#ch: drift/deadlock

[transformers-valiant-keepers]

lux and nox.

[roguescarlett]

Deadlock had adjusted into fatherhood fairly quickly than anyone would’ve expected since their escape from Cybertron with Dai Atlas. The moment he first saw her trapped in a stasis pod, with their sparks pulled toward each other, had triggered his Sire Protocols to activated thus his paternal instincts screamed and pushed him to free his Kindred from Emperor Tyrest’s control.

Raising Roxana with limited resources on the planet Earth hadn’t been easy for Deadlock, or so he thought. He fed her, shielded her from dangers, comforted her through bad nights, taught her survival instincts and kept her safe. Roxana was a happy Kindred and nothing would ever slow her down--she brought a smile to his face for the first time in the last two million years alone who always find a way to lighten his spirits up on bad days.

And for that, he was forever grateful for her turned his frown upside down on his faceplate.

Deadlock wouldn’t trade her for the world, or the galaxy for that instance. She may not understand but she was a beacon to his dark day that haunted him with his own past. He was glad he rescued her from the stasis pod.

[lo-55]

Blessed Brothers Ch. 3

Quiet Encounters                     

     Jesse McCree is seven years old the first time he gets pinched. It’s not much, a slap on the wrist from an officer, a scare, and they call his Mama. It’s her that really scares him. Not the officers with the shiny guns and badges or the man that had kicked a child in the ribs to get his wallet back. His Mama has a fury like no other, one she doesn’t even try to hide behind the closed doors on 1309 Country Rd. He leaves soon after, going to better places, he thinks. In some ways he’s right.  

     Jesse is seventeen to the day when Overwatch breaks down the door to Deadlock’s hideout. He spends a week in a holding cells before Gabrial Reyes sweeps in with Jack Morrison and the world tips around on its axis.  

     When Jesse is just shy of twenty seven he gets called into Reyes’ office. He walks in and faces down red eyes. There’s battlefire in them, fury and pain overriding the person that could have existed inside of them. The laugh lines that were starting to show up on the mangled face are twisted hard into a straight mouth that hides teeth. Jesse saw the before, the mangled corpse that Angela Ziegler brought new life into. Now he meets the after. Genji Shimada.  

 At thirty seven, many things in Jesse McCree’s life have come and gone. 1309, Deadlock, Blackwatch, they all faded into the past until he found himself where he thought he would never be.

 In Overwatch once more. Only now, all the bureaucracy has been taken out of it. He knows they’ll have to do unsavory things. He knows it, Genji knows it, Soldier : 76 knows it. Hanzo probably knows it too.  

 Some of these kids that answered the call, they have no idea some of the things that have been done in the name of peace.

 Jesse is perfectly content to keep them in the light, where they won’t have to see what’s done in shadows.

 Jesse blows out a stream of smoke as the the clouds gather. It drifts away into the air, vanishing into the grey sky. Clouds roll across his vision and he leans back on the wall of the Watchpoint, letting the cement dig into his shoulders through the sarape.

 Genji and Hanzo are inside somewhere, still on base. Lucio is with them, and Winston. Everyone else was deployed over the last few days. Soldier : 76 gave up running things. In fact he hadn’t tried to take back his place at all.

 Jesse figured he had enough of that, in the past.

 Jack Morrison was supposed to be dead. Seeing him again-

 Jesse would deny to his dying day that had taken one look at him and bolted. He couldn't handle talking to Jack for almost a week afterwards. Even now, he avoided him when he could.

 The soft sound of the door sliding open is the only reason he knows when Hanzo walks out of the base. He takes two steps and stops, turning his dark eyes to Jesse, who nods at him cordially.

 He doesn’t say anything, even though he wants to. Hanzo doesn’t look much like he can handle talking right then. He’s stone still, he’s tough, strong. Still, Jesse knows what it feels like when someone you thought was dead comes back from the grave and his relationship with Morrison pales in comparison to what Hanzo has on his plate.

 So Jesse just smiles at him and let’s the man go on his way.

 Only, Hanzo doesn’t leave. He stands where he is, staring hard at. He’s looking for something.

 Jesse thinks that, on another man, he might have been shifting uneasily.

 Finally, Hanzo’s shoulders drop and the air leaves his lungs. He disappears with the breeze. Jesse wonders if he saw what he was looking for.

[salvosfinest]

Difficult Duties - Ch. 4

Jerking awake, Jesse lifted his head off the pillow, looking at the shadowed corner of the hallway. Staying relatively still, he merely watched the deep shadows cast by the corners of the hallway, the light not quite filtering through the blinds properly. One, two, three...

The shadow moved. Lurching out of bed, he crossed the space between where he was laying and the dark hallway in no time flat, switching on the hallway light to see...

Nothing.

Dropping his hand from the switch, he turned away from the lit hall to gaze at the window - that explained why it was so dark. It must’ve been early evening. The light didn’t quite hit his hotel room through the skyscrapers of the city. He moved over to his nightstand to pick up his phone, confirming it was early evening. He ran on such a strict sleep schedule back at the base, it was hard for him to “fully” rest.

Bending over, he hefted his suitcase up onto the bed, then his backpack by the handle. He removed the remaining outfit from the case, and a box from his pack, laying them out. He collected his other clothes in a bag and squeezed all the air out, putting the bag in his suitcase. Stripping down, he left his dirty clothes by the bed as he went to the bathroom, starting up a warm shower.

Sitting on the edge of the tub, he went over his plan in his head. Explore the underground, find Hanzo, and get the real story. Nodding to himself, he stood and stepped into the shower. As he washed up, his eyes wandered to the tattoo on his forearm, a pain going through his stomach for a moment. Frowning, he dropped his left forearm to focus, stopping his mind from wandering. Focus.

Shaking his head out, he reached for the hotel shampoo - he had quite liked it, really. It had a clean scent, not quite “clean linen” but... maybe it was lavender? He sniffed the opening of the bottle.

Lavender. It was more perfumed than he would’ve admitted, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Once he deemed himself as clean enough, he turned off the shower and stepped out, toweling himself off - trying to vehemently ignored the tattoo on his forearm.

He wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for Deadlock anyway. At least... that’s what Jesse kept telling himself. Got to travel the world, fight bad guys...

...Maybe they were the bad guys. Letting out a deep huff of a breath, he dropped the towel into the laundry basket on the way by, heading back out to the clothes he laid out, pulling on his underwear and pants. He deliberately left his pants unbuttoned, taking his short-sleeved button up into the bathroom. It was gingerly hung over a towel rack as he cleaned up - brushing his hair, fixing up his beard, and brushing his teeth. His routine had been interrupted over the past day, so at least he could try to make up for it.

Satisfied, he shrugged on, buttoned up, and tucked in his shirt as he went back out to get his belt on - he sat to pull his socks on, then his gloves were next. He stood to slip his coat on, tucking both his knife and his revolver into the inner pockets. Moving back to the bed, he opened the hat box and put the hat within on his head. Everything he didn’t need - toiletries, chargers, what have you - were either stuffed in his suitcase or backpack and tucked into a corner. He had the room for three more days, just in case. But he was anxious. He wanted this over with. The sense of dread that filled him whilst getting ready had consumed him entirely, causing his hands to tremble slightly as he fit his boots over his dark jeans.

He patted himself down - phone, check. Gun, check. Knife, check. Room key, check. Hat, check. Liiiiife scanner, where was it. He hurredly pulled off his boots and dug into his backpack, finding the palm-sized device hidden away. Life scanner, check.

Pulling on his boots again, he left without a second thought, anxiously ‘bouncing’ while he was waiting in the elevator. When he left, he walked with purpose - there was a network of alleyways not far from his hotel outside of Shimada “territory.” As he understood it, a large part of the eastern side of Tokyo was under their control - with little pockets of other gangs hidden away from the main streets.

He found himself, yet again, at the door of a dingy-looking izakaya, tucked away between a cluster of apartment buildings. Bracing himself, he opened the door and stepped in; he was immediately greeted with the smells of oil, tobacco, and alcohol, and the sight of a bar straight out of some sort of futuristic sci-fi novel.

There was no overhead lighting to speak of, strips of light running horizontally all around the bar, with floor-to-ceiling vertical strips of light that illuminated the booths to his left that went into the floor and under his feet to provide lighting all over the bar’s solitary tables to his right. It wasn’t a particularly busy night, with one patron sitting in a booth with his head in his arm and the neck of an empty bottle gripped in his left hand. Finally the sound of music came to him - soft, but thrumming, almost hypnotizing him; Jesse was sure if he had come later in the evening with a party of people, it would be a more pleasant place to be.

Approaching the bar, he leaned in to speak quietly with the light-strip lined omnic bartender. When the words “Hanzo Shimada” left his mouth, the omnic fumbled with the glass in their hand and let out a robotic shushing noise. He saw their head drift slightly to the disheveled-looking human resting in one of the booths, then back to him. There was fear to how it was standing, how it clutched the glass but didn’t break it.

Tipping his hat, he stepped away from the bar and gently nudged the stranger with a hand. He blinked, only to feel pain around his wrist, and his gaze locking onto dark, cold eyes.

[dangerouslyclassyhottub]

Chapters: 14/? Fandom: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Rodimus/Thunderclash, Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet Characters: Hot Rod | Rodimus | Rodimus Prime, Thunderclash (Transformers), Drift | Deadlock, Ratchet (Transformers) Additional Tags: Foreplay, Vaginal Fingering, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Multiple Orgasms, Body Worship, Developing Relationship, Insecurity, intimacy issues, Consent, Large Insertion, Size Difference, Size Kink, Fluff and Angst, roddy is very close to his amica, Amica Endurae, talks of polyamory, thunderclash being smitten as hell, Booty Calls, Porn with some plot, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Breeding Kink, Cunnilingus Summary:

After sharing Rodimus’ heat with him, Thunderclash didn’t expect their interactions in the day-to-day to change. Especially considering the thinly veiled distaste the red mech harbored for him. Rodimus had his reasons for it, Thunderclash was sure of it, but it didn’t make it sting any less when the speedster gave him the cold shoulder.

Thunderclash is in for the surprise of his lifecycle when Rodimus approaches him with a proposition that is likely too good to be true. But will Rodimus leave him spark-broken?

Explicit in future chapters.

Whoops, almost for got to post this here. Ch 14 is up.

Currently writing angst. Enjoy this fluff while it lasts.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: Voyager Season 2 (6 of 7)

Here’s the penultimate round of episode reviews from Voyager’s second season, which includes splitting ships and crew members, annoying child actors and a guest appearance in one episode by Michael McKean.

Episode 21: Deadlock

Plot (as given by me):

While Ensign Wildman goes into labour and finally gives birth to her baby, which turns out to be a girl, Voyager detects that they’re entering an area of space that may be the heart of Vidiian territory.  To avoid detection, they alter course to go through a plasma drift.  As they exit the plasma field, the warp engines stall.  To try and maintain power, Lt. Torres agrees to use proton bursts, but then such bursts begin hitting Voyager from an unknown source, causing massive ship-wide damage.

 Efforts to protect Voyager from further damage fail, and as more of the ship is damaged, crew members are injured, Ensign Kim is sucked out into space and Ensign Wildman’s baby dies due to damage to the sickbay system.  In addition, Kes disappears through a spatial rift when running to aid Lt. Torres and Lt. Hogan.  Torres reports there is a breathable atmosphere on the other side of the rift, then leaves to get Hogan to sickbay.  Moments later, the bridge catches fire, and as Captain Janeway leaves the bridge, she sees a ghost image of another bridge crew.  At the same time, another Voyager that’s in perfect shape is seeing a similar ghost image on its bridge.

 It is soon discovered that passing through the plasma field has caused all of the matter on Voyager, its hull, crew and so on, to be duplicated on a different phase variance to the original ship. However, anti-matter was not duplicated, which resulted in the power loss and need for proton bursts to sustain power. Unfortunately, only one Voyager began that process, damaging its counter-part in the process.  The Janeway on the undamaged ship orders their proton bursts halted and makes contact with the other ship to try and co-ordinate an attempt to fuse the two ships back into one.

 The fusion attempt fails, so the Janeway from the intact Voyager returns with that ship’s Kes to work out a solution.  Her counterpart decides that destroying the more damaged vessel is the only viable option, but once everyone is back on their relevant ships, the Vidiians locate Voyager.  With the ship in flux, it cannot raise a defence, but only the undamaged Voyager is boarded.  Realising she can’t hold the Vidiians off, that ship’s Janeway sends the surviving Ensign Kim over to the damaged Voyager with Ensign Wildman’s baby, then sets the self-destruct.  As a result, the damaged Voyager survives while the other Voyager and the Vidiians are destroyed, and all previous fatalities are effectively reversed.  As repairs get underway, Ensign Kim struggles to reconcile the perceived differences he’s now aware of.

Review:

As a rule, I tend to take Trek episodes like ‘Deadlock’ that fail to sport character development or issue exploration and tear them to shreds for doing so, then hand down a low score.  However, this episode is remarkably less hollow than most other Trek episodes in this vein.  The concept of the duplication isn’t exactly scientifically sound, given that it violates laws of conservation for matter and energy alike, but then this is the world of warp speed and transporters, so we’re left to marvel at it for what it is, which is a very interesting bit of TV dealing with the fairly unique idea of not only duplicating the whole ship and crew, but doing so without undermining either one by having them be evil or something.

 As a result, we get an interesting episode, but at times it kind of undercuts its own stakes.  The Wildman baby initially not surviving was a great moment, but then it’s undercut by the pseudo-death of Harry, and in the end the solution almost becomes formulaic to keep the main cast together.  I think TV shows need to realise they need to avoid killing off main characters mid-season unless they mean for the death to stick.  As a rule, TV shows don’t change their main cast line-ups mid-season, so the more this is adhered to and main characters are killed off only temporarily mid-season, the easier it is for audiences to not take those deaths seriously, which undermines whatever emotional stake the audience has in the outcome.

 Of course, there’s then the matter of debating which Voyager was the original, which was the copy, etc.  Bottom line, it doesn’t matter; it was a good episode that did remarkably well for a hollow piece of Trek lore.  For me, it earns 8 out of 10.

Episode 22: Innocence

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Tuvok crash-lands on a moon along with Ensign Bennet. Bennet does not survive and his remains are stored in a containment field in the damaged shuttle. Tuvok discovers three children, Tressa, Elani and Corin. They tell him the craft they were on also crashed, killing the adults. They convince him other members of their race, the Drayans, mean to do them harm. Tuvok helps the children elude a search party. Later, when the danger passes, they behave as children normally would, getting into things they should not and asking incessant questions as Tuvok tries to contact his ship.

 Meanwhile, Captain Janeway has been making first contact with the Drayans, who are called away by an emergency and ask Voyager to leave their system. Janeway initially agrees, but is forced to stay when Tuvok’s shuttle doesn’t return and can’t be contacted. The leader of the Drayans, Alcia, contacts Voyager to say they have found the shuttle and the crewman should be removed as soon as possible. The planet is sacred to the Drayans and their presence desecrates it.

 Tuvok's efforts fail as two of the children, Elani and Corin, vanish in the middle of the night. Captain Janeway and Paris take a shuttle down to the surface while being pursued by other Drayans, who do not wish the shuttle to sully the sacredness of the moon. Soon, a confrontation occurs between the aliens and the Voyager crew. The crew believe the aliens mean to harm the last child, until it is finally explained that they were not children at all, but actually confused Drayans at the end of their life; their species ages in reverse.

 Tressa recalls the truth about her circumstances. With Alcia's permission, Tuvok promises to stay with Tressa to the end.

Review:

Apparently, this episode was meant to be character development for Tuvok by showing his skills as a father with a group of child-like aliens.  That side of the episode is largely lost on me because the children were so incredibly annoying at times that I frequently fast-forward parts of this episode to avoid those scenes.  The fact that the main plot is thus partly omitted because you’re having to skip huge chunks of scenes just goes to show why this one is nowhere near a top scorer.  It’s also disappointing considering the main child, Tahj Mowry, once headlined a Disney channel sit-com from my youth called Smart Guy, in which he was nowhere near as annoying.

 The episode apparently tried to develop this basic concept into something Trek by suggesting at the end that Drayans age in the opposite direction to humans, reverting to a child-like state physically as they get older.  This then creates possible parallels to the mental challenges faced by elderly people suffering from dementia, but this idea of old age and the mental difficulties that can coincide with it being a “second childhood” are out-dated, not to mention potentially a bit insulting.  Overall, it’s simply not a great episode, save for showing remarkable restraint on Tuvok’s part; I can never understand how he’s not going for a phaser (on stun, of course) over how the ‘children’ in this episode behave at times.  Of course, that’s why I prefer to remain an uncle and avoid parenthood; it’s not my cup of tea and never will be.  For me, this episode racks up only 4 out of 10.

