Captain: Alright, almost got the next chapter of Firewall finished for any fans of that fic, but alas, I am headed off for a brief vacation so that update is delayed a week, as is the following posting of the next updated chapter for this one. I heard a rumor the work shift might be changing when I come back too which will make things a little weird for me timing wise but *might* help my ability to write during the week. I dunno, we'll see. I'm also applying to every graduate assistantship I can find in my field so that's been fun. Fingers crossed for me that *something* comes up 'cause I've written about a hundred cover letters and I Hate Them So Much. Why do I think I would be a good fit? Because I have a four year degree and job experience, which you can see, in my resume. LOOK WITH YOUR EYES BURT!

I realized my doc that I write all of this on sometimes autocorrects but only gets it right half the time, so if there's a weird word that don't look like it fits, I'm blaming that little feature. :D

This chapter is entirely with Prowl, so enjoy the little surprise he gets ;)

There is no refuge from memory and remorse in this world. The spirits of our foolish deeds haunt us, with or without repentance. ~Gilbert Parker

Prowl could only stare after the detective in disbelief as she disappeared into the house. Where had she gotten the audacity to say such things to him? Ironhide and Major Lennox were quite blatantly laughing, which made no sense to him. Just what was so humorous about the human talking to him so? He was not arrogant, he was smarter and he knew it; it wasn't his fault that she didn't recognize the fact. He had millions of years of experience and a processor more advanced that even that of his fellow Autobots. There was no arrogance, only knowledge, which showed him her presence in the 'case' was completely unnecessary. And a prick? Sure parts of his form were sharp, but he was not prickly. Human insults were hardly appropriate and her comments had no basis.

The continued disrespect to his authority was another issue altogether. How was he supposed to get his job done when he had an organic version of the twins he had to keep taking care of? Lennox was already one human too many, he didn't have need of another; let alone a belligerent one.

Ironhide was still chuckling over the comm as Lennox climbed back into his cab and the two Autobots pulled out of the driveway, Prowl's hologram disappearing with a pop as the projector finally gave out, the motor smoking from overuse.

"There is nothing humorous about the situation, Ironhide. She is constantly disobeying my commands and the disrespect is intolerable," he rumbled over the comm to silence the larger mech's sniggers.

He failed to see why Ironhide continued chuckling or saw fit to broadcast Lennox's laugh through the comms as well. If their roles were reversed, he knew for certain the weapons specialist would certainly not be laughing.

"I like her," Ironhide supplied.

That tactician might have rolled his optics were he not in vehicle mode. He settled for a puff from his vents. "She should be removed from involvement immediately."

Logically, Ironhide should agree with him, but Prowl was fully aware of the truck's appreciation of some of the humans, and so was half prepared for a disagreement. He wasn't expecting the black behemoth to let out a vent and agree with him. "She should be, but we can't."

Prowl pulled himself up alongside the truck as they patrolled the emptying streets. Snow was piling faster than human plows would be able to clear. It wouldn't be long before the two Autobots would be the only ones on the road. "It is reckless and illogical to keep her presence around. We both know the Decepticons are behind all of this. Barricade has already taken a human in this town. Major Lennox knows what he is up against; it will do no good to bring in another human who is unprepared for what she will end up facing."

The humans already failed so miserably against the Decepticons unless they were in large enough numbers and with their heaviest artillery. An officer with nothing but a 9mm would be helpless; a distraction that could not be afforded this late in the war. Not when the end was so close.

"The 'Cons know she's with you. They'll target her just as they have Will and Sam." Judging by the complete lack of reaction from the soldier, Prowl reasoned Ironhide had silenced the comm to keep the conversation just between them.

"I am not her Guardian; there is no reason for the Decepticons to target her. She is an insignificant human caught in something too big for her. We must distance from her as soon and as much as possible." Targeting the officer would get the 'Cons nothing, just as targeting their other victims hadn't been getting them anywhere. Not in the fighting, at least.

"But the 'Cons know you've been around her. Your signal was on her and now Barricade's is all over her and her totaled car." Prowl's engine sputtered as he processed this new information. He hadn't bothered scanning her since this morning and hadn't given a second thought to his own coding radiating from her. After all, his signature suppressors were all on the outside of his frame, he'd never had to worry about the things that came in contact with the interior of his vehicle mode. Barricade's setup was much the same, and since she was very much alive there was no way she had gotten inside Barricade's vehicle mode. Which meant any of the 'Con's coding left behind was done intentionally.

