Loud, abrupt noises were often accompanied with violence, sometimes against her, so when the relative silence of the corridor was filled with a jarring wail, Arcee's first instinct was to protect herself. Dropping to the ground with her servos curled over her helm, it took the two-wheeler a moment to realize the sound was not her master, but an alarm of sorts, a sound she had yet to hear on DarkMount. She peered up at the drones who were escorting her back to her quarters, all of whom were clearly in the middle of receiving orders via commlink. Two took off in the direction they'd come from, and the other looked sternly down at her huddled form.

"Return to your cell," he clipped tersely.

The femme nodded obediently, standing and hurrying further down the hall. Disobeying an order, even from a drone carrying out Megatron's demands, would cost her dearly, so she didn't even consider it. Hopefully whatever was happening would create a big enough distraction that she could have a break from the warlord's vicious attentions. His insatiable appetite for her had not lessened, unfortunately, and time to herself was rare. She planned to savour every moment.

Turning toward the elevator, she paid no mind as drones continued to file past her, skirting the wall to keep herself well out of their path. Anxiety swelled inside her chassis with every blare of the alarm, the sound so loud and grating it felt like a physical blow. She winced. Over the racket, the shouts of other bots made their way into her audials.

"What are you waiting for?! Get going!"

"Should we be leaving him completely unattended? What if-"

"Lord Megatron has ordered soldiers from every level below twenty to the ground floor immediately. All medical personnel are to attend the med bay. Soldiers from the upper levels will arrive shortly to take over your posts. Are you prepared to face the consequences of going against a direct order?"

The heavy clack of pedes filled a passageway to her right, one she'd never been down before. She kept her optics lowered as she went by it, all but invisible to the Decepticons that filed past. She kept going, listening to their hurried departure until she could hear them no more.

"Should we be leaving him completely unattended?!"

She paused, a singular question flickering in her processor.

'He... who?'

For the first time in a long time, indecision warred within Arcee. She was afraid, but something held her fast, even as her spark beat a wild rhythm against the inside of its chamber. He would know... he always knew. Even now as she stood contemplating the careless statement of a single bot... he might see... might punish her... but something told her to go... to look. Time was short... she needed to choose.

Her optics narrowed into tiny pinpricks as her fans kicked in, trying to cool her rapidly overheating frame. Her denta clenched as some small part of her grappled with the fear that urged her onward, begging her to keep going to the safety of her cell. There was only pain if she disobeyed, why was she hesitating.

'You want to know... who it is. Go... now. This is your only chance.' The defiant whisper felt like a shout inside her helm.

Against her better judgment, she turned, sprinting quickly and quietly down the now deserted corridor that had just been vacated, throwing herself around the bend in it and sliding to a stop when a sealed door came into view. There was a keypad next to it. She cursed internally.

The sounds of hurried pedesteps caught her attention and she pressed herself against the wall, time seeming to stand still as she listened to them grow louder... before fading again. Her spark stuttered. More soldiers addressing the emergency at hand. Thank Primus.

The two-wheeler approached the keypad and considered her options. What were the chances she would get it wrong and set off yet another alarm? Very high. Then he would find her... he would know... and he would do unspeakable things to her.

'Turn around and go back right now,' the frightened part of her pleaded, bred from orbital cycles of torture. Megatron had trained her well to know the result of displeasing him.

Then, from the darkness of her troubled thoughts, something slipped to the surface, a memory she didn't even know she'd maintained. Megatron's clawed digits clacking a sequence of numbers into the keypad as he cradled her slight frame against his chassis. The room has been filled with his treasured trophies of war. Some he kept on display for all to see, but those he valued most her kept locked away. Bringing her there had been merely another tactic to remind her of his power, to cement the notion that her comrades victory was an impossible dream given the vast arsenal he had amassed. Was whatever... whoever he had locked away in here as important to him as all of those other artifacts and weapons?

'You're already here...' another whisper in her processor, though this one sounded oddly like one of her old comrades... Cliffjumper perhaps? He was always a risk taker. The thought of him was enough to give her the courage she needed to reach up with her restrained servos and press the numbers into the keypad. She braced for some shrill sound, an indicator to her mistake, but instead the doors slid apart, and before she could take a single step forward the lone resident of the vast room came into view. He spark stopped beating altogether, the air seemingly sucked out of the room as all sound vanished and everything else faded away. Optics widening, Arcee's lip components parted, moving soundlessly around the shape of a name.

'Optimus.'