Episode 23: The Thaw

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Voyager discovers a planet that nineteen years before suffered a major ecological disaster. The crew finds a set of stasis pods containing five of the planet's inhabitants; two are dead from heart attacks, and the other three should have been reawakened already. Since the planet has recovered from the disaster, Captain Janeway decides to revive the other three, but the crew cannot wake them, their brains tied to a central computer connecting all the pods. B'Elanna Torres and Harry Kim volunteer to occupy the other pods and be connected to the central computer.

 They find themselves experiencing a virtual reality, a strange, dark circus-like atmosphere. A sadistic clown appears to lead the group of computer-generated characters, attempting to bring the new arrivals to play. Torres and Kim learn from the aliens that the virtual reality was intended to make a utopia based on their thoughts, but grew on their fears instead and gained the power to induce death. Torres makes a deal with the clown to leave stasis to explain the situation to Voyager, leaving Kim and the aliens behind as hostages.

 The clown, while waiting, prepares to torture Kim. Just as the clown is about to slice him with a scalpel, his hand is stopped by The Doctor, who as a hologram is immune to the simulation's powers. The Doctor explains that Janeway is prepared to provide the clown a simulated brain in exchange for Kim and the aliens. However, the clown reads from his captives' minds that a simulated brain will not be the same as a real one, and refuses. Before the Doctor returns to report to Janeway, one of the aliens provides a subtle hint of how to dismantle the computer system.

 With this information, Torres begins to shut down the simulation. The clown notices the deception as elements of the program are removed, and kills the alien that gave the hint. Janeway stops Torres before the clown takes another life. The Doctor, after communicating with the crew, informs the clown that Janeway will offer herself as a brain for the system in exchange for the remaining hostages. The clown agrees, and soon Janeway appears in the simulation while the remaining hostages are freed. Too late, the clown realizes that Janeway too is a hologram, her mind only minimally connected to the system. With no living being left connected, the simulation begins to disappear. As the clown fades away, the Janeway hologram tells him that in the end, fear wants to be defeated.

Review:

When it comes to films, guest actor Michael McKean is someone I’ve enjoyed in at least two feature films; Clue and Short Circuit 2.  As such, this episode sticks out in my mind just for him being in it, and he gives a pretty good performance in a good episode with an interesting premise.  Ultimately, it’s a sort of exploration of fear, acknowledging its positives while also recognising and combating its potential to hold us prisoner.  It’s a smart way to do this kind of emotional exploration, because it doesn’t fall victim to the foolish fallacy that there are emotions that are inherently bad or good in and of themselves.  All emotions are simple tools for working out if our lives are going ok or not, and only become negative when we allow certain emotions too much free reign.

 The episode also touches on the potential failings of virtual environments depending on reading our thoughts, but this is not an original concept.  At the very least, it goes back to the novel ‘Better Than Life’, the second novelisation of the British sci-fi sit-com Red Dwarf.  In ‘Better Than Life’, the Red Dwarf crew try to escape a virtual landscape based on their own psyches, and just like in this episode I’m reviewing, it’s a landscape spoiled by the subconscious mindset of at least one of the participants. In that sense, how the clown manifestation of fear comes about in this episode is identical, and considering that dividing the mind into things like conscious and subconscious is more about giving the abstract a form instead of literal truth, it’s also an inevitable flaw in such technology.  Bottom line, don’t plug your brain into anything that relies on neural feedback to define your experience.

 So, unoriginality aside, this is a decent issue episode, albeit quite a creepy one.  Honestly, I could see McKean playing Batman villain the Joker in the same way he played the clown character in this one and being totally on-point. For me, the end score is 9 out of 10.

Episode 24: Tuvix

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Lt. Tuvok and Neelix are sent to collect botanical samples from a class-M planet. When beamed back aboard Voyager, the two men and the Orchidaceae they collected are merged at the molecular level to become a single lifeform which names himself Tuvix (Wright). After ruling out transporter malfunction, the crew discovers that when demolecularized, the genetic material of the alien orchids acted as a symbiogenetic catalyst and is the culprit for the combination of the two crewmembers. Unfortunately, the process cannot be reversed, and Tuvix is accepted as a member of the crew with the rank of lieutenant, functioning as chief tactical officer in Tuvok's stead.

 Kes reacts poorly to Tuvix as his existence deprives her of both Tuvok and Neelix, her mentor and boyfriend respectively. Her displeasure lessens over the course of the episode, but never completely goes away. Captain Janeway accepts Tuvix in his role as an excellent chief tactical officer and "an able advisor, who skillfully uses humor to make his points". Tuvix himself, having the combined memories and personalities of his constituents, melds the previously intractable qualities of both and improves upon them, flexing either muscle as the situation requires: "Chief of security or head chef, take your pick!"

 Two weeks after the accident, the Doctor develops a contemporary equivalent to barium sulphate radio-contrasting using a custom radioisotope with which he can identify the disparate DNA of the two original crewmen and use the transporter to disentangle them. However, Tuvix denounces the procedure; he argues that he has rights and to restore the two lost crewmen would require his execution. After discussing the situation with Commander Chakotay, Kes, and Tuvix himself, Janeway ultimately decides to proceed with the separation, acting in absentia to protect the rights of the two constituent men. Tuvix makes a final emotive plea for support from the crew, but finds no supporters. After the Doctor refuses to take Tuvix's life in compliance with the medical precept of doing no harm, Janeway performs the procedure herself and succeeds in restoring both Tuvok and Neelix.

Review:

Apparently, this is one episode that’s highly debated among Trek fans, and on a personal note, it’s been inspiration for me when wondering what I might do if I found a magic genie.  At times, I have honestly considered the idea of creating a Tuvix-like hybrid of attractive women I know, albeit using genie-created copies instead of the originals so no one has to ‘die’ for the gestalt entity to live.  Much like the previous episode, ‘Tuvix’ also treads ground trodden by the Red Dwarf franchise, as they had their own versions of gestalt entities in both the TV series and the novels.  Likewise, the combiner teams of the Transformers tread the same general concept, but in their case the combining and disassembling is a matter of course, unlike in this episode or the Red Dwarf lore.

 Ultimately, they key point to remember when reflecting on this episode and debating it is that, as with Kim supposedly dying in ‘Deadlock’, the ending was more or less pre-determined because the situation involved main cast characters.  TV shows will generally maintain their established ‘status quo’ of each season from start to finish and only shake things up between seasons, so there was no chance the Tuvix hybrid would be a permanent fixture.  As a result, someone was always going to have split Tuvix back into the constituent main characters that made him in the first place.  There was no other outcome possible, or at least likely, so any moral right or wrong is rendered moot by this inescapable, inevitable reality.

 Of course, the episode doesn’t make any judgements itself; it shows both sides of the argument, then Janeway making a decision and carrying it through, creating what many consider the first ever execution in Trek history.  However, the reality is it’s a no-win situation.  Keep Tuvix together, Tuvok and Neelix have effectively died.  Split him in two and Tuvix dies; it’s ultimately a case of ‘the needs of the many outweighing the needs to the few’.  This applies not just in terms of Tuvok and Neelix outnumbering their composite form, but they also have longer lives and more relationships of different kinds to consider and honour.  The simple reality is that in the grand scheme of things Tuvok and Neelix were always going to be coming back and Tuvix would never be a permanent addition.  For that to work, you’d need to rip off DC Comics’ Firestorm character, and then you’re really being unoriginal.

 So, in terms of the quality of the episode, where does it land for me?  Well, it’s a decent episode with a great premise, but do I consider it by any means a top scorer?  Frankly, no, but it comes nearer than most.  I give it 9 out of 10; if the episode had used guest characters established over a few episodes for less real-world necessity to do a split, I’d have given it more just for making the ending a genuine choice instead of a double-bind.

[notwhelmedyet]

Drift’s Life Story, In Order (aka all of the Observing Drift flashback scenes in chrono order)

(Complete - All Drift pov scenes added through CH 9)

Please. Don’t read this in this order before you try reading Observing Drift. The order the flashbacks occur in that story shapes the flow of each chapter and I worked hard to delay and space out reveals.

if you search the string ‘later - CH’ you’ll hop to the next scene

Eras (search ** to skip ahead): Early Life, CC Quarter, Dead End, Assassin, Deadlock, Circle of Light, Autobot Drift, Lost Light

tbh, I’m doing this so I can check Observing Drift for chronological consistency across scenes to do one last final edit (someday. in theory. it hasn’t happened yet.) but maybe some of you would like to read in this order.

** Drift’s Early Life (Racer Drift)

Earliest - CH2

He was nothing but the cold. The cold pulsed at the core of him. The only thing that was real. It was a moment that lasted, forever, without end.

But then something burning dripped inside. That liquid drop of fire traced a path from above the cold, down and around, sliding faster and faster till it pooled at the end of the path. Unable to go farther. Another drop burned and followed the first, then another. Another. The drips joined together to become a flow. It lit up pathways unexplored, mapping out the shape of his body. All the while, the cold began to thaw, warming till it was the flame and the fuel was merely tepid by comparison.

The slow start of his fuel pump startled him, but it's rhythmic push-pull of fuel through his lines soon became familiar.

He didn't yet have words with which to wonder what he was, or to be terrified at the dark and the loneliness.

He became more and more aware of his body, of the clutch of his spark on his frame. It became his world in that time.

Then a light appeared. Not an all-encompassing light, but a single distinct point, a blue dot. His spark leapt in excitement.

Then the dot disappeared. And he, with no words yet to express it, did feel the terror of loneliness.

The dot reappeared, along with a sound. Then another dot, with a new sound. They multiplied again and again, each with a different tone. Then they began to disappear, but each light lost was represented by a tone he half remembered from before. It was counting for him. His voxcoder not yet online, but he thought the next sound as the light blinked out.

There was a warm rush of pleasure, tingling down from around his head to his spark. When he recovered from the shock he realized the lights were waiting for him, no longer steadily disappearing. Hesitantly, he thought of the next tone. The corresponding light disappeared and the shiver of pleasure returned.

They counted together, he and the lights, until counting was no longer a challenge. Next the lights began to present shapes, again with sounds. Naming concepts. Building language. Once he could understand these, the pictures began to move and interact, forming scenes. The voice talked over these, narrating as they happened. He was lost in the jumble of thoughts and concepts, but slowly, little patterns emerged. That was the word they used to greet one another. That was the way they gestured when being introduced, and the sounds that followed, were they ways of designating individual beings?

As soon as the words were his, he asked the lights. "Who are you?"

"This is a simulation. It is intended to teach you how to be a person. Once you know all you need to know to exist, you will come online."

He did not yet understand all of those words. But on the third asking, he did.

"Who am I?" he asked.

"Your designation is Drift. Please refocus on the lesson. We are learning how to represent our thoughts through physical script, such that it may be read."

"Why?"

"In order to store information such that it can be encoded without transmission of direct thoughts, with a minimal loss of precision. There is a wide series of glyphs used to represent-"

The lights went out.

"Simulation?" he said, thinking the name with as much strength as he could. There was no answer. He repeated the call, trying to infuse as much of his confusion and fear as he could. The simulation had seemed to want him to not be afraid. It had comforted him and answered his questions.

And now that it was gone, Drift realized that he had loved it.

He hung there, alone in his mind, with only the gentle flow of fuel in his lines to reassure him that time had not stopped. Panic rose up within him and snapped at his spark.

I must remain calm. There was nothing in his mind but him, spinning, wheeling, lost. Someone must have been here to begin the simulation. They will soon realize that something has gone wrong and they will make it better. Lost, he fixated on the pulse of his fuel pump. It kept a steady beat, a beat the resonated through his whole body. He began to count, focusing on the ebb of the fuel line at the base of his neck.

Seven thousand, two hundred and twelve. Seven thousand, two hundred and thirteen. Seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen. Seven thousand, two hundred and fifteen. Seven thousand, two hundred and sixteen. Seven-

"Alright, readout says this one's done. Bring him up," A voice boomed, real in a way the voice of the simulation had never been. Lights appeared and then congealed into a scene of recognizable shapes.

Two people stood in front of him. One was short and blocky and red. A post-natalist, he recognized from the insignia. He was holding up a datapad which was connected via a series of wires to someplace to the left of Drift's optics, which he could not turn his head to see. Text flashed by on the datapad as the post-natalist squinted to see it. Behind him was a large grey jet, with black wingtips. He stood watching the proceedings with his hands on his hips, tapping one pointed foot impatiently. "This is taking all day," he grumbled.

The post-natalist looked over his shoulder at the jet, expression inscrutable behind his faceplate. "You are lucky I had time to do all the officiating in one day. You do yourself no favors by rushing things, Naucratis." He turned back to Drift. "Welcome. I have to run through some preliminary questions before you take your citizenship exams, for my records. What is your designation and batch number?"

"My-" Drift stopped, startled by his own voice. It wasn't how he'd been imagining it in his head at all. The post-natalist swirled his hand in a circle, urging him to continue. "My designation is Drift of Rodion. What is a batch number?"

"It was covered in your training module," he said, lifting up his datapad and tapping at the screen.

"The simulation cut off," Drift said, trying to be helpful.

"Slag, did it get corrupted? I am sorry, Naucratis, this is highly unusual."

The post-natalist climbed up on the stepladder beside Drift's slab and reached up above his eyes, planting one hand firmly on Drit's head while pulling with the other. Drift's optics widened, but that seemed to be the only autonomous control he had and he couldn't thrash away from his grip. With a soft schlict of metal on metal, something slid free. The post-natalist waved a data stick in his hand. "I'm sorry about the inconvenience, Naucratis. I'll load up a new training module, no charge for the extra hours."

"Wait," Drift said. "I don't want-"

"You can talk when you're done," Naucratis said as the post-natalist reached back up and slid a new data stick into the port above his eyes.

Everything cut off. The sensations on the outside of his frame, his optics, his audials, everything. He was again alone in the blackness.

Then a light appeared. A single distinct point, a blue dot.

Later - CH3

"What is this?" Drift asked, optics wide. The noise of the competitor's tent was overwhelming and he was doing his best to stick to Courser's side like a limpet. Courser had done all this before, but this was Drift's first big race. To add to the general feeling of overstimulation, people kept whirling about and touching them, measuring them and thrusting things into their hands. Drift was now clutching a tall glass of hot pink liquid which he had no idea what he was meant to be doing with.

"It's energon. You're supposed to drink it," Courser said, taking a sip. "It's the good stuff. A slow release fuel blend to last you through the race."

"Drink it?" Drift said skeptically. "Why would you drink energon? It goes in through your fuel port."

"It does when you're recharging. If you drink it it hits your systems faster," Courser said. Then he shrugged. "I think. That's what Deviton told me at my first race. But he could have been making it up. Drink up, Drift. It's good."

Hesitantly, Drift lifted the straw up to his lips and pulled a sip of energon into his mouth. It hit his glossa and lit it on fire, chemo-receptors lighting up his brain with a wash of unknown sensations. He was so startled he almost forgot to swallow.

"Good, isn't it?" Courser said, chuckling. "Oh man, your face! I'm sorry, I just had to surprise you."

"What is that?" Drift said, holding the glass up to stare at it.

"That's what good energon tastes like, Drift. Keep going, we've only got ten minutes before they start pulling people out for weighing."

Drift took another taste. Now that he was expecting it, the wave of sensations didn't startle him. He tried to file each little bit of the taste away in his processor to remember for the future. He liked it, he decided.

"Drift!" Courser whispered, grabbing his arm.

Drift nearly stabbed himself in the face with his own straw and swatted Courser's arm away. "What?" He asked the orange and red bot.

"Blurr's here," Courser whispered, nodding across the tent at a small blue bot with a huge entourage.

"That's Blurr?" Drift asked. "The Blurr?"

"Yeah," Courser murmured, sighing. "That's him."

Across the tent, Blurr gracefully sat on a berth and let his team fiddle with tires and mill about him with polishing cloths and reports, seemingly unfazed. Unfazed, but shockingly normal. The way Naucratis talked about him, Drift had been imagining someone more than Cybertronian. A demi-god or, more like, an agent of Mortilus.

Their goal was to win races, of course. Winning races brought in prize money, which kept them all fed and Naucratis happy. Winning any race was good. But nobody won the big races except Blurr. He was their ultimate adversary.

"We should go talk to him," Drift said.

Courser spun to look at him. "What?"

"We should go wish him a good race." Drift sucked up the last of his drink, lingering for a moment on the last regretful slurp, pulling up air. Then he set the empty glass on a one of the waiting carts, grabbed Courser's glass and did the same. "Come on!"

"We can't just go over there," Courser said, but he didn't pull away when Drift grabbed his hand. "We're supposed to stay in section AQ until our race numbers are called."

"Just for a minute," Drift promised. "Have you ever met him?"

"Blurr? No, of course not. I've raced on the same track as him," Courser said, puffing up his chest. "But I haven't talked to him."