Ironhide continued, the growling lit to his voice growing stronger with the need to blow apart some kind of enemy. "Barricade had the chance to take her or kill her and he didn't. But he did take her ex-partner, which means that you and her are his targets."

"He's tauntin' ya Prowlers," a new voice cut into the supposedly private comm line. Prowl barely avoided driving himself off the road while Ironhide stalled, swerving just in time to avoid a passing car.

"Jazz?" both mechs questioned. Prowl's battle programming kicked into overdrive. It wasn't Jazz, it couldn't be. He was dead, ripped in half; his spark had been crushed by Megatron. This was an imposter, some kind of sick trick, most likely Soundwave. He threw up every firewall he had, determined to shove the intruder out with as much pain as possible.

Everything he threw was avoided with a practiced ease, slipping around and past his defenses instead of taking them head on. No one was that good, no one except...but it couldn't be! "Come on Prowlers! Don't be like that! It's the one and only! 'Ole Ratch' fixed meh right up!"

Prowl's processor ran hard, flickering in and out as the dead mech's heavily accented voice reverberated through the comm. Not even Soundwave would have been able to get by those firewalls so easily. The 'Con preferred to bash them to pieces over quietly but stylishly dancing around them, that was Jazz's trademark. But slaggit, he had seen the body!

Ironhide let out a loud laugh, "Never thought I'd be so happy to hear a mech back from the dead!"

"How?" Prowl managed out over the stream of humming the couldn't-be-Jazz was sending out.

A datapack pinged through, releasing a plethora of information that would take a day to speak in the human language. The Allspark fragment, Primus, a choice to move on or come back, and a very detailed, active spark signature. It was Jazz.

The tactician's processor gave a loud 'crack!' before Ironhide found himself the only conscious Autobot on the road.

"Thanks Jazz, you broke him," he rumbled as he played out the conversation to Lennox.

Jazz's lilting laughter filled the comm while Prowl's systems booted back online.

"Wasn't out long this time," Ironhide noted.

"Ah slag. And here I was hopin' comin' back from the dead would knock 'im a bit longer. He's gettin' better," Jazz hummed.

"Ratchet is still going to scrap you for it."

Jazz laughed, his exuberant mood flowing through the comm. "Nah, he spent too long puttin' meh back togetha to slag meh over jus' yet."

"How long have you been online?" Prowl barged back in with the growl of post-crash irritation.

There was a pause as the Spec Ops Commander no doubt calculated every second. "Three kliks."

Prowl was already sending a packed lecture to Prime and demanding to know just why he had not been informed of the attempted-and obviously successful-use of the Allspark fragment to revive the second lieutenant.

"Mo' importantly," Jazz continued, and both mechs could imagine him waving a hand to figuratively brush off the topic of his return to the living. "Wha's this I hear abou' 'ole Prowler pickin' up a human charge?"

"I have not. An insolent detective simply refuses to follow basic orders," Prowl rumbled, the relief of the lieutenant returned would come later; he hated crashing and usually everything that caused one.

"I like 'er already!" Ironhide and Lennox chuckled and Prowl found himself once again wishing the weapons specialist would keep his human out of their conversations. But despite many personality flaws-a new one being his readiness to like a renegade detective-Jazz was a spectacular spy and saboteur. Surely he would see the logic in keeping humans at arm length from the Decepticons, regardless of his irrational infatuation with anything alien.

"And as Ironhide stated, the Decepticons know that we have been working with her. It would be most logical to cease all contact. Humans have no place in this fight." Surely he would agree to such a sound statement.

Whatever Lennox was about to snap through Ironhide's comm was overruled by Jazz, "Au contraire, Prowls, Barricade was tauntin' you with this stunt. This is between the two of ya, which means 'e's gonna go afta any human ya come into prolonged contact with. Even if ya dump n' run, e'll still go afta 'er'."

Prowl vented as the two Autobots started back down the road in a more controlled manner. He really should have known better than to put his hope in Jazz of all mechs. "What is one human life? There are more important things we must be discussing, such as what Starscream is up to with these human abductions."

