brushes her hand over the key panel, running the code to its sensors. The door unlocks and shifts slightly with the release. Then she slides it open.
The energon cubes are still all over the floor. Everything is how she'd left it. Somehow, though, it seems like she's been gone a very long, long time. So many things happened while she was gone, giving the impression of time, she guesses.
"Okay?" Switchblade asks.
She looks up at Switchblade but finds only a unreadable expression, matching the unreadable tone. She frowns.
"I guess," she answers. She moves into Soundwave's quarters. She hadn't been expecting Switchblade to follow her, and her wings flick in alarm when she realizes that the other winger has done just that. "Oh…" She feels some alarm welling up in her. "S-Soundwave said not to… not to open the door for anybody."
"Too late for that now, I think," Switchblade says, shutting the door. "The secret is out. Anyway, I only came in because I was watching the security feeds and saw Shatter heading this way."
"Shatter…?"
"You saw her in the mess. Red femme, better than everybody else, was glaring at you."
"Ooooh, her." She nods, remembering the dagger-optic femme's look all too well. "Okay." She rubs her helm. "Yeah. She didn't look very friendly."
"She's not." Switchblade picks up an energon cube from the floor and looks at it.
"I was throwing them."
Switchblade nods.
"Well, I should clean up." She's not entirely sure what else to do, but she feels ready to do something, maybe read. Study. She has a lot to research now that she isn't feeling completely fogged up. But that wouldn't be very hospitable. "You can have a seat while you wait out Shatter." She motions to the bed and then to Soundwave's desk.
"The floor is fine," Switchblade says, lowering herself to sit cross-legged.
"Do you want pillow or something?"
Switchblade shakes her helm. "This is fine."
"Okay." She wishes Switchblade would smile or something. Even a frown might be better than the smooth expression of nothing. She can't do anything about it, though, so she starts picking up cubes and stacking them on the counter. "Well, I feel a lot better after being in the sunshine, so thank you for taking me to med-bay and especially the deck."
"No problem."
Switchblade probably wouldn't say if it had been a problem, she thinks.
"I guess I fell asleep out there?"
"Yes," Switchblade answers, not adding anything.
"Well, thank you for carrying me back here," she says, picking up another cube.
Switchblade inclines her helm slightly in acknowledgement.
"Do you think… Knockout's right about…" She hesitates. "That I should fake being sick?"
Switchblade looks down at the cube she's still holding. "Yes. Unfortunately."
"Slag…" she murmurs.
Switchblade doesn't say anything.
"Maybe the Autobots will keep him busy for a while and he'll forget about me being here," she says after picking up a few more cubes. It sounds a little too optimistic. "Maybe," she adds.
Switchblade shifts her wings in a doubtful motion. "Better to hope Soundwave comes back soon," she replies, and her tone is empty. Not optimistic.
"He hasn't said when he's coming back." It's distressing, and the frustration wells up in her tone. She tries to tamp the feeling down. She blinks her optics. She tries to focus on something else, but the next thing that she remembers is also upsetting. "And I can't remember my own name!"
Switchblade doesn't say anything for a few moments. "That's… concerning."
"And that's an understatement! Why can't I remember my own name?!" She's crying now, but she doesn't really care.
"Soundwave may have blocked it out when he was blocking your… memories."
"But a name isn't just a memory," she sobs. "It's part of me! It's-" She sits on the floor so she doesn't fall. She hides her face and all the tears streaming down from her optics. "Everything f-feels wrong."
There is another delay before Switchblade responds, and her words come slowly. "Many things are wrong."
"B-but m-my name… m-my name…! I… I… m-my name…"
She cries and cries, hugging her knees, helm down, door-wings shaking. The loss hurts so much. The possible… something… betrayal? Something about Soundwave's behavior hurts, too. Why did he hide her name from her? Had it been an accident? Mistake? Error? He didn't tell her about it at all. If it had been a mistake, an awful accident, he should have told her. Why conceal what he'd done? What else had he done and concealed? What was going on? Why her name? Why did Knockout's scans say she was okay when probably they should have picked up signs of distress?
"In your situation," Switchblade says slowly after a while. "I would pick a nickname for the time being and then ask Soundwave about it when he returns."
She sniffles, tries to contain herself. "I don't know w-when he's coming b-back. He's taking forever."
"I'm sorry," Switchblade sounds likes she's not sure what to say, almost awkward.
"It's okay." She tries to dry her optics the armor polishing cloth from her subspace pocket. It seems like the wrong material for this, but helps a little. "You didn't ask for all this, anyway."
"There's a lot I didn't ask for," Switchblade says, tone darkly humorous now.
"Oh, same." She sniffles again but feels a little calmer. She wishes she had a better or different cloth. She tries to smile at Switchblade, but she mostly just feels pathetic.
Switchblade halfway shrugs, turning up one side of her mouth in a semblance of a smile. Then she taps the energon cube she's still holding, a contemplative motion.
"I might be able to send Soundwave a message, secretly," she says after a few moments.
"Really?!"
"I said 'might.' Don't get your hopes up. I would have to dig into the communications array, disguise the message –an extremely short message, mind you- as static or additional data, do a lot of encoding and encrypting, and then wait until someone officially sends Soundwave a message, and then tack my message into its wake so nobody else would detect it."
"Oh…"
"Soundwave is hyper-vigilant about… well, everything, so he'll detect the slightest anomaly when he scans his incoming messages."
She thinks about this. She's not even sure what she would say. "Do you think he would reply?"
Switchblade glances over at Soundwave's desk. "I don't know him well enough. We're barely acquaintances."
She almost asks if Switchblade and Soundwave are enemies, but then she reconsiders. That might be a bad idea.
"I guess I'll think about it," she says slowly.
"Okay." Switchblade pauses. "Do you have comm. access?"
She checks. "It looks like it. Short range. But no contacts besides Soundwave and the cassettes. And Knockout."
"Here." Switchblade gives her a comm. code. "I should probably go."
"Okay. Thank you."
Switchblade nods and then gets to her pedes.
She rises as well, though uncertainly.
"Good night," Switchblade says at the door.
"Good night," she echoes. "Thank you for… everything."
"No debt," Switchblade answers, and then she's out the door, shutting it behind her.
Door-wings shifting, she goes and checks the lock. It's secure.
She doesn't know what to do now. Too many things to think about. She feels tired. She doesn't really feel like crying some more, at least. She's a little hungry.
Sitting on the floor again, she picks up one of the half-empty energon cubes and sips.
The claustro-neurosis seems to be gone, for now anyway. But the price…
She pushes the thought aside. She doesn't want to think about it right now. She looks around. She has a different thought.
"Rumble!" she snaps, getting to her pedes, putting down the cube. She hurries to the bed and jostles Rumble. "Wake up!" She shakes him.
"Aaaaack," he grumbles. "What the frag…?"
"Rumble!" she demanded, "What is my name?!"
A/N I drew artwork of Switchblade nearly four and a half years ago, and it's on my deviantart account (same username as here).
www. deviantart cairistona/ art/ Switchblade-784450896