"Wimp," Drift said, pulling them through the crowd. They wound their way around medics and pit teams and a few reporters; camerabots running after their yammering announcers. The energon is great, but the atmosphere could use some work. I can't see how anyone is supposed to focus with all this chaos.

Blurr seemed to be doing fine, maintaining some quiet conversation with a tall bot at his side and taking no notice of the maelstrom centered around him. Drift stepped forward into that circle and a security bot grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Please step back into your designated zone," the bot said in a low voice.

"I just wanted to wish him luck in the race," Drift protested.

"We can go, it's no trouble—come on Drift," Courser hissed, tugging his hand back.

"Who's that?" Blurr asked, peering over the security bot's shoulders.

"Just some of the other racers," the bot said, waving his hand dismissively. "Kids."

"Well, why not meet the competition?" Blurr said with a roll of his shoulders, then gently moved the bot out of the way. "Hey there, and who are you all? I'm Blurr."

"Of course you're Blurr," Courser blurted out. He froze and then clamped his hands over his mouth.

"That's Courser," Drift said. "And I'm Drift. We just wanted to wish you all speed on the road ahead." He jostled Courser with his shoulder, a little hey there, this is your chance nudge.

"It's an honor to meet you," Courser mumbled.

"Well, I'm just here to have a nice time and and beat all of your afts on the track," Blurr said with a smile. "Maybe I'll see you in the winner's tent after the race."

"CONTESTANTS 138 AND 139, PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR DESIGNATED ZONE." A voice droned over the intercom. Drift and Courser exchanged a glance.

"You two, I presume," Blurr said. "Go on, they get all fussy when you're out of place."

"Of course. It was...thank you," Courser said, dragging Drift back into the crowd. The moment they were out of earshot he pulled Drift into a hug and whispered, "I can't believe we met Blurr! Thank you for being so stupid and impulsive. I would never have done that."

"Now all we have to do is beat him," Drift said.

"Pfft, sure. Sure we will," Courser said. "You're just saying that because you've never seen Blurr race."

"Well if you paid attention to your own game you wouldn't have seen him race either. And then maybe you'd suck less." Drift said.

"Oh, you did not just say that."

"I'm going to race your wheels off and then I'm going to beat Blurr. Wait and see."

Later - CH2

He had never been so tired. His exhaustion had slowed him to a crawl. The posts at the inner curves of the track no longer blurred from the speed. He felt as coordinated as a newframe, worse than when he'd first gone round this track, wobbling and bumping into the holo-obstacles.

But he couldn't stop. Naucratis only had three spots in the upcoming Polyhex endurance rally and he managed a cohort of six bots. Drift needed to be one of the three.

If Naucratis were merely pragmatic instead of cruel, he would have selected them based on their race-times for the first five hundred laps. Instead he'd set them out on the track, last three bots moving won.

He knew Dodge had already given up. Evas had looked like he was flagging, but he didn't know if he was still going or not. Either way, he'd seen Courser, Ibis and Deviton up ahead, which meant he couldn't stop now.

Whoever was selected was going to be pulled away from the group for intensive training. Which meant good food, a real oil bath, tire replacement, one-on-one training, a private berth in the competitor's villa. Maybe Naucratis would even pay up for a frame massage, which Drift had gotten to experience only once. It had been transcendent. Being a contender was the route to a good life for the next month.

But even more importantly - the three of them that were left behind? They were going to be stuck inside, bouncing off the walls of the stable. Naucratis was leaving the city for the race and, since he didn't trust his racers as far as he could throw them, they would end up locked in. Drift shuddered. He couldn't do that again.

Someone lapped him, throwing up a cloud of dust as they sped by. Drift jerked out of the way, nearly colliding with one of the pylons. He squinted, trying to focus in on the retreating figure. Blue frame, high wheels, had to be Ibis. Slag; that didn't tell him anything.

A crackle of static burst across his view. The holo-obstacles bent weirdly, as if refracted across the static. Drift gave himself a wider berth as he scooted around them, unsure which half of the view was accurate according to the simulation. He'd never been so tired that the HUD simulator failed before. New personal record.

He slogged through another two laps, the refraction around the static growing stronger and stronger. He'd tell Naucratis about it after the trial, it was a very irritating simulator problem. The ache of his empty fuel tank had turned into a pounding feeling of pressure that radiated all over, sort of like the feeling of being hit upside the head with a shovel.

A low obstacle around the corner nearly spun him out. Rather than try and manage the skid, he transformed back into root mode and rolled over his shoulder and back up to his feet. It was a favorite trick of his - transforming wasn't against the rules for these kinds of rally races, though it was often considered overly showy. It had taken a full night of practicing to get the transition in and out of his alt mode smooth, but he could sprint into the transformation now. Picking up speed, he activated his t-cog and leapt forwards to get in position for his wheels to hit the ground smoothly.

His t-cog jammed. Drift had a brief moment to panic, seeing the ground rushing up at him. Then the line of static crackled and his vision cut out, along with the sounds of the racetrack, the HUD monitoring program and his chrono updates. He tried to curl up into a ball, but his body wasn't responding at all.

He hit the ground with a burst of pain, but after a moment, that fizzled too. He was just a body, isolated in space.

The awareness that something had gone horribly wrong was accompanied by the realization that he had just lost the trial. Hopefully he was the third bot down and the other three would stop before one of them ran over his body, lying helpless on the racetrack. Primus, what was wrong with him? He needed to get off the track.

He focused all of his awareness in on his left arm, which had landed sprawled away from his body. He would move it first. He knew how it lay, the curve of each finger, the angle of his wrist. But now he was unsure how he'd ever moved his arm. He just thought and it moved; it wasn't something that required conscious control. He strained against the immovable object his arm had become but, finally, gave up. There was no response.

Drift let himself panic for a bit. He deserved it. The actual odds of being run over were slim. Probably. Maybe. As long as nobody else had gotten so tired they were bumbling through the course bashing into things. So the odds of being run over were appreciable, but less than fifty percent. Even then, what if this was permanent? What if Naucratis noticed? What if-

Something moved his arm. It was sprawled out beside him but then lifted off the ground and bent in towards his chest. Drift couldn't feel their hands on him, but he could sense his other arm being curled in towards his chest and then the gyroscopic tilt as he was lifted up. Someone was carrying him. His legs jarred towards his body a regular rhythm, the walking person's pace.

It's okay. It's okay. They'll probably think you've fallen unconscious, unless this looks really weird from the outside. Passing out is probably a reasonable response to this scenario.

His legs stretched out again and his head fell back with a lurch. Back on the ground?

There was no further motion. They must have put him down, hopefully somewhere safe. Back in the stable. He and his cohort weren't exactly friends. They had to compete for the few slots Naucratis could get in each race. They lived together in a two-berth apartment beside the practice track; too little space and too little sleep. They all put up with Naucratis's whims and his compulsive secrecy and his constant complaints of 'so many Shanix wasted' whenever someone fell below his unseemly high standards. Drift wasn't friends with his cohort, but he did trust them.

Drift began to wonder, assuming that the condition would be temporary, if he couldn't force himself to fall into recharge in this state? He was so, so tired.

His arm wrenched violently upwards and then fell back down to the floor. There was breath and Drift had a moment to panic before his body crumbled around some point of impact he couldn't feel.

Primus. Someone was hitting him. His head snapped sideways, bouncing off his shoulder. He couldn't feel anything on the outside, but the energon line in his shoulder started bubbling out. Just a small leak, he was pretty sure, but it was hard to tell when all of his panicked focus was centered on that one point.

Someone stop him. Naucratis didn't want him dead. Once he realized Drift couldn't get up, he would stop. Maiming him would make him less useful. Someone stop him, please.

The next blow knocked him clear unconscious.

Later - CH2

Ibis shook his head. "Look, Drift, if he finds you passed out again we're all going to get in trouble."

"I'm not going to pass out," Drift said, lying. He wiped the energon off his face with one hand.

Ibis crossed his arms over his chest. "Drift."

Drift sighed. "I know. But what am I supposed to do? He's going to notice if I'm missing."

Ibis snorted and jammed his thumb at the door. "Naucratis? Yesterday he was so overcharged at practice I was shocked he didn't get run over. He's not going to do a count."

"I can make it through practice."

"Oh yeah?" Ibis said. He counted off on his fingers, "You're losing coordination, you admitted your vision his getting fuzzy and you've started slurring. That's all big-time fritz warnings, not just little space-out. I don't want to see him hurt you."

Drift looked around. The rest of the cohort was watching them from across the room, looking unfriendly. Ibis wasn't wrong. Naucratis did tend to freak out when Drift fritzed, though he was still convinced that Drift was merely falling into powersave mode. Drift hadn't trusted anyone enough to tell them he was conscious throughout the fritz. Most of all not Naucratis.

"Okay," he said. "We can try. But if he finds out, I don't want you taking responsibility, Ibis."

"He's not going to find you," Ibis said. "Like I said, he's not even going to notice you're gone. We'll come and get you at the end of the day."

Ibis climbed up on the recharge slab and started unfastening the monitor panel. Drift lurched over to help, using one hand on the berth to hold himself up. They lowered the panel onto the berth, revealing the compartment for energon cannisters behind. Drift considered the space. He could fit, but he was going to have to curl up around the central cannister like he was a snake to do it.

"We've got four minutes till his transit car arrives," Deviton said, pacing by the door.

"I'll give you a boost," Courser said, hurrying over.

"I can do it," Drift said, putting both hands on the berth and starting to climb up. His chin was still leaking from when he'd tripped over Ibis a few minutes earlier. A spatter of energon fell on the berth between his hands. His foot started to slip.

Ibis grabbed at his arms and Courser put his hands on Drift's hips. "We got you, Drift," Courser said. They lifted him up onto the berth beside Ibis and Ibis helped him crawl into the compartment behind the wall, moving his legs in and repositioning them until they could fasten the cover again.

"You don't have claustrophobia, right Drift?" Courser asked.

"Hope not," Drift said. His vision had started to crackle, but he turned his head to look around the pink glow of the space.

"We'll come get you right after," Ibis said. "Hopefully you'll be back to normal by then."

"Ibis?" Drift said. "Promise?"

"Right after," Ibis said. Drift couldn't see him around the energon cannisters, but he trusted Ibis was putting on his most trustworthy face just then. "Promise."

"Sorry about this, Drift," Courser said. "See you after practice."

They closed up the compartment behind them and the compartment went dark except for the pink glow suffusing the space.

Drift reached up to wipe at the cut on his chin and realized he couldn't reach. His arms were stuck underneath him. He hoped the glitch would hit soon. The feeling of energon slowly oozing down the side of his neck itched abominably.

Later - CH3

He didn't beat Blurr. Not in that first race, nor any of the ones that came after. And now that was never going to be something he had to worry about again.

The list of things to worry about was growing longer and longer by the minute.

A week ago, Deviton had beaten Blurr. Not in an actual race, just in an introductory heat to determine racing positions. And Blurr's manager, Rouen, had protested. The fact that Deviton had been created, crafted solely around the need to defeat Blurr personally was a violation of the Racing League's intent. Knock-offs should have their own league, in the interest of fairness. Naucratis had argued that no benefit had materialized for his knock-off racers - they lost just as often as forged racers. That they were, in fact, at a disadvantage since their sparks weren't real racing sparks.

He was, apparently, insufficiently persuasive. The racing league ruled that knock-offs weren't permitted as members, or in the races they administered. And so, abruptly, the cohort has learned three things: that not every bot had been built in a factory and fitted with a frozen spark, that those who had were inferior knock-offs of real Cybertronians, and that they were the knock-offs. And, at the same time, they lost their jobs.

There are bots in the world who Primus wanted to come into being. They are forged. Their sparks appear on the surface of Cybertron via the grace of God. They are harvested and nurtured and they grow to be real mechs. We were thawed into bodies assembled by an obsessive and eccentric hobbyist. The only one who's ever wanted us to exist was him.

Now they were six high fuel-consumption liabilities. They'd never been allowed a vidscreen in the stable; Drift now assumed that was because Naucratis hadn't wanted them to hear all of the coverage of knock-offs and put two and two together. But vidscreen or no, Drift knew there were ongoing fuel shortages. It had been the gossip at every race lately - would Rodion limit races due to the fuel shortages? They were extravagant at a time when others were going hungry. The racers had all claimed it would blow over soon, once production increased to account for the knock-offs. Drift had wondered at the time what the knock-offs were. But he'd been too afraid to ask.

And so, when Naucratis asked for him to volunteer for a street rally, he'd said yes. Any race that would take him. But sitting in the tent and waiting for the race to start, he was beginning to get cold feet.

There were vidscreens running in every corner of the tent, playing footage from old races. On the screen, two cars collided as they banked around the corner in a slow-motion crush of frames. The camera zoomed in to capture one of the bots attempting to transform to root mode, getting stuck halfway between because of his bent plating. He reached out his hands to the camera, crack in his frame revealing his spark pulsing beneath.

Drift tore his eyes away and surveyed the other racers. Bad paint jobs covering obvious weld lines. Bulky frames with wide shoulders and covered faceplates. Even the posters advertising the race had a fiery explosion plastered on it.

"Racer twelve?" The one attendant said, walking over with his datapad. "You're up for weighing."

Drift nodded and followed them to the medical back room.

Weighing was a standard race prep activity - that way the medics could know if you lost an unhealthy amount of fuel over the course of the race. It followed fueling, though Drift hadn't been offered any fuel out in the tent. Well, I refueled this morning. Probably better not, I'm not sure I'd want to taste fuel they distribute in a place like this.

The tech positioned him on the scale and stepped back, mumbling as he tapped through information on his data pad. The scale beeped and the tech frowned.

"You're over the weight limit for the lightweights," the tech said. "We're going to need to lose about a...about a fluid dram of fuel to make up for that."

Drift rubbed at his finial. "I always race lightweight. It's never been a problem before."

"Well, you've never raced at this race, have you?" The tech said, striding over to a cabinet where he could open drawers and slam them shut seemingly at random, looking for something. "You're too light for the mid-weight race and too heavy for the lightweight, so either we get you in compliance or you drop out."

Drift straightened up. They needed the Shanix. Next time they'd know that this race had weird restrictions. Deviton could give it a go. He was smaller than Drift.

"Okay, lay back on the berth," the tech said. "I'm going to strap you in so you don't wiggle about while I'm working."

Drift eyed the tech. What the frag does he need to tie you down for? Get out. They needed the Shanix. If they couldn't bring in money, Naucratis was going to abandon them. He hadn't said it, but Drift could feel the way the wind was blowing. He lay down.

He tensed at the straps tightening around his arms and legs, but it wasn't completely unreasonable. The tech was very small, the racers were, on the whole, a lot bigger. One of them could probably throw him across the room. The tech fitted a headrest so Drift couldn't turn his head. "Okay, good. Now, just relax. We're going to drain out a dram of fuel and then you'll be good to go," the tech said, holding up a coil of cabling. "Open your mouth."

"What." Drift clamped his mouth closed, teeth clacking together. Get out. Get out. Get out. Whatever is happening here is not okay.

"If we siphon out active energon your race performance is going to suffer," the tech said, rapping on Drift's fuel injection port. "Instead, we just insert a cable down into your fuel tank and pull out inactive energon. I know it sounds invasive, but it's a quick procedure and you hardly feel anything."

We need the money from this race. Drift wiggled his fingers helplessly and unclenched his jaw.

"Thank you," the tech said, both sets of eyes narrowing as he focused in on Drift. With one hand he threaded the cable in through Drift's teeth. It bumped over his glossa, sending impressions of something bitter and metallic shuttling directly to his brain. When it hit the back of his throat, Drift's eyes widened in unexpected panic. He hadn't realized he had sensors back there.

"Hey, just be patient. Takes a few tries to get it down the intake," the tech muttered. He bumbled around for a bit and then the cable slid in, passing beyond the point where Drift could sense it. Drift tried to say something in protest, but found that with the cable in his intake, the resonance of his vocoder was muffled to near silence. He watched the tech with wide eyes, feeling the cable sliding over his glossa and then disappearing beyond his sensornet, watching the cabling in his hands shorten.

At some indeterminable point later, the tech stopped and nodded. "That's the fuel tank then," he said. "I'll just hook this up to our catchment system." he knelt out of Drift's field of vision and Drift's tank churned as fuel began to flow the wrong way. "I'll be back in a few minutes once you're set," the tech said cheerily as he stood, wiping his hands off on his hips.

Drift tried to say something to the tech's retreating back, but no sound came out. Fuel tank reserves at 85% his HUD flashed. What was that in drams? He'd never measured his fuel in drams.

He lay there, tank churning, as his HUD slowly decremented his reserve percentage. Did he forget me? There was no way a dram was 30% of his reserves. Fuel tank reserves at 55%

There was something that was bothering him, but it was taking a long time to piece together. Something about the waiting room. A lot of things had bothered him about the waiting room, but there was something else about it nudging up against the edge of his subconcious.

No other lightweights.