Jazz cut across Ironhide again, his tone unusually dark and accent-free, "All life is precious, Prowl. If we can prevent a single needless death, then we must do so."

It shut the tactician up on the particular topic quite thoroughly. Who was he to argue the value of life to a mech who had experienced death and faced Primus himself? Human lives were fleeting even in their entirety, but he elected to let the argument of the value of such pass unchallenged.

"Besides!" the smaller mech continued in a lighter tone, accent coming back full force, "Humans are perfect fo' discreet missions! They can slip in n' out withou' any 'Con bein' the wiser!"

The black and white Autobot should have counted on Jazz finding a use for anything and everything. He certainly had the optic for details most mechs would miss. Perhaps the tactician could find a use for the saboteur himself sooner than he had anticipated. Gathering together a data pack of all that he had encountered on the detective's case, he sent it to Jazz. "What do you make of this?"

Perhaps if there was an apparent element of logic or pattern, he would have been out to figure out the Decepticons' plans, but Starscream was in charge, which brought in an entirely unpredictable variable that left nothing to logic. The Air Commander's mind was a twisted mine field, which was what made him so dangerous. But with a mech of equal unpredictability looking into it, then perhaps there was a chance of figuring out the plan while they still had time to stop it.

Jazz hummed over the comm while he looked over the information, never once allowing the air waves to fall silent. Prowl left him to his musings as Prime finally responded on a separate channel.

"I apologize for not alerting you to the event. Ratchet had been doubtful of its success and I did not wish to stir false hope. Jazz was supposed to go straight into stasis so that Ratchet could run a diagnostic and ensure his health. I am sure he will be pleased to know his patient is awake and active on the comms." There was a note of humor to the Prime's voice that clued Prowl to the rather obvious fact that the medic would most certainly not be pleased to find Jazz was faking his stasis.

"Ah Prowler, way to spoil mah fun! I'll have to get back to ya once the Hatchet releases meh from internmen'. Spoil sport!" Then the saboteur was gone, the sudden quiet almost blaring.

The two Autobots continued down the road in relative silence, each lost in their own thoughts. They had Jazz back, a miracle and blessing in and of itself, but there was a danger to it. If the Allspark shard had enough power to revive him, did it still have enough to revive others as well? Should the Decepticons ever hear of this, protection of the shard would have to double, if not triple. They couldn't risk the possibility of Megatron ever being brought back. It took millions of vorns to finally be rid of him, their numbers were now too few to survive another millenia under his assault.

Whether the last 'Con was offline on this planet or not, Prowl knew in his spark that however insignificant Earth may be on its own, it would be the location of the final turning point in the war. Win or lose, the end started here.

It was a rare thing for Prowl to allow his processor to wander towards the future. It distracted too much from the present and there were too many variables to accurately start planning for a future after the fighting. His specialty was predicting the enemy's moves and countering them before they happened, not wishful thinking. But at this very moment, with memories of the past and hope for the future colliding, he let his thoughts drift. Memories from before the fighting were buried so deep they needed almost outdated access codes to get to, but Prowl didn't focus on those right now. Analyzing the past only served to remind him of his failures, of the unlikeliness of peace in the future. No, this night, coasting along beside Ironhide as the snow continued to pile up around them, Prowl envisioned a future without fighting. Logic said one day the war would end, but even so it was a hard picture to conjure. Would they stay on Earth for the rest of their days, until the very soil gave out beneath their pedes and they were forced to find a new planet when this one came to the end of its life? Cybertron couldn't be restored, not with only a single shard of the Allspark left. The very thought tore at his spark; his home would remain forever dark and desolate while he was stranded on a planet with a species that insisted on ignorantly destroying their home in the name of some luxurious comforts.

What was the value of one when there were seven billion others? How could he see an equal value in the life of a creature so overpopulated when his own kind numbered less than a hundred that they knew still functioned? A pitiful number that dropped every day, with every conflict, and would continue to do so until the last Decepticon had been destroyed. Even then, there was no Allspark; there would be no new life. There was no long-term future for the Cybertronians no matter the outcome of the war. He was one of the last of an endangered species.

There was no hope for any future for the Autobots if he didn't work out what the Decepticons were up to and stop them. Either Starscream's plan would come to fruition or the organic death toll would grow too high for the human government to continue providing them asylum on their planet. Neither option was ideal, so Prowl shut down the musings. The future could wait for the future, all that mattered was what he could do right now.

