Chapter Nine

Scans

"What's that?" Sari pointed her finger through Pyrus' screen.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop doing that?" Pyrus hissed as she stopped for the eleventh time.

"But I just want to know what you're doing," Sari looked up at her with curious eyes.

"Right…," Pyrus pushed her away, "Please leave me alone. I need to concentrate as I write these protocols. You don't want me to accidentally… or purposely erase your friends' databanks?"

"You wouldn't dare," Sari narrowed her eyes.

Pyrus huffed, "The CEO of Gear Co. said something very similar…," she bent down to Sari's level, "... it didn't end well for him. Look it up. Do yourself and your friends a favor and don't push me. I have my limits. You don't want to find out what they are. Understand?"

Sari backed down, "I'm just going to let you and Ratchet work," she quickly headed over to where Ratchet was sitting.

Ratchet set down his hand so he could bring Sari up to the console. He did find Sari distracting and what Pyrus and he were trying to write some pretty complicated data lines, but he understood Sari's curiosity. Pyrus was having to basically make an entirely new scanning program. Ratchet had to look over every line to make sure that it wouldn't harm their Cybertronian components. Luckily Pyrus understood everything that he was explaining. Sari had no clue what they were talking about, but she figured that if Pyrus knew then that was good. All Sari could do was look over at Bumblebee and Bulkhead and hope that soon they would wake up and this would all be a bad dream.

"I think we have a workable scan now," Pyrus cocked her head as she stared at her holo screen, "Surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Using your diagnostic scans as the base, it was quite simple to build off it."

"Still don't understand why you think you're going to find something that I couldn't," Ratchet shook his head.

"You said that you've never seen anything like this before," Pyrus approached him, "So that means your scans don't know what to look for. They can tell you the symptoms, but they can't tell you why," she explained, "From what I was shown by the Key, whatever is affecting you and your fellows is likely from Earth."

"Sari mentioned that you recognized the program that was most likely in the file that Bumblebee tried to download," Ratchet looked down at her with suspicion.

"Yes. It's one of mine. A Trojan designed to burrow into an attacker's system and leave me a backdoor that I can infiltrate at my leisure," she waved her hand at Ratchet's screen.

The screen suddenly displayed a diagram of some sort. Neither Ratchet nor Sari knew what they were looking at. With a snap of Pyrus' fingers, the diagram changed into a series of zeroes and ones. Sari still had no clue what it was, but Ratchet seemed to have a better understanding.

"Hmm… So this is an Earth computer virus?" Ratchet inspected the coding.

"So you have something similar back home?" Pyrus asked.

"Yes and no," Ratchet thought for a moment, "There are forms of Cybertronian viruses, but they are nothing like this."

"I do make very unique programs," Pyrus smirked.

Sari snarled, "That's nothing to be proud of."

"The thing is," Pyrus ignored her, "my malware shouldn't have done this kind of damage," she looked over at Bumblebee and Bulkhead, "Your hardware and software aren't too different from that of earth computers. All Halberd should have done was burrow into a communication system and wait for me to connect," she thought for a moment, "No point in pondering or hypothesizing," she shrugged her shoulders, "We need some hard data. Which means," she pulled a cord over to Ratchet, "Time to test our hybrid creation."

Ratchet didn't look pleased, "You didn't mention this would be a hard wired scan."

"The radio version that I just ran gave a lot of good information, but I'm not sure on its accuracy," Pyrus folded her arms, "besides, the hard wired version will allow for more control."

"You scanned me?! When?" Ratchet yelled.

"My ears work just fine, thank you," Pyrus rubbed where her ears would be, "and I did it a few minutes ago. I couldn't stop thinking about a non-invasive scan that would be easier on your systems. So while you were walking me through your 'biology', I was working on a radio scan in the background," Pyrus pulled up a diagram of Ratchet, "It seems to have worked, but it's fuzzy. I prefer a cleaner scan."

Pyrus rotated the image and began to enlarge certain parts. After she pulled about seven spots that were red, she began to pace back and forth. Most likely analyzing the data that was starting to appear. Sari and Ratchet just stared and waited for her to say something. However, Sari's impatience got the better of her.

"Well? What does it say?" Sari snapped.

"The data says that I need a clearer scan," Pyrus answered snidely, "I can tell that there was a viral payload uploaded into your processors, databanks and some non essential systems. However, I still need a sample to know what it is. This scan has given me a few places to collect said samples."

"I'm still not comfortable with you poking around my motherboards," Ratchet snorted.

"Then I'll start with your non essential systems," Pyrus held up the wire, "If this manual scan works on you, then we'll have a set of procedures and protocols to follow," she could tell that he still didn't want to do it, "Look. If you back out now after we spent all this time building this scan, I'm going straight to Plan D and just start ripping hardware out."