There had been maybe three lightweight racers when Drift first walked into the tent with Naucratis and filled out the paperwork. But there should have been far more than four lightweights to make a race. There were nearly twenty heavies and a good number of middle-weights.

Fuel tank reserves at 30%

His vision was starting to go hazy. He bit down on the cable, but it didn't pierce the metal. He jerked at the restraints. Nothing budged. Frantically, he wrote out a message to Naucratis and the rest on his HUD and sent it via remote upload.

help. I think the race is a front for energon harvesters. I can't get out. back room, blue door, labeled 'medical examination'. help.

The technician wandered back in. "Well, that's weird. You should be very much unconscious by now, racer twelve." He grabbed a rolling stool and sat down, scooting along with his feet till he reached a drawer and fished out an even larger piece of cabling. "Don't worry, we're not going to kill you. The big guys just need the fuel more than you. They're what pull in the viewers. Once we've got you dry, we'll leave you for your master to pick up."

The technician clawed at Drift's intake port and snapped the cover open, inserting the cable with a ca-chunk of magnetic coupling. Drift thrashed weakly, scraping at the berth.

"Don't worry, kid," the technician said. He stood up, the pump beginning to pull energon out of Drift's lines. The technician put the stool away and grabbed his datapad, walking back to the doorway.

Drift watched his HUD turn red under the load of emergency warnings cluttering his vision.

"This is a learning experience, really," the technician said. "Trust your instincts next time."

Later - CH4

Drift awoke to Ibis leaning right in his face. Fritz was his first thought. Then his memory banks finished reloading and he remembered the technician at the race feeding a siphoning line down his intake and he convulsed, hands leaping unbidden to cover his face. He could still taste the cable in his mouth, stale energon and metallic tang twisted together and sickening.

"Woah, Drift, don't panic," Ibis said, laying a placating hand on his shoulder. "We've got you. Took some finding, but we've got you."

Drift looked down to see the emergency fuel injector in Ibis's hand, plugged into his chest intake.

"Yeah, buddy, we had to give you a bit of a boost. You were bled dry."

"Is he up?" Courser asked. "Naucratis was asking."

Drift let his head loll against the wall of the alley, turning to see the rest of his cohort huddled at the exit of the alleyway. They stood awkwardly, none of them making eye contact. "Aw, you all came to get me," he slurred. "You shouldn't have."

Ibis froze. "Naucratis wanted us to come," he said. "Can you stand?"

I could stand on four wheels, but two feet is pretty iffy. "I don't think so," he said.

"That's okay," Ibis said. "Just let your fuel pump circulate that and it'll come to you soon. He's up, but he's not 'up' up," he said to Courser.

"Got it," Courser said, turning to speak into a phone that Naucratis had apparently entrusted to him. He said something short, but Drift was still feeling pretty woozy and couldn't quite concentrate to pick up the words from so far away. Didn't matter anyway, it was a summons. That was clear in a few minutes when Naucratis swept into the alleyway.

"Drift," he said, peering down on Drift's crumpled form on the ground. "You're alive, I see."

"Yeah," Drift slurred. "Maybe don't try that race again."

"We won't," Naucratis said. "We're leaving town. Rodion and Ibex may be backwards concerning cold-construction, but not all the city-states are like that. We're going to take a shuttle and travel to Tarn and make a new start."

"Oh. That's smart," Drift said, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The technician had told him to trust his instincts, well, that would start right here. Every member of the cohort was acting like they were about to be shipped off to a penal colony, something had to be up. "When are we leaving?"

Naucratis looked up at the thin line of sky visible above alleyway, hands on his hips. "Funds are tight. I'm not going to be able to get payment for selling the practice track right away; I was counting for the winnings on this race to help pay our fare on the shuttle."

Great financial management. That was smart. Drift considered each of the bots of his cohort in turn, looking at the guilt engraved on their faces. Oh. "You're going to try and leave me behind? Because I got jumped at the race you stupidly spent our limited funds on paying the entrance fee for? Well, good luck with that. You can't separate us. These bots? They like me a lot more than they like you—and they trust me more than they have ever trusted you."

You could have heard a pin drop. He couldn't make them stay. But he could get them through the spark; make them swallow their own guilt like knives. He tried to make eye contact with each of them.

Courser ducked his head rather than meet his optics. The day we met Blurr you were so excited. You talked about it for weeks.

Deviton kept his gaze, inscrutable under his faceplate. We gossiped about Naucratis together after you'd won that race and come back with stories of other racers whose managers worked for them instead of the other way around. We both knew he was using us.

Dodge was hiding behind Courser's shoulder, body language curled small. I protected you from him. When you didn't measure up and he raged, I was always the first one to stand up for you.

Evas was holding Dodge's hand, looking anywhere but at Drift. Before Naucratis asked me to take this race, we'd talked in the night. You'd worried that he'd abandon us, that we'd have no way of supporting ourselves without him. We promised to sacrifice for the sake of the others, anything to keep us together. Were you lying to get me to volunteer for this race? Or was that promise only until it ceased to be convenient?

Ibis. You let him hurt you to keep me safe. When I first fritzed, you lost your place on the race in order to protect me. You were my only confidant. I was your only. We recharged together because you were afraid to go into the darkness alone. Drift reached out to grab Ibis' hand, still lingering on his chest. Ibis met his eyes, optics sparking. He didn't try to pull away.

"Drift, there's no need to act like an overly-dramatic sparkling," Naucratis said, still looking up into the distance. "We're not going to leave you here on the streets. We're going to drop you off at the Functionist center, you can get a job for a bit. When we're settled in and we've made a little money, we'll send for you."

After I defied you? Drift laughed, a bitter thing rising in his throat. "Do you believe that? Do any of you believe that?"

"Ibis. Get up," Naucratis ordered. "The difference between me and you, Drift? They may not like me—I understand that I can be...unapproachable at times. But I can offer them stability. You can offer them nothing."

Ibis pulled away. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Stay with me. Someone say you won't leave here without me. He pushed back his tears to build himself into something somber and unbreakable. "I forgive you," he found himself saying. I don't. But that forgiveness will burn them the hottest. "The next one of you he abandons, I hope you stand up for them."

The mech sat behind a desk so tall that Drift had to crane his neck to see him. Maybe there was a platform that raised him up? It was impossible to tell; perhaps he transformed into a streetlamp and his legs were just very, very long. Drift had seen more new alt-modes sitting on the doorstep of the job center waiting for it to open than he'd seen in the rest of his life till that moment. Racers were all fairly uniform, maintenance bots and reporters were predictable. Other than that, he could count the individual bots he'd met on a single hand.

None of the details of this bot's form told him anything – from the oblong head to the sharpened points of his long fingers, tapping on his elevated desk as he examined Drift's ID. The bot looked at the ID card, then stared at Drift, tipping his head to the left and then to the right. In an exaggerated pantomime, the bot looked between the card and Drift, back and forth.

"You're illegal," the functionist pronounced.

"I'm what?" Drift said.

"You shouldn't be in here," he said, typing something out behind his desk. "Rodion only authorizes seven frametypes for Colds. We only do placements for those seven. Whatever you are? Not legal. Hence, you are illegal."

"I'm a racing frame," Drift said.

"That's nice," the mech said, toneless. "I can't help you. I'm going to need you to report to the Cold-Constructed Quarter, it's a violation of city ordinances to have you taking up space at the counter when I could be serving the public."

Drift looked around. There was no one in the clinic. Which made sense, he'd been sitting on the doorstep all night waiting for them to reopen for the next day. You're a knock-off. There's no sense in arguing with him, you'll just make things worse. "I have no idea where that is," he said.

The bot peered down on him. "It's where you live."

"I don't think so," Drift said. "I lived in an apartment by the racing practice tracks until a few hours ago."

"Are you refusing to comply?" The bot asked.

"I'm telling you I don't know where this place is. What am I supposed to do there, if I'm not allowed to work?"

"Code Three-Seventeen, I've got a noncompliant knock-off who won't leave the premises," the bot said into a phone. Covering the reciever, he looked to Drift and said, "I am not legally allowed to help you here, please cease causing a disturbance."

"Disturbance? There's no one here!" Drift said, holding his arms out. He gesticulated at the entirety of the empty center.

There was a loud honking noise outside. Drift turned to look. There was a truck waiting on the street outside, gray and red detailing.

"That's your ride. Don't make the officer come and get you," the bot said, nodding at the truck.

"I do not need a police escort," Drift said. "I need directions."

The mech picked the phone back up. "Officer, you're going to need to come in here and escort it out, I think."

Drift hit the pavement and tumbled, throwing out his arms to skid to a stop. He turned to look back at the officer, still in truck mode. "Was that necessary?" He yelled, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. The wall between them was covered in signs. He'd never done much reading, not since his thawing simulation. No Exit. Well, hopefully that's a traffic indicator and not a prophesy.

The officer blared his horn and drove off.

Drift spat energon on the ground and stood shakily, wiping off his mouth with one hand. The world spun on a off-tilt axis. Riding in the back of a closed truck cab was more disorienting than he'd expected. The spinning street was empty, no shops with glass fronts near the ground level. No signs, no streetlights. It looked like a ghost town. Graffiti littered some of the shopfronts, slurs mostly. A few entreaties for them to 'go back', though where they were meant to go, Drift wasn't sure. They hadn't come from anywhere. They'd simply been made into being. Really, it was the fault of all those forged bots. If they hadn't wanted people, they shouldn't have made people.

He staggered towards the nearest wall, used it to steady him until his head found equilibrium. So this was where the knock-offs lived? Not such a bad place.

Fuel tank reserves at 0%

Slag. That emergency booster hadn't had as much of a kick as he'd expected. His vision smeared and he lay down to enjoy the cool pavement once again.

"Levy! One of your weird ones just got dropped off!" There was a voice calling from up in the sky.

"How do you know it's one of mine?" The answering voice was also from up above, but on the other side of the street. Their voices bounced back and forth above him in dizzying counterpoint.

"Got dumped on our doorstep and he's fainted. Oh, and, side note, I recognize him. One of those racers...Draft, maybe?"

"Drift? Oh man, I liked him. 's a shame we didn't find out there was a whole set of CC racers until after they were off the air. I'd have rooted harder for them-"

"Levy!" A third voice cut in. "Go down there and help the poor kid! Don't you two just sit up there gabbing! What is the CC Union coming to these days?"

"A minute, a minute, takes me awhile to get down the stairs with one leg, ya know."

Cool. They liked my racing. They're probably not coming down here to eat me. Or whatever it is knock-offs do. Since they're apparently not allowed to work. Slag, I don't want to become a cannibal.

** Drift in the CC Quarter

Later - CH3

"Your problem," Nimbus said, leaning over to wrap his arm around Drift's shoulder, "is that you've never developed your instincts. A little baby drinker like you shouldn't hang out in an oilhouse like this all by themselves. That's how you get in trouble."

Drift had been hesitant to give it a second go. His first time drinking had ended when he got himself thoroughly overcharged and challenged two military academy bots to a fist fight. Spindle had not been happy having to drag him back to the workshop in the haze of early morning. And then Drift had been so dizzy the next day he hadn't been able to work the looms, which meant a full day's work lost. Margins were tight and Spindle had really stuck his neck out taking him on. So he'd been hesitant.

But then Nimbus had swung by the workshop, sauntering in on his gawky legs and talking up their night out, draping himself over Drift's shoulders while he worked. And Drift had wanted. Spindle had laughed and told him to run along. "Bring him back in one piece," he'd warned Nimbus. "And don't you dare drag him to some protest and get yourselves arrested. He's my fastest worker."

"He's your only worker," Nimbus had said, rolling his eyes and fluffing his wings.

"Exactly. So keep an eye on him."

Nimbus appeared to have misheard that comment, because he'd been consistently keeping not only an eye on Drift but also a hand and usually an arm or two. Not that Drift minded. Nimbus was nice. And as a low altitude glider, he tended to run cold. When he wasn't flying, Nimbus was usually trying to drape himself over someone to steal their body heat. Drift could empathize; speedster frames were similarly heat efficient, though not to the same extent.

"I don't know, Nimbus, are you supposed to be the expert in this scenario?" Drift asked, batting at Nimbus's face. "You've never even gotten in a bar fight."

The glider reared back, wings ruffled, visor squinting in offense. "Never gotten in a barfight? Who has been slandering my name? Was it Levy?"

"I'm just winding you up," Drift admitted. "We all know you're trouble. Levy told me you were picketing last week, at the Rodion Functionist center."

"Well, when us Colds get equal rights I'll be eligible to join the aerialist corps," Nimbus said, batting at his straw until he got it facing the right side of the cup so he could get it in the gap of his faceplate.

"Do you figure that'll happen this century?" Drift asked.

"It had better. I'm going to starve before then if I can't get employment. Can you believe those freakin' slagging gearsticks sent me am official memo to tell me I was redundant. The whole weather monitoring crew. Redundant," he sneered. "Fragging unbelievable."

"And that was it? Just that you'd lost your job, nothing else?" Drift asked. When he'd lost the racing gig had made sense - the government had never set out to make racing Colds. He hadn't kept track of Naucratis, after, but he wondered if they'd ever arrested him for however he'd acquired those sparks.

But the government had ordered the production of the weather monitoring gliders. And then they mechanized their jobs away.

"They said that I could be fitted for a new frame," Nimbus said, jerking his head in a can you fragging believe these pricks? "A grounder frame. I stopped reading after that."

"They wanted to take your wings?" Drift said. He turned to run his hand over one of Nimbus's wings, blue paint with red lines pointing towards his wingtips.

"Apparently. Well, not this bot. I'm fly or die," Nimbus said. "Plus, they were going to charge me for the new frame. Was I supposed to be getting rich as a weather glider? Because I do not have four hundred slaggin' Shanix."

Drift spewed Engex onto the counter. "Four hundred Shanix?" He repeated, boggling.

"Uh-huh. Have you ever seen four hundred Shanix?" Nimbus asked.

Drift shook his head.

"Hey, Tapp, have you ever seen four hundred Shanix?" Numbus called to the bartender.

"Not from your cheap afts, I haven't," Tapp said. He pointed at the bar. "You two are cleaning that up before you're getting any more drinks."

Drift looked at the spray of Engex on the counter. "Sorry, Tapp," he said, setting his drink aside. Tapp came out to the workshop to help Spindle with the accounting some weeks; keeping bar in the knock-off quarter didn't exactly pay rent. He thought Drift was an actual sparkling, the way he talked to him sometimes.

"You gonna drink it?" Nimbus asked.

"Off the counter? The counter with thirty years of Engex dried onto it?"

"Additional flavoring. I'll take that as a no," Nimbus said, leaning over the counter and retracting his faceplate to expose his intake. With a woosh of suction, he sucked up a path through the spill. He sat back up and flared his intake suction playfully at Drift.

"You missed a bit," Drift said, poking at Nimbus's faceplate where a drip was running down his chin.

"Wanna get that for me?" Nimbus asked.

"You want me to get that?" Drift teased, poking his glossa out between his fangs.

"Yes." Nimbus locked eyes with him, suddenly serious. "I'd like that."

"Um, okay," Drift said. "I don't know if I'd like it like that. Aw shoot, it's going," he said. Slag it, deal with the consequences later. He leaned over and licked the drip of Engex of Nimbus's face, then pulled back, awkward.

"Hey, Drift," Nimbus said, holding up his hands. "Sorry. I didn't mean to come on all strong like that. I know you're not into me. I just want us to have fun tonight."

"Okay," Drift said. "That was kinda fun, though."

Nimbus snorted a laugh. "Drift, you are killing me. Okay. Let's clean this up and then I can show you some moves on the dance floor."

Nimbus sucked up the rest of the spill, deliberately getting his face all in the engex on the counter. He and Drift busted up laughing again and Drift went in for a lick.

"You two are fragging disgusting," Tapp said. "And Drift, for the record, you are definitely overcharged. I am watching you, Nimbus. Don't you dare take advantage."

"I'm not, Primus, why does everyone assume I'm a creep? And we're the same age."

"Drift was raised in someone's back closet and he doesn't know slag. He's basically a newframe." Tapp said.

"See, Drift, this is what I was talking about. Your mistake last time was going to a normal oil house. If you keep it within the community, then everybody is looking out for you! They also know your name and all your business because everyone on this street is an incorrigible gossip!" Nimbus said, sing-song.

"But, on the upside, at least there are fewer cadets looking to smash me," Drift said.

That set Nimbus off again and he refused to explain the joke. "Okay, okay, let's dance now, before Tapp turns the music off," Nimbus managed.

"We're just having one drink? What kind of grand night out is this?" Drift asked, offering Nimbus a hand up.

"A broke night out," Nimbus said.

There were a few mechs dancing in the tiny bar, in the dark space between the tables and the counter. Tapp kept the music quiet, playing out of one speakers on a table near the dance floor. Drift sloshed a bit on the way over and Nimbus caught him by the waist. "Woah, are you too overcharged to dance?" He asked.