Ironhide hit the intersection and coasted right, back up towards the mountain where they had picked up the half-frozen detective. The snow was getting too deep up there for Prowl to easily plow through, but they couldn't leave possible clues to the Decepticon's recent actions to sit and be buried. So the weapons specialist and the soldier journeyed back up while Prowl turned left, back towards town. Hacking into police and hospital records was pathetically easy, but it still didn't tell him much. Only that the Decepticons had spared no human for torture and most had appeared to have used up all of their body's fat reserves and then some. Physical labor perhaps? That hardly made sense, what could humans possibly be able to do that a Cybertronian could not?

Prowl revved as snow splattered across his form and splashed up on his undercarriage. This was Starscream and the Decepticons; it didn't matter if they could do something on their own if they could subjugate any other race into doing it for them. They would just on principle. Other than labor though, what other use could Starscream have for so many? Leverage was an obvious motive, all he would have to do was threaten a few hostages and Prime's bleeding spark would force the Autobots to stand down. Except the leader hadn't played that card, even in the direct conflicts they'd had in the recent months when he was outnumbered and beaten back. It had been perfect opportunities for the use of such a tactic and yet not one had been utilized. Pit, they wouldn't even be aware the 'Cons had any human hostages if Prowl had not come up here on a hunch! It went against everything the tactician knew of Starscream, which concerned him greatly.

If Starscream was suddenly curbing his basic personality, then it meant a serious plan was at play. One that would spell disaster for the Autobots.

His sensors alerted to an anomaly in the otherwise pristine snow that surrounded him. Following the tire tracks that had the barest hint of a Cybertronian signature, Prowl worked to decode whose signal he had stumbled upon while stretching his sensors further. There, the tracks coasted around a corner before appearing to have slowed and pulled over, where they joined with the vanishing prints of a human. Barely a foot away from the last human track, the snow was smashed and turned in a way that could only mean a struggle. Creeping along the road, Prowl followed the track, his processor recreating what had happened as he collected every detail left behind in the snow. The human tracks appeared again, the stride hurried but unbalanced; one track was different from the other, thicker and dragging slightly. Most likely a male with some sort of medical cast or boot on one foot.

The tire tracks compacted down to ice; the 'Con had gunned it, tires spinning before shooting off. And there it was, the splattering of blood across the packed snow, still in the process of freezing. The human had been hit and dragged. There, a piece of clothing lying shredded in the street, compressed into the blood and ice in the left tire track. Driving over it gave his scanners unimpeded access to the data it held. The human's DNA was not in any government system, but the cloth had most certainly come into contact with the vehicle that had run the male over. The signal was clear, Barricade. And he had been there barely one Earth hour ago.

Prowl's engine rumbled as he followed the pink trail of bloody snow. It seemed the Decepticon was not done taunting him and had now turned to running down humans who were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Down the block and around the corner the trail went, where Prowl discovered the torn remains of a left arm. Further down and the blood increased exponentially, an hour's worth of snow unable to cover it or the pieces of skin and muscle that went with it. Driving alongside the carnage, the Autobot was careful to avoid the sharp metal jacks that were responsible for the bodily destruction. There were a perfect one hundred jacks, each clinging to red stained organic matter. Down the empty street he went, taking in the how and where of each piece of the human's body. All that was left was to find where it had finally ended.

Almost a full mile from the initial hit Prowl pulled up alongside the body, or rather, what was left of it. Whoever it had been was unidentifiable, but the crushed medical boot put the final piece into place. Dents on the side of the boot proved that for whatever reason, Barricade had tried to take this human, who shoved his boot in the door before the Decepticon could close it. The human had then taken the chance to dive out and make a run for it. Irritated, infuriated, or just for the sadistic pleasure of it, Barricade had run the man down, hitting him with enough force to snap the bones in his legs. Face-down in the snow, the organic then had his legs run over, where his boot caught on Barricade's bumper, resulting in the mile-long drag. Most likely the release of the jacks had been in an effort to dislodge the man, but he had only come free when the 'Con had hit the reverse, crushing the boot.