"Over my sparkless chassis!" Ratchet jolted up.

"Again. My ears work just fine," Pyrus rubbed her ears once more, "Calm down old timer. Merely trying to… get you into gear," she held out the wire once more, "Luckily, or maybe unluckily in your case, you're not exhibiting the severe symptoms they are," she pointed to Bumblebee and Bulkhead, "This scan will not only provide a sample of what may be affecting you lot, but also might give us a clue to why you don't seem as 'sick' as the others. Understanding that could open a path to curing them and you."

Sari's eyes went wide, "Wait! Are you saying that Ratchet is immune or something?"

"It's a working theory," Pyrus admitted, "The malware also might be working through his system at a slower pace and eventually he'll go crazy and end up in… what did you call it?" she tried to recall, "Right. In stasis lock."

"Ratchet," Sari looked up at him with teary eyes, "Please. This could help Bee and Bulkhead… and you," she quickly added.

"Cross my heart and I know I'll die. I promise that I will not poke into things I'm not supposed to…," her tone became much softer, "I also promise to be as gentle as possible. I understand that you are a living, thinking and feeling being. I do not and will not view you or your fellows as mere machines."

Ratchet grumbled something inaudible before he took the wire, "Fine."

He turned away from the pair. The sound of his chest plates opening could be heard. He fiddled around a bit before he turned back around. The wire was now hanging from his exposed circuitry. He grumbled a bit about how exposed he felt.

"Alright then," Pyrus brought up a 3D model of Ratchet, "I'm going to begin the scan. You may feel a tingling sensation," she waved her hand over the computer.

A green cylinder of light formed around her. She placed the model of Ratchet in front of her and focused in on one of the red spots. Enlarging it, she began to slowly sift through what looked like files.

"Whoa!" Ratchet jumped.

"I'm sorry," Pyrus apologized, "Is this hurting you?"

"No. No," Ratchet shook his head, "Just feels weird to have someone else poking through my systems."

"Doctors say that they have a difficult time when they are on the other side of the knife," Pyrus continued to pour through the data that was coming, " I assume it would be the same for a med bot like yourself."

"I guess so," he wasn't quite sure what she was talking about.

For the rest of the time, everyone remained quiet. Pyrus silently went to each spot that she had highlighted. Ratchet jumped on the occasion as Pyrus worked. Sari was just entranced by Pyrus' movements. She had watched her dad work before. He would either just be sitting at his work table tinkering with something or staring at a screen. Not much movement was involved. Pyrus worked very differently. She physically pulled at the holographic images and held them as if they were really in her hands. Of course, Sari had never seen this kind of technology before. The Autobots apparently hadn't either. Sari recalled that Pyrus said she liked to make her programs more organic so they would respond to her better. Maybe she made this program like that so she could work easier and control it better. The longer Pyrus worked, the less that Ratchet was jumping when she shifted to another system. She must have been figuring out how to move through his systems gently.

"Scan is complete," Pyrus announced after what felt like an eternity.

"Great," Ratchet pulled out the wire, "Hopefully you found something useful."

"First off," Pyrus lowered the cylinder of light that surrounded her, "How do you feel? Did I overwork any of your systems? It looked like your heat output did rise when I was in your processors," she seemed genuinely concerned.

"I noticed that too," Ratchet looked through his system recordings, "The heat did increase, but not to levels that would have caused any damage. Other than that, everything is as it was beforehand. Although," he rubbed his head, "My processor ache is gone now."

Pyrus breathed a sigh of relief, " Good. I was concerned that I was taxing your systems too much. I will have to go much slower when we run the scan on the others," she pulled up the data that had been collected.

"That took you forever and you're saying that you'll have to go slower for Bee and Bulkhead," Sari complained.

"Kids these days," Pyrus shook her head, "they want everything right now and don't understand that good things take time."

"Couldn't agree more with you," Ratchet smirked.

Sari huffed, "Can't believe you two are teaming up against me."

"It's too easy," Pyrus laughed, "As for the scan…," she pushed a copy of the data over to Ratchet's screen, "We have a much clearer picture of what is going on. And," she added, "I might have a working theory to why…"

Beep! Beep!

"Seriously?" she was interrupted by the alarm coming from her wrist, "… and my blood sugar is now spiking… great…," she started to walk off, but turned around, "I have to go take some insulin or I'm going to go into a coma… stasis lock by your terms. We'll discuss the data when I get back," she headed out the door.

Sari quickly jumped down from the console, leaving Ratchet very confused about what was happening. He didn't ask though. He just recalled Optimus saying something about some type of organic glitch Pyrus had. It was dangerous to her well being. And the last thing they needed was for her to go into stasis lock. Ratchet just sighed and turned his attention to the data the scan collected. Hopefully it would shed some light on what was happening. That's all he could hope for at this point.