"No, I'm fine," Drift said. "Just a bit spinny standing up."

They moved their way to the dance floor and managed to fall down almost immediately, when Nimbus led left and Drift followed right. The other dancers scooted as far away as they could, giving them some space. Drift flailed along after Nimbus, who tried gave up trying to lead complex footwork and moved onto a simple mirror dance. "I'm doing really badly," Drift said, laughing.

"You're doing fine. You just need more practice," Nimbus promised.

"Really?" Drift said, nearly knocking someone's glass off the table with an especially overdone flail of his arm.

"You're doing terribly," Nimbus said, pulling Drift close. "But we're having fun, so it's cool."

Something whistled past Drift's ear and all the lights went out. Strobing lights filled the bar and a voice came over a loudspeaker. "All citizens within the building, get down on the ground. Do not attempt to leave the premises. This is an authorized engex license inspection."

"Aw slag," Nimbus said. "It's the police." He put his hand on Drift's shoulder and pushed him face-first towards the floor. He lay down beside Drift, the glow of his visor barely visible under the glaring strobe of the police lights. Drift's hand sought out Nimbus's and squeezed. Nimbus squeezed back.

The voice shouting for everyone to get down kept repeating over and over and eventually Drift realized it was a recording. Heavy steps stomped into the bar and someone called out, "Where's the owner?"

"That's me!" Tapp said, voice muffled from behind the bar.

There was more stomping and a loud thudding sound. Drift kept his eyes on Nimbus. "Don't move," he whispered.

"You too," Nimbus whispered back.

Eventually, the voice said, "Okay, paperwork appears to be in order. I see you're licensed to be running a knock-off only establishment. Is everyone in here a knock-off? I want to see paperwork! Get your IDs out."

Drift reached into his hip compartment with his free hand. He brought out his ID, black 'CC' stamped in the left corner, hand trembling. He watched as Nimbus fetched his out as well, fingers blocking out the two red dots indicating his stints in prison. I just want to go home.

Eventually, the officer made his way over to them. He put one boot on Drift's neck, pushing his prostrate form into the floor. "Papers please," the officer said cheerily. Drift held up his ID and the officer took it. It scanned with a beeping sound and the officer let it drop, fluttering to the ground by his head. "Thank you, citizen."

The officer stepped off him and knelt down in front of Nimbus. "Hey citizen, you look familiar. ID?"

"Here you go, officer," Nimbus said, passing the card along. The officer took it, and dragged his scanner over it.

"Ah, that's where I knew you from. Prison. You're looking pretty fine today, I nearly didn't recognize you," the officer said, as the scanner beeped. "Have a nice night, citizen." He set the card back down by Nimbus's head and stood up, walking past them to check the rest of the patrons of the bar.

Nimbus squeezed his hand. He was still shaking, but Nimbus was too. Maybe he didn't notice.

Later - CH4

Drift zoned, letting his hands fly over the threads. The klik-klack of the shuttle was his metronome as he counted back the pattern in his head. The fabric spilled out of the loom in front of him, entwined circles of red and blue punctuating the grey metallic threads. Eyes down, keep count. There was no time to be wandering off if they were to finish this commission tonight.

"Drift!"

Drift's head snapped sideways as he released the shuttle. Spindle was waving at him. The irritated set of his visor indicated he'd probably been trying to get his attention for a while now.

Drift stepped off the treadle and lifted his hands away from the warp. "Yeah, Spindle? Sorry, I was focusing."

"I know, I know," Spindle said, waving the apology off. He grabbed his cane and walked over. "I was saying, I'd like your input on the design for the commission we're going to be starting next. Before I start in on the specialty thread, I want to know if this design is possible. You are the weaver."

Drift grinned. "Don't lie to me. You know your way around every bit of the fabric business. You just want to tell me your art is pretty."

He followed Spindle back to the design board. "It's for Zeno-Primalist funereal garb. That tailor, the one in Haeleanta, needs it completed in the next two weeks. Fairly uncommon religion, took a bit of work to find someone to confirm the allowables. No anodized thread, no alien carbon-based imports. Which does limit the color schemes."

Drift took in the design board, leaning close to admire the ritual glyphs and how they blended with the hexagonal pattern of the main body of the cloth. "Does it say something?"

"In Old Cybertronian. Don't worry, I can't read it either. Got the glyphs straight from him, it was just a question of integrating the patterns and making the colors flow correctly. What do you think?"

"I think this is going to be a monster to set up," Drift said. "How wide is this going to be in full size?"

Someone banged on the side door that led into the workshop. Drift and Spindle exchanged a glance, then Spindle shouted, "It's not locked! You can just come in, you don't have to make me get the door."

"Can't reach!" Their visitor yelled back.

"That's Batten," Spindle said. "Go see what he wants, Drift."

Drift set off, jogging through the warehouse space where they kept the boxes of supplies. The boxes towered around the narrow alleyways of the walkways they'd carved out. Drift cut left and then ducked right to get to the doorway, bumping into and rebounding off one of the piles. It didn't tumble. It never did, whatever Spindle said about slowing down.

Batten? Now who was Batten? The name did sound vaguely familiar. Drift unlatched the door and swung it open. Two minibots, a pair of white and grey janitorial bots, were sitting out on the fire escape. Oh. Batten. Span and Batten and...there's usually a third one, isn't there?"

"Hey Drift," Batten said. "Harcourt said the Lils are with you two for the afternoon? Did Thatch stop by after work to hang out with them? We've been looking for him."

"Um, yes, the Lils are here. No, I haven't seen Thatch. Sorry," Drift said.

"I'm sure he's somewhere," Span said. "Hopefully he's not off in the Heights, mooning after that datastick that works in the flight deck archives again. I do not want to have to go uptown to fetch him back before curfew."

"Yeah, that'd be a drag," Drift agreed awkwardly. He knew he'd met these bots before, but the exact circumstance wasn't coming to them. Friends of the Lils, so maybe at the monthly lectures the miner's union put on?

"What do they want?" Spindle yelled. From the other side of the boxes, it was an echo-y chorus of Spindles.

"Looking for Thatch!" Drift called back.

"Ask Levy!" Spindle said.

Drift shook his head. "That's what he says about everything. But yeah, we've been in all day working, not going to be much help."

Drift let them go and shut the door before winding his way back to the weaving floor. He took a detour to the back storeroom to check on their guests—he'd almost forgotten about them earlier. The Lils were a pair of 'disposable' caste floodlights. Lumex and Elide. They'd passed the Ambus Test a few years back, but they'd kept working with the miner's union, because what else were they going to do? Sluice and them were still saving up for the surgery to fully activate their vocoders.

Drift knocked on the door and popped it open. "Do you guys need anything?"

Lumex and Elide were curled up in the center of Drift's scrap pile nest, tiny datapad between them tinnily playing out a news broadcast. Their hands flew over the fabric they'd been given to break down, unraveling and sorting into boxes for the component metals. Lumex looked over his shoulder at Drift and chirruped, shaking his head.

"Okay. Just come over if you need anything. Looks like the sorting's going well, keep up the good work."

Drift wandered back over to Spindle's design table. "The Lils are doing okay. But shouldn't Sluice and them be back from the protest by now? It was getting dark when I went to get the door."

Spindle shook his head, tapping his cane irritably on the ground. "If there's anything you just can't predict, it's a protest. Get enough people in one spot and all their brain modules melt into a puddle."

Drift went back to his loom, ignoring Spindle's rambling about how the protest movement was going to cause more harm than good. Spindle was of the opinion that the best thing to do at all times was keep your head down and all your limbs inside the building. He'd been around to see the start of the Silver Harvest, when Colds were a new wonder. And then he'd lived through the shift and the rapid rise of anti-knockoff sentiment. He didn't talk about it much, just like he didn't talk about whatever his alt mode was. They were violating several Rodion city ordinances by owning a building, running a business, selling goods between Cold and non-Cold craftsmen. They'd been lucky so far. The police tended to keep to the outskirts of the quarter.

"They worry about being boxed in," Nimbus had posited when he'd last stayed over. "The dead end right under the miner's housing building? Wouldn't take more than a few bots to blockade the street and trap the police in there against the front of that building."

"It's because there's no money to be made fining broke people," Levy had theorized.

"That too," Nimbus agreed.

Drift managed to weave for a few more minutes before Tapp wandered in, wondering if they could send Sluice to help him with the new Engex delivery as soon as he got in? The gossip mill in the CC quarter operated at the speed of light. That was the only reasonable explanation for how everyone knew the Lils were staying over while Sluice was at the protest. He'd just dropped them off that morning.

"You getting ready for the race?" Tapp asked Drift, watching over his shoulder as Drift danced with the threads.

"Race?" Drift asked innocently, keeping his eyes on his work.

"These young people," Tapp said over to Spindle. "Thinking they can fool us. I heard you and Nimbus were taking bets. My advice? Wait till I can get the oil house reopened. Hard to muster up a crowd without a meeting spot. And don't think Spindle here is going to let you hold a gambling ring in his workshop."

Spindle scoffed. "Primus no. I've already told the kid that his stupid stunt better stay at least a hundred meters from the shop at all times."

"It's not a 'stupid stunt'," Drift protested. "A few people were asking to see me race and we thought we'd do something fun for the community. That's what I'm for—racing."

"Well that's stupid. You're nowhere near as good at racing as you are at weaving," Spindle said. "There are hundreds of racers on the planet. But weavers? Maybe ten. You're a rare bot."

"Any idea when the oil house will be reopening?" Drift asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

"Later than I'd like. They claim that torture was made illegal after the first Great War, but I don't know what else you call forty-seven application forms. I'm slogging my way through them, but then we have to wait for the code inspector to review them all." The oil house had been closed ever since the night Drift and Nimbus had gone out drinking. The officer had found a forged bot drinking under a false ID. Wanted to try 'slumming it' apparently. The bot had at least had the decency to look apologetic once he realized his stupidity was going to cost Tapp the bar and had nearly gotten everyone else arrested.

"If you need anything for the reopening," Spindle said, "just say the word. Me and Drift will be there."

"Spindle!" Someone crashed through the door and everyone's head snapped right to see Levy rolling over, venting heavily. "They locked up the protesters."

"Of course they did," Spindle said. "They being charged with anything?"

"Haven't heard yet. Just came by to see if anyone had anything to spare for the community bail fund. And to let the Lils know."

The little bots in question poked out of Drift's room, staring at Levy with big eyes. Lumex typed something out on his datapad and walked over to Levy to show him.

"No, I haven't heard," Levy said. "We sent Nimbus uptown to find out more. The police report was garbage. Can you two stay with Spindle and Drift till we hear more?"

"Of course," Spindle said. "I can give three Shanix for the fund,"

Drift hesitated, doing a quick calculation of the funds on his card versus the amount he was going to need for fuel in the coming week. If Nimbus and him pushed the race back, he could start over saving up for that. "Four," he said, pulling out his currency card and tapping in the transfer code. Tapp sighed and gave ten. As soon as they'd touched cards to finalize the transfer, Levy was wheeling out, promising to bring news as soon as he could.

"And that?" Spindle said, the moment he was gone. "That is why you keep yourself in the quarter and don't start trouble. They're just waiting for an excuse."

Later - CH4

Drift had seen the smoke on the horizon on his way back from making delivery to the tailor that had contracted them. The smoke had risen up above the buildings, first in a wisp of undulating black. He had stopped and stared, unable to trace the origin of the smoke behind the line of buildings. Besides straight energon, it was hard to make much of anything in Rodion burn. In that first moment it had seemed beautiful.

He'd been so anxious to get out of the quarter he'd volunteered to take the delivery. Usually they had Nimbus do it, since he could make the trip in a morning. After they'd bailed the miner's out of jail there had been talk of a second protest that day. That had gotten Spindle all riled up.

”The way that fuel prices have been rising, even the forged bots are dealing with rationing now. If you push too hard they're going to forget their enemy is the government, not you,” Spindle had said.

Sluice and the miner's union had disagreed. Spindle had been hopping mad and ready to give all of them a piece of his mind. Drift had bolted the moment they got the fabric rolled onto bolts, and had spent most of the day on the road.

When he got to the entrance of the quarter, it was blocked by a police line. They stood shoulder to shoulder, shock sticks at hand in one hand, riot shields in the other. The fire rose from behind the quarter's wall, a roaring mass of flame. A swell of bots faced the police line, roaring back. It was so loud Drift couldn't understand what they were shouting as bodies pushed and shoved each other and nearly threw him to the ground. Drift was transfixed by the fire, unable to tear his eyes away as it poured black smoke into the air above them.

There were so many bots pressed close that the collective interference jammed the comm signals. His comm chimed incessantly, but the messages were garbled messes of static.

"Drift!" Someone pulled him back away from the crowd. Drift turned to see Nimbus, soot-covered and battered. They stumbled out of the thick of the crowd together. "Drift! Thank Primus. I thought everyone—I can't find anyone."

"What's happening?" Drift asked, turning to pull Nimbus into a hug. "Why are they just standing there?"

"It was a riot," Nimbus said. "They stormed the quarter, they drenched it with fuel and set it burning. The police got here just in time to stop the miners from diving in to help put out the flames. But the rioters they'd pushed out of the quarter and the ones who followed the miner's from the protest downtown are at each other's throats now."

"Nimbus, we have to go in there. Spindle's not very mobile, what if he's trapped inside?"

"Drift!" Nimbus said, bumping helms with him. "Anyone inside? They're dead right now. We need to run, as far away and as fast as we can."

"No." Drift said, pulling back. "We don't know that. We don't know that. He's not dead until I see it. Nimbus, I need your help getting in there."

Later, he would know that Nimbus had been right. Running was their only good option. But right that moment the world had turned upside down. His home had turned into a smelting pit. His people were somewhere inside. He needed someone to be okay. So he said it. "Nimbus, if you love me? I need you to help me."

They turned and looked at the wall of fire. Nimbus laughed bleakly. "Hot air rises, right?"

The fire tore at their plating like a living thing. They'd climbed up to the top of a building facing the street to make the attempt. Nimbus had said a few words of neoprimalist liturgy to guide them safely across the gap. The crowd thronged below, seething. Then Nimbus had transformed and made the drop. They soared, Drift clinging tight to his back as the hot air pulled them up and then over and then through the fire.

They hit ground glowing from the heat. Nimbus transformed back in a hiss of pain. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm okay."

"Come on," Drift said. "We have to get Spindle." He helped Nimbus to his feet and dragged him down the street. Rubble filled the path and the fire screamed at them in voices that almost could have been mechs. When they got to Spindle's building, there was a body on the stairs. Drift froze. Levy's face was a smear of horror, a single bar of stair railing pushed out of his chest, straight through his spark.

Nimbus knelt and said, "He's gone, Drift. He's already in the Afterspark." He placed his hand over Levy's face, covering his darkened optics.

Drift pulled himself together. "He's gone. We have to get to Spindle." He stepped around the body and began to climb the stairs. The fires were less intense away from the wall, only scattered blazes here and there. He could still taste the blackened energon coating the inside of his mouth, dimming the light as it glazed his optics. He ascended the stairs, hearing Nimbus calling behind him as if through the roar of the ocean. His comm still chimed in a discordant symphony. Names and garbled messages bounced between his audials, a meaningless haze.

The doorway of the workshop had been torn off its hinges. The boxes they'd kept in the entryway were looted. Upended piles, boxes stomped flat and metallo-fibers dragged across the floor in swaths like viscera. The place smelled acrid, like death.

Drift crawled over the rubble, wiping at his leaking optics. Trying to clean them of the smoke that clung to him as he stumbled into the workshop.

Spindle was burning. They'd split him open, neck to sternum. And then they'd set him ablaze.

It was hard to make much of anything in Rodion burn. That wasn't true. Anything covered in fuel could burn. Drift crawled closer, reaching for Spindle's outstretched hand. Let him already be dead he prayed. He didn't believe in Primus, not the way Nimbus did. But he needed there to be a higher power in that moment to ensure Spindle hadn't suffered this fate alive.

"Got one in here!" Someone shouted. An enormous hand wrapped itself around his head and pushed his face to the floor. Drift flailed, trying to turn and see who was holding him. It's the rioters. They're still here and they're going to kill you too. It was hard not to feel grateful at that thought. He didn't deserve to be the only one who survived Spindle. "This is the police! You are under arrest!"

"He's my friend!" Drift said. "I didn't do this!"

"I do not care," The officer drawled, leaning more of his weight on Drift's head. His nose was bare inches from the Spindle's burning shell. "Everyone on the scene is under arrest. We will sort out the innocent and the guilty later—knock-off scum."

"Driiii-" Spindle moaned. The sound turned into a harsh gurgle.

"He's alive," Drift said, letting the officer pull his arms behind his back and snap the inhibitor cuffs around his wrists. "He's alive. You have to help him."