Regardless of his opinion on their lifespan, nothing deserved a death so painful. He only hoped the man had had the fortune of dying quickly.

Gathering the necessary details, the tactician sent off an alert to the necessary humans to get the mess cleaned up, along with an edited report to the police signed by Agent Row. It would be cleaned and closed by dawn.

With that taken care of, Prowl turned back towards the residential area of town. While he was decidedly not Detective Blake's Guardian, with Barricade so recently close by, it would be necessary to patrol the area near her; at least until Ironhide returned from the mountains. The klick he passed by the officer's home-dark and silent as he'd suspected it would be-the black mech contacted him over the comm.

"Prowl, these humans hadn't been dead more than six hours when 'Cade dumped them and they all reek of 'Cons," Ironhide stated, sending all of the information he'd gathered on the pile of bodies.

"Whatever Starscream is doing, we have a temporary advantage of knowing who is at their base then, wherever it may be," Prowl responded, making an idle note of how each new human had died and whose signatures were on the bodies. Signals on the original bodies up there had been too degraded to make out, though he'd suspected Breakdown to be responsible for the dead ranger. The amount of Energon that was being spilled on the recent organics was concerning. In the beginning, he had hoped it to mean one of the Decepticons was injured, but with each new body with the tell-tale burns, he was starting to suspect it was intentionally being applied. He could not say if it was for experimentation or torture, but it was reminiscent of scenes he had seen in Shockwave's labs with Autobot prisoners.

"I don't like this. It's too obvious, too taunting. Barricade knew their dumping hole had been discovered and he came back to it anyway. The strength of some of these signals is too strong to be done on accident," Ironhide growled.

"Starscream is starting his endgame. He wants us to know what he is doing now." It was the only answer that made sense. Even if the plan wasn't perfectly in place, the Seeker was a showboater, a full blown diva as the humans called him; he thought he was smarter than everyone else and he had to prove it, rub it in their faces. There was only so long he could keep that side of himself quiet. All the better, Prowl figured, in the past it had served to tip the odds back into the Autobots' favor. Starscream had some strong points-there was a reason he had been Second in Command for so much of the war-but keeping his arrogance in check was not one of them.

"Arrogant fraggers. How the slag are so many of them hiding in one place?"

A fair question and one that Prowl knew the answer to was bad news for the Autobots, especially with the current absence of Blaster. "Soundwave is most likely in orbit, hiding the location of their base with his signal blockers."

"Well how do we find it, then?" Ironhide snapped, the growl deep and resonating even through the comm. Firefights were his specialty, the intricacies of cloaking and hacking only itched his cannons.

"The bodies," Prowl started. "The Decepticons are too disgusted by everything they deem below them to allow deceased humans to remain on their base for long. Barricade is the one who dumped them and there are no reports of rampaging Mustangs, so we know that their base must be within a six hour drive radius at reasonable speeds."

"That's a lot of land, Prowl, we can't search it all." Perhaps Ironhide's human charge did provide some boon after all, at least he had managed to put some logic into the truck's processor where so many others had failed. Years ago the black mech would have sped off in an instant, calling back that he would search every square inch if he had to.

"We know that it is out of this state. Starscream is too smart to dump bodies on his own doorstep. The remains and Barricade's taunting have been to throw us off."

"Where do we start?" If he were to follow protocol directly, then he would alert Prime to everything, call for reinforcements for the search. But that was not their best course of action here. The moment Autobots started swarming the surrounding areas then the Decepticons would know they were on to them. They would pack up, clean up, and leave nothing but a pile of bodies behind. No, this was a mission that had to be carried out with the utmost discretion. Jazz would be the best option, but he was unavailable for an undetermined amount of time and they couldn't afford to wait for him.

Prowl vented heavily, sinking on his axles as he reached the end of the street and turned around. He didn't like it; in fact, he despised the very idea, but they needed someone who knew every detail of the case and the land around them. Sometimes human instinct could find something his battle programming could not, as much as he disliked admitting such a thing. "We start with the detective."

It would only be temporary, of course. The astrosecond he had all he needed from her, she was gone from the job and preferably the state. For now, he would have to endure her company until he could get everything she knew out of her. This should prove relatively easy, her continued presence would not last long.

"This," Ironhide rumbled in amusement, "I can't wait to see."

Prowl had no idea what he meant by that.