"Mm, not for long he's not," The officer said. "His spark is on fire. That's not the sort of thing you get better from." He grabbed Drift by his cuffed hands and dragged him back towards the door.

Drift kicked and struggled, begging. "Please. You have to help him. Please." They jostled out the door and bumped down the stairs as Drift keened. The officer threw him on the ground next to Nimbus's cuffed form. Nimbus was still, eyes dry, spattered with energon. He looked at Drift and turned away. Drift tried to control his vocalizations and found he couldn't, keening incoherently.

Above them, on the floor of his workshop, surrounded by the destruction of his life's work, Spindle guttered.

** Drift in Dead End

Later - CH6

The cell screamed its forced silence. Bots jostled against each other, crammed shoulder to shoulder in the small space. They didn't make eye contact, didn't try to talk. There were rules against that.

He couldn't lay down for fear of being trampled in the next food rush. His legs ached, nearly as bad as his tank. He wasn't pushy enough to claim the rations their jailers threw into the cells most days. When he did, he'd try to split what he'd won with Nimbus.

Nimbus still wasn't talking to him. Ever since they'd been processed and crowded into the back of the cell, he'd been barely responsive. He wouldn't even look at Drift. At first, Drift had figured he was shell-shocked from the riots. They'd just found their friends and family dead, it wasn't unreasonable that Nimbus was traumatized. Then, he started to grow worried that Nimbus was mad at him specifically. For forcing him to take Drift beyond the wall and getting them both arrested. There was no way to be sure. For a few days, he'd let himself seethe over it. The way Nimbus just stood there in their corner, passively waiting for Drift to fight for scraps for them both. The way he'd take the food but not look Drift in the eye. The way he'd given up the fight.

But being angry at Nimbus had left him utterly alone, so he'd gone back to their corner. Gone back to sharing rations. Kept trying to form signs with their clasped hands, even though Nimbus never responded or formed any signs of his own.

"They're late with the food today," he signed. "I wish I had something to think about besides food. I'm driving myself crazy thinking about it." He kept their clasped hands low, behind the bodies of the other prisoners. He didn't know why they weren't allowed to talk. Maybe the police were worried that a solid mass of bots, given the opportunity to conspire, would be driven to riot. But chirolinguistics wasn't well known outside the circles of artisans and craftsmen and nobody had caught him yet.

Nimbus didn't respond, of course. Drift tried to make his mind wander to the good days, back when Spindle had been teaching Drift and Nimbus and some of the other bots chiro. Nimbus and Drift had always paired off and Nimbus was always signing goofy jokes instead of whatever they were supposed to be practicing. Spindle could always tell. He'd tell them off, but he never split them up.

"You all!" A guard clanged on the door with his fist, the echo reverberating over their heads. "We're clearing out this cell. Form a single file line and proceed for processing."

Everyone looked around at each other, worried. Processing where? Are they letting us go? But the tide of the crowd pulled them forwards. Drift took Nimbus by the wrist and pulled him along as they jostled for a place at the back of the line. The crowd shuffled through the narrow corridors of the prison, the guard bringing up the rear aimlessly swinging his shock stick against his palm. Drift watched him out of the corner of his eye. It felt good to move finally, even if the anxiety was clawing at him. Where were they going and why?

The prison smelled of crackled ozone and turned energon. The smell permeated the place, sank into the walls. The air was thick with fear, muffled yells and shouting audible from somewhere far away. The queue ground to a halt outside some office up ahead. They were too far back to see what was happening. Drift checked over his shoulder to see if Nimbus was okay. He looked more alert than he had in days, but he ducked his head when he saw Drift staring.

"Eyes ahead!" The rear guard shouted, stomping towards Drift. He whipped his head to face front, shoulders tight as the guard slowed his approach. The guard stopped beside him, looking down on Drift. Drift kept his optics straight ahead. A shock stick appeared out of his peripheral vision and tapped him on the chin, forcing his face up. Thankfully it wasn't turned on. Drift craned his neck at the guard's urging, looking up at his sneering face. "That's better, knock-off. Best not to call attention to yourself," the guard said. "Thought you'd have figured that out by now." He winked and released Drift. He stomped back to the end of the line.

Drift vented through clenched teeth, letting the air whistle out in unsteady breaths. The line had moved ahead while he was distracted, he hustled to catch up. He didn't dare check and see if Nimbus had followed him.

He jumped as a hand clasped his. Nimbus.

Drift squeezed back, a meaningless sign of comfort. He pulled their clasped hand through the forms to say, "Whatever's coming, we'll stick together. I'm not going to leave you."

A guard walked by and Nimbus dropped his hand.

The line crept up to the office. Drift could see prisoners entering one-by-one, disappearing into the room. They didn't come back out. When he reached the front of the line, he briefly considered making a scene, refusing to go in. But there was no point. They'd get him in there one way or the other. He stepped inside.

"Number?" The guard sitting at the desk asked. Drift stood awkwardly at attention in front of the desk.

"Three-hundred eighty three," he said.

The guard flipped through some files, bringing up Drift's record. "Prisoner 3-8-3, Drift of Rodion. I see we're holding you on suspicions of terrorist activity centered around the Dead End riots. Well, prisoner 383, it is your lucky day. We're willing to offer you a deal, get you out of jail."

Drift crossed his arms, waiting for the catch. "I didn't do anything. I lived there."

"Sure," the guard said. "Well, your options are as follows. You can plead no contest and we'll drop the charges. We'll even help you get a leg up in society - we need some more bots in storm drain maintenance. Submit to reformatting. As a maintenance bot you'll receive housing and wages from the city of Rodion."

Drift snorted. Reformatted under the supervision of the guards in this prison? Short offering himself up as a sacrifice to a pack of rabid turbofoxes, he had a hard time imagining a less appealing plan.

"Can't say as that sounds like a very good deal," Drift said. "What's the other option?"

The guard glared. "Prisoner, this is your one chance. You're a bot with a bad attitude and, remarkably, no criminal record. If you reject state sponsored reformatting, you won't be eligible again."

"Look, if you guys wanted to get your hands all over this," Drift pointed at his frame, "you could have asked. No need to get all threatening and zappy about it. What's the other offer?"

"Are you alleging officer misconduct, prisoner?" The guard set his datapad down and steepled his hands. "I hold my officers to the highest ethical standards."

Drift snorted. "You're either stupid or you're willfully ignorant. Or maybe you just hate knock-offs. Can't say as I care. What's my other option?"

"Plead guilty and we'll let you go on time served. We'll return you to the neighborhood where you were arrested, but you'll have a felony record on your ID. Plead not guilty and we'll find space to keep you in that cell. Take your pick," the guard said. "See if you can't temper your pride enough to make the right choice, prettybot."

Even if they could be trusted. Not to be lying, not to do anything while he was under for reformatting...even if they could be trusted, he just couldn't. Nimbus would never take that deal. Reformatted into a maintenance bot? He'd have to give up his wings. Nimbus would rather die than give up his wings. It was going to be hard to rebuild the CC quarter, with so many bots dead and so many displaced. But they were a strong community. They'd make it work. There'd be people around to help him help Nimbus.

"Guilty," he whispered. "Let me go home, please."

The guard chuckled. "Very well. Some bots just can't be reasoned with." He flipped through a case on his desk and retrieved Drift's ID card. The guard superheated his finger, glowing white in the dim room. He pressed his finger to the corner of Drift's ID, burning a black circle on the plastic. Then he slid the card into a slot on his terminal, keying in some information to encode onto the card.

He held it out for Drift. "Proceed straight on through, show your card to the guard at the end of the hall. He'll take you to the transport and remove the inhibitor claw. Next!"

Drift walked to the doorway and turned to watch Nimbus shuffle in after him, arms stiff at his sides. Then he turned and followed instructions to the officer with the transport truck alt mode. He climbed into place beside the few prisoners sitting in the back. He didn't recognize any of them. He waited for Nimbus, drumming on his legs impatiently. Another prisoner joined them, but Nimbus didn't appear. Drift watched the door, waiting. He must have gotten turned around. He's been so spaced out lately. What if he refused to talk to the guard? I should have stayed, explained that he's been like that ever since we were arrested.

The guard who'd met him in the hallway climbed up into the back of the truck and slid the door closed behind him. "We're set to roll out!" he barked into his comm.

"Wait!" Drift said, getting to his feet. "My friend's not here yet."

"This is everybody," the guard said. "Obviously your friend was smarter than you, took the deal."

"He would never agree to reformatting," Drift said. "Can you check if he's okay? Prisoner 382?"

The guard walked over to Drift and shoved him back into his seat. "Everybody is where they decided to go. What decision your cellmates made? It's none of your business. Sit down and don't make me make you."

Drift grabbed onto wall and stood up again, the truck accelerating under their feet. "Please, I just need to know if he's-"

The shock stick clipped his cheek, knocking him against the wall. He brought his hands up to protect his face as the guard brought the shockstick down on his head, throwing him to the floor. The world spun, the other prisoners watching him warily. The guard planted a boot on his neck. "Prisoner 382 has elected to be reformatted and rejoin society. Whereas you are going back to Dead End. Do not try me. If I have to really incapacitate you, the vultures that hang out in Dead End are going to pick your frame clean. As it is, you might be able to fight them off."

"We're going to the CC quarter," one of the other prisoners said, raising a feeble hand.

The guard snickered. "You've missed a bit while you've been away from the world. Rodion City Council felt the risk of future riots was unreasonably high, keeping all you knock-offs in one place. Too big of a target. So now they're housing workers at on-site housing, in keeping with their alt mode and their status. We call that place where the knock-offs used to live Dead End. Mostly full of addicts, leakers and criminals nowadays. Given that you lot are all criminals, I guess you'll fit right in."

Later - CH2

There were rules to living in Dead End. The most important rule: if you wanted to keep living, don't let them see you sleep. Never get high where anyone could find you. If you were hurt and couldn't protect yourself, your hiding place was your sole protection.

If you found a good hiding place, you protected it with your life. A good hideaway would always have your back.

It had been his first fritz in a long time. For a while there, he'd been hoping he'd outgrown them. That they were a quirk of the thawing process and that once his brain and his spark settled down together and got comfortable, it'd stop happening. But maybe they were triggered by stress, because he'd had his first two little blips in a long time recently. Little fritzes that were barely noticeable on the outside. It'd started with the bad week - he hadn't managed to pick up any work or any food. He was starting to get lightheaded all the time, even when he wasn't sitting up.

But then the little blips had scared him enough to distract him from the rag-tag laborer lineup at the docks. Scared him into hunting down an even better hideaway, one that could keep him safe even if a fritz lasted through the night.

He thought this one had. Couldn't be sure, his chrono was always buggy these days. Counted three minutes for every four most of the time, but skipped whole blocks of time seemingly at random. He wasn't feeling up to guessing, only mostly back online. He'd run through all his standard tests, checking joint flexion and control and things seemed back to normal. Couldn't test audio and visuals yet - there wasn't much to see or hear in his hiding place. But they usually returned to normal before he got back motor control and HUD access.

With effort, he heaved himself up into a sitting position and carefully unhooked his ankle from the loop of debris he'd pinned himself with. Free, he began to crawl upstream. Every few feet he tapped at the wall to his right until he ran into the access ladder. He climbed the slippery steps, hauling himself out onto the ledge of the storm sewer.

Rolling onto his front so he could get his feet under him, Drift finally opened his vents and blasted some of the gritty liquid out. He shook his head, using one wet and mucky hand to try to clean off his optics, spitting grit onto the pavement beneath him.

On the bright side, at least you had the fritz holding you hostage to stop you from breathing any of that in. Drift wasn't sure what all was in that liquid, but the three bodies he'd found while hunting down a good hiding spot didn't bode well.

He shuddered. It was cold down in the storm sewers, even if they were safe. Relatively safe. Drift rolled himself to his feet and started walking. He knew it was pointless, but he couldn't stop himself from rubbing at the muck all over his arms and legs as he went.

He'd need to get himself back to the surface and figure out how to get enough Shanix to get himself into one of the bathhouses if he wanted to get anything to eat this week. Should have checked those bodies for currency cards. Nobody wanted to hire a day laborer that looked like they lived in Dead End.

Later - CH7

"You don't come to work, you don't have a job. Is that hard for you to get through your head?"

Drift clenched his fists, resisting the temptation to try slugging the overseer. For one thing, it wasn't going to get him any closer to rejoining the dock crew. And, from the looks of the overseer's faceplate, he'd probably crack the struts in his hand. Not worth it. He schooled his face into a mask of a properly deferential bot. "I'm sorry, sir. The rations I was given were contaminated, I couldn't stand to walk here." The rations you distributed, fragger. Figure just cause you're paying us under the table you get away with feeding us slop. Drift had been up all night, purging the bad fuel along with what little good fuel he'd had left in his system.

"Got a delicate constitution, guttermech?" The bot sneered. "I haven't heard any other complaints. You've probably just got a weak tank. Rules are rules, if I let one bot keep position after they miss a shift the whole place'll be coming down around my audials."

"Please," Drift said, searching the bot's eyes for any trace of sympathy. "I need this job."

"And I don't need you, or any other lazy guttermechs on my worksite. Out."

Drift staggered away from the worksite before the overseer could start threatening violence. The last thing he needed was more medic's bills bleeding him dry. Drift had fallen at a construction site a few months earlier, doing riveting work on the hulls of new low-atmosphere shuttles. Cracked his helm and his optics. Some well meaning gearhead had taken him to the hospital and he'd racked up quite the bill before he'd managed to escape. He'd paid off the bills to stop them sending the debt collectors after him, but in the process he'd lost all the savings he'd been putting away while renting a berth in one of the managed squat-houses in Dead End. Out on the streets again, where you didn't dare keep Shanix on you for fear of losing them. Drift had operated on a liquid economy ever since—money got transferred into fuel and then drunk as quick as possible. It was harder for them to steal the fuel out of your body, as long as you were willing to fight for it.

And one tainted fueling and he'd lost all of that wealth. It was hard getting bots to hire someone with a criminal record, even if they did come to Dead End to recruit some day laborers. Drift ran through his options, but most of the usual customers had already made their hires for the month. They weren't going to come back unless one of their workers got crushed on the job or otherwise kicked it. After the hospital fiasco, he just didn't have any emergency reserves left.

Drift let himself sit down against the wall and consider his options. His HUD was pinging relentlessly, letting him know that his late-night purge had emptied both his primary tank and his reserves and that henceforth energy would have to be cannibalized from the energon circulating in his frame. He'd have a few days before things got so bad he couldn't move, but there wasn't much he could do in that time. He could try begging, but the cops would be shifting him back to Dead End if he tried it anywhere people had Shanix to spare. Probably none too kindly, either. He liked to think he was too honorable to steal, but he was mostly too scared. The cops might ruffle you a bit for begging, but they'd rend you limb from limb if they caught you stealing from a decent bot.

Drift contemplated the billboard hanging across the way, edges ratty and the paint discolored from the streaks of acidic rain. There was always the Clinics. They advertised relentlessly in Dead End. You couldn't escape their incessant offers of good money for no work, if you'd just step aside and let someone borrow your body for a few rental periods. Drift shuddered. The whole idea was just viscerally wrong. It was a horror story. That someone could cut you out of your body and plant some rich person in it to traipse about...the thought of some other mech laying hands on his frame and treating like their own...Drift bit his lip, fangs drawing a bead of energon to the surface. It was wrong. It was viscerally, spark-deep wrong. But was it worse than dying? Because he didn't have a lot of options here.

A speedster body, still mostly intact, there had to be a rich bot that'd want that. If the posters were to be believed, he could pull in enough in a single rental cycle to get him back in a squat house and back on his feet. And then he would never have to do it again.

Decision made, Drift dragged himself to his feet. There was a light mist falling, tinting the air red. It was cold, sucking the heat from his frame even as his frame tried to bank down and conserve fuel. Drift shivered. There were clinics littered all over the city, but none in Dead End. The clientèle didn't want to step out of their pretty little world and into this slagpile. He stepped closer to the poster, checking for a location.

Sure enough, there was one just past the wall, under the temple and near the high-class public washhouse Drift had fantasized about visiting. Drift bounced a bit on his feet, trying to stay warm. He decided it would be best to drive there. He'd be steadier on four wheels than two feet.

By the time he rolled up at the entrance of Relinquishment Clinic, Drift's internal temperatures had entered a tailspin. Maybe he wasn't as over that tainted fuel as he'd thought, because he'd been pushing hard the whole way in hopes of warming up and still couldn't stop shivering as he stood facing the doorway. Trying to make himself take that last step.

It was a garish place. Squat, nearly squished beneath the temple architecture above. Moving billboards filled the windows, playing a panoply of advertisements for the services offered within. Triple-changers, fliers, speedsters and more. Drift shuddered, acid mist gathered around him like a cloak, beading up on his frame. With a sweep of his hand, he brushed it off, setting the droplets and the light bouncing off them to splatter on the wet pavement. He walked through the door.

The air was warm inside, a brightly lit waiting room with cozy seats and vidscreens playing up on the walls. The bots inside turned to stare at him as he shuffled in, chatter tamping down to confused silence. The bot behind the desk's optics widened and they hurried out from behind their desk, hustling over to Drift and making little shooing motions with their hands.

"What are you doing?" They hissed as they reached Drift. "This is the client entrance. Go out and around the side. That's where the donor entrance is." They did their best to shove Drift back out the door without touching him, clucking over the grime he'd tracked in and whatever would the manager think...

Drift stared at the door as it swung shut. Maybe this was a sign, another chance to back out. He could probably make enough Shanix begging to get some fuel in his systems, reconsider once he was running steady instead of fumbling into this decision. But Drift was cold. And tired. And it had been so delightfully warm inside.

He kept a hand on the wall as he stumbled to the alleyway beside the building. It was dark, the sunlight from above cut off entirely by the overhang of the roof. A single red light above the door guided him to a the entrance, which was locked. At a loss, Drift tried knocking.

The door swung open and a gangly little mech with arms just on this side of too-long stepped into the light. They smiled, mouth wider than seemed right for their face. Drift shuddered, not just from the cold.

"First timer?" The bot said, rubbing their hands together. They looked up and down Drift as if they could see right inside of him, smile rigid on their face. "Mm, promising. Speedster, but I haven't seen the like of your frametype before. Come in, come in."

Spark pulsing feverishly in his chest, Drift followed the unsettling mech into the cramped space of the intake room. No cozy chairs to wait in here, only a single desk that the bot scooted around to sit at while Drift stood awkwardly. "Now, I've got to run over the full contract before we can go any further. It's the rules."

The bot picked up a datapad and began to rattle off legalese. "If you sign, you will be licensing The Company, that's us, to lease out your frame. A short lease runs for the duration of a single rental period. That's six days. A long-term lease gets us a one year rental, renewable by you at will. In exchange, you will receive either the full monetary value of your appraised frame, prorated for the number of rental periods or you can select to receive a third of that price and temporary use of one of our loaners. Your frame will be inspected and repaired before payment is made and any needful repairs will be deducted from your up-front payment. Access to a loaner body will be cut off to donors who abuse the privilege and who bring back loaners with damage requiring repairs. Any damage incurred by the client while making use of your body will be our responsibility to fix and if you do not feel your body has been returned to you in acceptable condition you may make a claim through our claims system. The Company makes no claims of liability for the swapping procedure, the side effects of which may include neurological disturbances, pain at the surgical sites, spontaneous spark failure and/or nausea. So are you here for a short term or long term lease?"

"Short," Drift said, once he managed to wrest back control of his vocoder, overly fixated on the phrase 'spontaneous spark failure'. Could you over fixate on the possibility of spontaneous spark failure? Drift ran through his options again and reminded himself what happened to bots who let themselves get too weak to fight off the predators waiting to break them down for salable parts. Good fuel, a berth and a bulky landlord he could pay to guard the door while he recharged. Maybe enough to spare a for few rust sticks or some other sweet. He hadn't tasted refined fuel since he'd worked with Spindle. Enough time to get back on his feet, find a job and keep off the streets. Drift nodded decisively. "Short lease," he repeated.

"Mm-hmm," the bot said, checking something off on his datapad. "Full payment or partial and use of a loaner body?"

And what, exactly did they do with you for a week if you didn't walk out of here? Did they just throw you in a box somewhere to wait for your body to come back? A frisson of dread rolled down his spinal strut. "Loaner," he choked out.

"Very well. Follow me to the examination room, we'll get started on the appraisal right away."

The narrow corridor led to a blindingly lit room with a single surgical slab in the center. The room was a shocking shade of white everywhere, from the walls to the floor to the slab itself. There were drains cut into the floor and a heavy-duty sprinkler system mounted to the ceiling. Drift couldn't help but think back to that medical examination before the race that wasn't a real race. He clenched his hands at his sides to stop them from shaking and climbed onto the slab.

With flip of his finger, the bot activated the magnets on the surgical slab. Drift's arms and legs clamped against the table with a clang. The bot fiddled with some controls, raising the slab until Drift was within easy reach while standing.

"What are—"

Drift was cut off by the appearance of another bot in the room, this one a stocky red and white medical bot. The medic wandered over to them and gave Drift a look-over, fingers twitchy. "Are we doing a full work-up?" He asked in a raspy voice.

"New donor, full work-up," The intake bot said.

"Well, you could have hosed him down first, these Dead Enders are always filthy," the medic said, grimacing. "Very well."

Drift watched, optics wide, as the medic opened up cabinets that lined the walls and piled equipment onto a surgical cart. The other bot watched, disaffected, tapping his finger on the datapad in his hand. The medic's hand peeled open as he approached, revealing a menacing array of pointed tools. Drift cringed. The bot huffed a laugh, but otherwise made no comment. One of the tools rotated forwards and began to glow. A flashlight. The medic shone the light into Drift's right optic, then switched to the left, other hand idly patting through the pile of supplies. "Optics are clear, no cracks," he commented.

Apparently the other bot was taking notes, because he scribbled something in response to that. The medic began to hook wires and probes up to Drift's frame, making idle comments to the note-taker. "Empty fuel tanks, deduct for refueling," he said as looked over one of his monitors. His hand fell to Drift's mouth and he wiggled his finger in between Drift's lips. "Open wide," he ordered.

Drift's intake convulsed, phantom siphon tubing snaking its way into his throat. Drift let his jaw drop open and the medic peered around with his light. "Deduct for the fangs, that's never a big seller. Pretty tidy inside, but we'll probably want to flush the shell out once we've done the extraction just in case." The medic moved away from Drift's mouth and down to his chestplate, rapping against it with his knuckles. "Open here now," he said.

"Wha—"

"Chestplate open, I need to examine your spark and t-cog to get your GCT class." Making eye contact with the other bot over Drift's head, the medic muttered, "Always wasting my time."

However the medic planned on removing Drift from his body, it was going to involve getting access to his spark at some point. Regardless, Drift hesitated. He hadn't opened his chest since he was a newframe, getting inspected by the post-natalist before they were issued their government IDs. He didn't want these bots touching his spark, not when he didn't even know their names.

He triggered the retraction sequence slowly, commands half-buried in his processor. The medic shone a medviewer into his opened chest, rattling off a string of digits to the bot taking notes. "Non-standard speedster frame," the medic noted, "but we can put it with the 68A class, I think."

Drift slid his chest compartment closed, spark safely sealed away.

"Alright, let me do the math," the bot said, drumming his finger against the screen of the datapad as he peered down at it. "That gets an assessed value...for a single rental period, of 350 Shanix. Deduct out the leasing cost for the temporary rental, frame refurbishment and refueling and you'll be receiving an up-front payment of 110 Shanix. Are those agreeable terms?"

Drift gaped at him. 110 Shanix. It wasn't much money. Considering what Drift was offering them, it wasn't much money at all. It was more money than he'd ever held in his hands. He nodded.

"I need your signature on the contract. If you're unable to read and write, just mark a circle on the line," the bot said, placing the datapad on the berth beside Drift's hand, then freeing him from the magnetic berth.

Drift resisted the urge to snarl that he could read, just because he was poor didn't mean he didn't know anything. He picked up the datapad, tiny lines of legalese crammed to fill the page with enough space for a signature at the bottom. With a swish and flourish of his fingertip, Drift wrote out his name. He handed it back and then forced a ready for anything grin onto his face. "So what's next, boys?"

"You can get started on the extraction. I'll go in the back storeroom and find a loaner for him. Once you're in your temp body, our medic will bring you up to the desk and we'll get payment sorted," the bot said with a wave of his hand. They left the room.

The medic crossed his arms and nodded at the berth. "On your front."

Drift sat up, eyeing him warily. "What are you going to do?" He asked.

"Go in through the back. Extract the brain module, spinal conduit and spark. Transfer them into the empty, weld 'ya back up again. Takes about five minutes."

Drift rolled onto his front and the medic stepped forwards to place a guard under his forehead and neck. The magnets reactivated, locking him against the berth. From that position he could only see little flashes of light at the corners of his optics, the shadow of the medic moving about lurching across his optics. He shuttered them, hoping to calm his nerves. A hand landed on his spinal strut, resting just below the base of his neck.

There was a hiss of pain, a pinprick at the base of his neck. He shuddered against the pull of the magnets. They held firm. A firm pressure traced along his spinal strut, a distant almost-pain he couldn't quite interpret until the medics hands reached inside the seam and pulled the halves of his plating apart. Drift gagged. A thread of tank-bile dripped from his mouth as his empty tank roiled. He could feel the medic sliding his hands along the length of his numbed spinal strut, cutting away the connective joins to the surrounding struts and tensor cables.

The hands withdrew, allowing his body to fold back in on itself. Fuel leaked in dribbles from the weeping incision, rolling over insensate plating to the live-wire sensoret of his front. He was making some kind of sound, deep in his throat, a panicked keening that he couldn't seem to stop.

The pressure returned, this time to the back of his helm and Drift was certain, absolutely certain, that he was going to pass out before this could go any further. The medic made three horizontal cuts perpendicular to the one tracing his spinal conduit, then began to peel back plating. Drift was so deep in his panic that he didn't hear the intake bot reenter the room until the medic started talking again over his head as he carved Drift's spinal conduit out of his neck.

"Nah, no trouble. Bit of a wuss, started sobbing before I even cut him. The empty prepped?"

Drift vented in heaving gasps, his senses blurring and skewing in and out of focus across cut connectors. His audials blanked out entirely for a moment, returning only for the medic saying, "Alright, well, hold it open and I'll lift him in."

Hands scooped back into the seam of his spine, encircling and then taking hold of his spark casing. Drift's grasp on reality shuddered, coming to with a hand sliding up his spinal conduit to reach into the back of his head. One hand still palming his spark casing, he was lifted free of his body. And with it, consciousness.

Later - CH7

Drift staggered, proprioception totally shot. These optics were glazed blue, which was throwing off his whole color perception. That aside, he was pretty sure /this/ condemned building was where he was renting a berth. The acid stains around the doorway was a distinctive shape. Drift pounded on the door. It resounded with a deep metallic resonance, a sure sign that this was the right place. Murus had replaced the old one with a double-reinforced monster, his only building improvement.

The door opened a crack and Murus's blocky optic peered out at him. "We're full up," he said shortly, body filling the doorway.

"It's Drift," Drift said, hand already fishing to retrieve his ID.

Murus crossed his arms. "Drift."

"I know," Drift said. "You don't approve. It was a bad week." He held out the ID, fist bumping against the door a few times before managing to pass it through to Murus.

"What's your passcode?" Murus asked. Murus really didn't approve of the clinics. How was he supposed to know who was entering his building if they were jumping bodies left and right? After Drift had tried it the first time, he'd gotten Drift set up with a secret code so he'd be able to tell a thief who stole Drift's ID from Drift bodygloved into some empty.

"Nimbus, Spindle, Ibis, frag the police," Drift slurred. "Can I go lay down? I don't think this body is sitting right."

Murus propped the door open for him and let Drift stagger inside. "You told me last time that it'd be the last time," Murus said, stomping after him. "Those are bad people Drift. Two more bots went missing off the streets this week and I've got bots swearing up and down they were taken for some sort of deranged experiments run by those 'clinics'."

"I know they're bad people," Drift said, flopping onto his berth. A bedroll with a solar battery and energon infuser sitting on the floor in the corner. "I lost my gig and I didn't want back out on the streets but I needed to pay you."

"The delivery gig?" Murus asked, crouching down beside Drift and watching him intently for any sign he was about to heave. Murus was not the sort of bot that cleaned up for his tenants. Not a bad landlord, though. Working landlord was pretty much the only job in Dead End that paid enough to keep a bot as big as Murus in fuel. Most of the buildings didn't have owners, as per say, so if you were big and sufficiently motivated, you could drive out any current squatters and lay claim the place. Bots would pay for a place to recharge and keep their possessions that was guarded against petty theft and frame strippers.

"Yeah," Drift said. "I passed out on the job and they dropped me. Went looking for something else to make up the difference, got mugged under that bridge by Corroder's Oil House."

"You have the worst fragging luck, Drift," Murus said, standing up. "I'll get you to pay me once you wake up. Maybe next time ask them for a better body. I don't think blue's really your color."

"Thanks," Drift said, plugging in. He hated settling into a temp body. The nausea was a physical presence and his brain was working so hard to try and integrate the new sensornet that he felt permanently exhausted.

He'd recharge for a day and feel a little less awful and then he'd work out what he was going to do to avoid ending up like this again. He'd sworn up and down that last time was the last time. He'd gotten his body back and then gotten a visit from a police officer about what he'd been doing making lewd remarks to the serverbots at a high class bar and he'd nearly gotten himself thrown in jail or worse because some flighty rich microscope couldn't handle his energon.

But when you ran out of options, the clinic was the only safety net. And he kept running out of options. The senate had been clamping down on unlicensed work lately and that was pretty much all of Drift's options. He had been pretty sure the bots running the delivery company he'd been working for were probably drug runners. Which was nearly enough to make him quit, but that would've left him back at the clinic. Where you ended up anyway. It felt like the narrow field of options he'd been barely making it with was narrowing more and more and it just kept driving him back into the arms of those freaks at the clinic. He shuddered.

Please don't let me dream about spark extraction again or I won't be able to recharge for a month.

Later - CH7

Something was crawling over his plating. Drift lifted his arm to brush it off, but he was still locked against the surgical slab. Oh. Yeah. He was getting swapped back into his body after another rental period. No need to panic. There was something crawling over his plating. It skittered, running along the seam of his hip, tiny feet like pinpricks. Drift onlined his optics.

There was nothing there, his plating bare and gleaming. As if dispelled by his awareness, the feeling disappeared.

Something skittered along the back of his neck.

Drift jerked against the maglock.

The medic wandered back into the surgery room. "Ah, up already," he said. "We'll get you on your way." With a swipe of his hand, he disabled the magnets. Drift slapped his hand to the back of his neck, finding nothing. The medic raised his brow.

"Something's not right," Drift said. "I don't feel right."

"A little nausea is a normal side effect of the swapping process, as is minor sensornet irregularities. You'll integrate back into your frame in a day or two," the medic said.

"I know that, I'm not a newbie," Drift snarled. "Something is different." He felt cold, and something like hunger was lurking around the edges of his spark, but not hunger exactly. His plating crawled, phantom sensations dancing across his arms. "I think I've been poisoned."

The medic snorted. "We checked the frame before we put you back in. You're fine. Sometimes the swapping process causes disproportionate response, even in donors who've been doing this awhile. I need this slab for the next customer so you're going to need to leave."

"Check again," Drift said, scratching at his arm. "Something's wrong."

The medic sighed, aggrieved, and pulled out a medscanner. He pointed the disk at Drift and swept it over him, looking at the readout. "Nothing," the medic said. "You're clear. It's probably neurological, your brain will settle in after a day or so."

Drift frowned. But he wasn't a doctor. He had no way of proving he was right and no way of forcing the medic to fix him. If he forced the issue, the medic would be calling security and he'd end up banned from the clinics and there just wasn't any other way to make money with a felony on record anymore. He couldn't get himself banned.

He shambled back to the intake desk, where he picked up his possessions—a currency card and his ID. He headed back towards Dead End, head in a fog and the itching sensation growing more and more intense. He stopped to vent halfway there, fans running full blast to try and cool off a frame that felt icy cold. His hands were shaking.

Drift realized abruptly what must have happened. Circuit boosters. The rich slagger who'd been fragging around in his body had been using circuit boosters. He recognized these symptoms, the shuddering plating of the listless addicts that lined the streets a familiar sight. Someone had gone and gotten his body addicted while he was gone.

He nearly turned on the spot and marched back there. But what was the point? The medic had clearly made up his mind that nothing was wrong—either nothing was showing on the scans or he was lying to get Drift out of there. They weren't going to punish the customer, no matter what Drift said. If Drift went back and made a fuss, they'd cut him off as a donor.

Drift panted, trying to think of what to do. Stopping boosters flat was dangerous, once your body was hooked. He'd heard someone say that once. Spontaneous spark failure. Paranoid delusions. Massive overheating. What he needed was a taper dose, just a little bit to wean his stupid fragged up body off this poison.

He knew just where to buy such a thing.

Drift wound his way through narrow, junk strewn alleyways, keeping a hand on the wall to keep him upright. He passed from the well-lit streets into the overbuilt alleys where shanties and hastily-welded structures blocked near all light. He kept his free hand locked tight around his frame to stop from scratching at his crawling plating. The nausea that had always hit him after a bodyswap was back in full-force and even the roll of his gait made his tank churn uneasily. He paused at a doorway, light seeping out from underneath.

It rattled on its hinges when he knocked, a grating sound. The minibot that opened the door would have been called a disposable when Drift was younger. He looked up at Drift, arms crossed tight over his narrow frame. "We fired you," he said.

"I know, Arco," Drift said, listing a bit to lean against the doorway. "I'm here as a buyer."

Arco snorted. "You? Silent, judgey Drift?"

"I just need a little bit, just a taper dose," Drift said. "This wasn't my idea."

Arco considered him, squinting his tiny visor. "Police didn't get you, right?"

"Spark's honor," Drift said, rapping his knuckles against his chest. "Arco, please. I need it."

"That's what they all say," Arco said. "My job? You get good at saying no to bots who say they need things. You can pay?"

Drift nodded. He didn't have a ton of the clinic money left, but it'd be enough.

"Forty," Arco said, holding out a tiny hand for a currency card. Drift cringed. Forty was going to leave him scraping to get fuel for a week without going back to the clinic. But he needed it, so he passed his card over.

"Don't inject in the neck or anywhere on your helm," Arco said. "Go for the inside of the elbow or right below the knee, okay? And if it's a taper dose, don't leave it plugged in. In, count of three, out again. This will be enough for eight doses, if you do it like that." He leaned away from the doorway and came back with a small booster-injector. "I don't want to see you back here again, Drift. I am in shipping, not distribution."

"I'm not going to get addicted," Drift said, taking his card back along with the booster. He cradled it reverently, fighting the urge to take the first dose with Arco still watching. "I'm trying to get out."

Arco shook his head. "Good luck with that."

Later - CH7

"Look, I can't do intake if you're not clean," the bot said.

Drift glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, shivering.

"You're dosed up on syk right now, don't even try to play me," the bot said, glaring back. "We can't be handing off bodies that are literally high. People would demand their money back."

"I need this," Drift said. The itching had faded away, along with the hunger, but Drift knew it'd be back soon. "This is the only place that will take me, please."

"I'm not the bad guy here," the bot said, steepling his hands on the desk. "I'll let you in on a little trade secret, okay? If you go two weeks clean, you'll be able to pass the scans. I know some of you Dead Enders are living it rough, so I'm not going to ban you on the spot and I'm not putting this in your donor record. Just wean yourself off, go two weeks clean and you'll be able to pass the donor examination."

Drift walked out, plotting a course to the next closest clinic. He just had to stop shaking and he'd be able to pass. It hadn't been a long hit, just a few seconds, using up the last of his booster. He could have tried to explain to the clinic employee that weaning himself off wasn't exactly going well, but it wasn't worth his time. Someone would take him and he'd say 'long' when they asked long or short and they'd put his spark in a box or a containment field and he wouldn't feel anything anymore.

Later - CH7

That street corner hadn't been empty the last time he'd been here. Drift knelt, floating on static as he ran his fingertips through the energon that had splattered on the pavement. Headhunters again.

They'd been quiet at first. Taking people in the night, taking them from the corners and the alleyways where even the people of Dead End wouldn't see them vanish. But these new thugs, they were chatty. Paid by the head, by nobody-knew-whom but everyone knew for what. Well, everyone thought they knew for what. Theories ricocheted through Dead End, bouncing back and forth along the whisper chains. Melting bodies for parts. Population control. Empties for the clinics. Brains for the Institute. People disappeared and didn't come back.

And the police had no idea. Too busy thwarting petty crime and being self-righteous, he guessed. Or maybe someone up top didn't want them to know. The police tended to mind the boundaries of Dead End and not venture too far inside. The people there really weren't worth their time.

He didn't have much longer on this booster, so hopefully his contact would hurry along. The crash after each higher dose was worse. He could intellectualize that. Could feel the circuits spark and short. But when he was on the boosters, he couldn't feel it anymore. When he was sober, he'd imagined it as a pale emotional euphoria, but that didn't go halfway to describing the feeling of being on syk. It was like it took the parts of you that were painful and inverted them, made them whole again. The real world fuzzed over, but internally everything became crisp and crystallized and true. His body felt like his again, in a way it hadn't since that first relinquishment clinic. No longer just a dead puppet thing his spark was dragging around with him but him.

He'd done his best to stop. He'd hadn't taken syk for a reason, after all. It was expensive. Especially when you already could barely afford to fuel. But the lulls between highs weren't a return to normalcy. It was like him off syk was the one of them that was addicted, the symptoms were so intense. He boiled and he clawed at his frame and scratched paint and he lost his ability to stay awake. And always, always, he would break. And he would find some way to pay for the boosters.

He waited by the wall, watching the aerials of jets high up above their heads. Hyper-focusing was a syk thing, he knew that. But it was nice to just float in that focus. If he ever could have had a different alt-mode, a jet would have been nice. You could get away from things.

The approach of footsteps jolted him out of his reverie. Drift turned his head to see his dealer approaching, wingtips drawn high to keep them from dragging through the muck. Drift raised a hand in acknowledgement, watching the glossy predator's form approach. He'd never learned this one's name. He was just the dealer that walked, stalking the circuit of Dead End. Stepping into each alleyway for a moment to find any customers that might be lurking in the dark.

Drift didn't like the mech, but he was willing to bargain when his customers didn't have any Shanix left.

He stepped close to loom over Drift. "How much do you want?" He asked.

Drift held up one finger, then ruefully tapped on his throat to indicate a vocoder short.

The dealer nodded in understanding. "One booster it is," he said. "And what have you got to offer me?"

Drift tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck cabling and drew a fingertip down one of the primary fuel lines. He watched the dealer's face for the bloom of understanding, the greedy flush of desire that rippled across his face. The dealer licked his lips, exposing the tips of his fangs for just a moment.

"Didn't take you for a leaker," the dealer said. "Must be your first time, offering me up your neck like that," he reached out a clawed hand and let it linger over Drift's neck cabling. Drift shivered. The hand trailed down to follow Drift's arm and the bot's claws encircled Drift's wrist. He lifted Drift's wrist up to his face and swiped his glossa over the thin plating that protected the fuel lines beneath. "Offer your wrist to offer active energon. Pierce the lines at the neck and you'll leak too fast to enjoy your prize."

Drift wished he'd just hurry up with it. There was only so much time before the last remnants of this booster would wear off and Drift didn't want it to wear off with the creepiest mech he'd ever known sucking the fuel out of his lines. That'd be a bad crash. But he was doing him a favor, letting Drift pay him in something other than Shanix. So Drift sat quiet and let him take his time.

The mech smirked, seeming to notice Drift's impatience, and slowly dragged his glossa over the inside of Drift's wrist. It tingled, a weird and almost ticklish sensation. Drift watched him with a disinterested eye as the mech pressed his fangs against the plating and pushed till energon bubbled up from the holes. It hurt a bit, but so little on the scale of things. There was a queasy feeling lurking somewhere beyond the syk haze, but it was easy to push it down and away.

He'd expected the mech to latch on and draw the fuel out of him, efficient and quick and avoiding too much mixing of volatile active energon with the atmosphere. Instead he let the cuts well up and dribble over, lapping at the trails that rolled down the side of Drift's wrist. Drift watched, wide eyed, as a leisurely swipe of his glossa left his wrist stinging. He held himself in perfect stillness and let the mech do as he wished.

Eventually the dealer grew tired of his game and let Drift's arm go. Drift vision had gone thin, depth perception wobbling in and out of existence as his body tried to cope with the sudden loss of fuel volume. He clamped a hand over the leaking holes on his wrist to slow the trickle of fuel loss. The dealer stood and shook out his wings, before reaching into his chest compartment to retrieve Drift's prize. He made as if to throw it, smirked when Drift's eyes widened in horror, and set the delicate glass injector on the ground next to Drift.

"See you next time, little leaker," the mech said, drawing a possessive hand over Drift's left finial. Drift nodded a lie and watched him slink away before picking up his treasure.

Never inject directly into the helm. It can cause processor failure and spark burnout, even at low doses. Drift smiled a little bit as he looked the booster over, checking for cracks. He was ready to go now.

It was the only possible decision. He didn't have the money for fuel. Without fuel he would slowly lose his ability to move until the vultures or the head-hunters stripped his body for parts. He didn't have any way of making money—not while he was wrapped up in a haze of boosters. And he'd tried to quit, but it just wasn't possible. He was too weak. So this was the best option. Go out blissful, while it was still within his means. Let them do what they wanted with his body after.

Full of some irrepressible sense of self-importance, Drift heaved himself to his feet and moved to kneel out in the open. He wasn't hiding this time. Come and take me, you can't get me any more. There was a shadow of fear quivering somewhere beyond his reach, but it only took a moment to dig the prongs of the injector into his helm and push the plunger. And then there was no going back.

The booster uploaded into his brain like liquid gold melting over its surface. Current snapped on the surface of his helm like a halo as his optics overheated to near blindness. His body slumped as motor control circuits fried and then failed. His head rolled back on his shoulders, face towards the sky. It felt beautiful. Everything felt within reach. He could have sworn he was up in that sky somewhere, pirouetting above the gliders, sun warm on his back. Old sensors and warnings faded away in that golden sensory haze as he stepped forward to leave them behind. Time slowed and congealed around him as he tried to savor the moment.

"Got one," a distant voice said. Unpleasant tone to it. Drift would have frowned, but his face was frozen by the booster. He couldn't see them wander over, but he felt their presence as they crouched down in front of him. "You dirty little siphonist," the mech spat.

Another set of heavy footsteps approached, lingering a few steps away from Drift. Watching as his partner as the mech repeated the slur. "You think he can hear you, Sonic?" He asked.

The first mech, Sonic apparently, snorted. "With all those nervecircuits firing off in his head? I doubt it. I just like saying the words."

Drift almost had a moment of panic, but the golden haze pushed it back. They're too early. I'm not done yet. Wrapped up in the embrace of the booster, the first blow felt more like a radiant explosion of nervecircuits than a punch across the face.

Later - CH8

Time thinned and wavered, unsure of its own existence. Drift's thoughts hung on a delicate thread back to that place when he had been real, time rounding and blunting them beyond recognition. It was not warm or dry or safe but it was not the opposite of these things either. It wasn't peaceful; he had no capacity to recognize peace. It was oblivion beyond comprehension.

The return to semi-consciousness was jarring. His thoughts scrawled across his brain, illegible. He had done it, but he didn't know what. He had won, but he didn't know what. He was in pain, but he didn't know why. He was not yet a body, only a mind and a spark jolting back and forth in frenetic confusion. The doctor, Ratchet. The loss of the void was like a physical blow, the return to himself seemed unbearably cruel. A short window of opportunity, a chance to break free.

He opened red optics on a room he recognized. Above the surgical slab, one of the Relinquishment Clinic's doctors loomed, hand unfolded into the many-bladed nightmares within. "I wanted to snuff you quickly," the doctor said.

He set a blade against the side of Drift's face, frame pinging with foreign signals. "Trying to defraud the company? I wanted the pleasure of crushing that spark in my hand. But the complainant insisted on seeing you, so I was forced to put you back together."

Drift wasn't back in his body. It wasn't far off, shape-wise. The same proportions, no extra kibble. But his spark didn't recognize this frame, the sensornet illuminating in waves as it bounced signals through this frame in abortive pulses. This wasn't his body.

He'd walked out of the doctor's clinic, sure of his plan. Ratchet had flushed out his lines, done something to his brain and he couldn't feel the sting of his addiction anymore. And if he couldn't feel it, the Relinquishment Clinic wouldn't be able to detect it. He'd walked to the nearest clinic and turned his body over for a long-term loan. By the time the loan was over, he'd figured the hunger would have left his frame. But this wasn't his body.

The medic deactivated the magnets of the surgical slab and Drift slid to the floor in a heap. He tried to gather his arms and legs under him, uncoordinated as a newframe. "This isn't my frame," he said.

The medic snorted. "I know. It was very difficult finding an empty in storage that was close enough to pair with your spark. You see, I've got a very sad story to tell you." The medic sank onto the balls of his feet and steepled his fingers, click-clacking them together. "It's about a guttersmech who thought he'd try and be clever and make someone else suffer for his bad choices in life. He thought he was above such petty things as 'contracts' and 'laws' and he decided to have all sorts of fun with circuit speeders. But then, oh no! His money ran out and he couldn't buy himself any more drugs. And, of course, we only take clean bodies here at the RCs. We're providing our clients with an experience, not a potential medical liability. So this mech went and he decided to cheat the system. He flushed his frame out with new fuel and then went straight to the clinic before any of the nasty indicator compounds had time to diffuse into the fuelstream. And some poor, trusting, intake mech took him at his word and signed his frame for a long term lease."

"Now, we clean that body up and we lease it out to a client. The unfortunate mech nearly has spark failure as the body goes into withdrawal. Mech comes back, needs his money refunded. Which we do, no questions asked. And then we assumed the case was closed. So we took your tainted frame and we melted it down for scrap. Harvested the metals in it and sent 'em on to a frame factory to be recycled into new parts."

Drift shook his head. "No. No. You didn't."

The medic shrugged. "Well, I ain't got a way of proving it to you. Wasn't expecting you to be sticking around to find out, I was figuring we'd be harvesting your spark and recycling your brain module. But it turns out the client has a bit more pull than I'd imagined and he wants to see the mech who did him wrong and he wants to be sure justice is being done. So we slipped you in this little thing, just for the interview. Don't get too comfortable." The medic let his hands fold back into their normal shape, scalpels tucking away with a susurration of metallic clicking sounds.

He put his hand on Drift's cheek and patted it gently. "I don't want you to get your hopes up, so I'll tell you the truth. No matter what we tell that mech, no matter what sentence he decides on, he's going to leave you here with us so that we can carry out his bidding. And then I'm going to take you back to this room. And I will slice you out of that shell. And you'll get to melt just like that pretty little frame of yours did."

Drift snarled, snapping at the medic's hand and nearly catching it with his denta. There was a scream rising up in his throat, insuppressible. He's lying. He's lying to hurt you. They just swapped you into one of the empties for sport. He couldn't be sure. There was no way to be sure.

The medic slapped him, knocking his head back against the floor. "Animals. You guttermechs are no better than animals." The mech wrapped a hand around Drift's ankle and began to drag him across the floor towards the door. Drift shrieked, fingers trying to grasp at something, anything to hold him back. He felt like a poorly assembled pile of limbs, not a mech. Nothing was moving the way he needed it to. He curled in on himself to drag his arms towards his captured ankle, but the medic just batted away his ineffectual attempts to pry his leg free.

They stamped out into the hallway, Drift's new fans kicking up into a roar as he snarled at the medic. Which did nothing to slow their progress to the small room with a table and two chairs, a spotlight illuminating one of them. The medic heaved Drift into the chair and fetched four pairs of cuffs. He captured Drift's feebly flailing limbs one by one and locked them to the chair, then slid into the seat across the table. He clasped his hands and regarded Drift. "I'm not going to show our esteemed client a raving animal. If you cannot calm yourself I will be forced to sedate you."

Drift vented in almighty heaves and tried to slow his racetrack mind. It was spinning and spinning got to escape. I've got to escape. I've got to-

"Look, hysteria is not an uncommon reaction to rapid onboarding of a reconnected brain and spark. I get that. But if you want to savor your last moments on this planet, you're going to need to calm down."

Drift glared at him, but forced his mind to settle down. It was like taming his brain during one of those early fritzes. It wanted to run away on you but you just couldn't let it do that.

This mech wants to kill me. I need to find someone I can reason with, someone who doesn't want to kill me. Whoever this rich bot is, I don't know that they want me dead. They might not. It's the best I've got right now.

He slowed his venting and smiled around jagged denta. When he spoke, his voice felt wholly alien. "Any time." It wasn't all that different from his old voice, he tried to reassure himself. But he couldn't help adding it to the list of things to be mourned. As best he could in the brief window of time he had.

The medic shrugged and stood to leave. Drift watched his retreating back, scouring his brain for anything that might even resemble a plan. By the time the medic had returned, he had come up with exactly and precisely nothing.

The mech that followed him was tall and absurdly broad, pearly luster straight out of a high class polish. The amount of pointless kibble the mech was carrying just screamed rich. Maybe alt-mode exempt, the way his size and station failed to mesh. The mech slid into the seat across from Drift, gracefully resting his hands on the table. "Hello there. I'm told your designation is Drift, Drift of Rodion. Is that correct?"

In the mech's broad chest, Drift could see his new reflection. It was wholly unlike himself, but eerily familiar. It took him a moment to realize he recognized it. One of the mechs who'd gone missing, way back. He'd run on Arco's delivery crew with Drift, still been working there when Drift lost the job. He'd vanished off the streets sometime after and Drift had always hoped that meant he'd found some way to move up in life. But here he was, an empty in the back storeroom of a relinquishment clinic. Drift's only possible savior.

Drift shook his head. "No. No sir. My name is Chasma. What's happening? They put me back in my body, but they won't let me leave? Nobody's telling me anything."

The rich mech's head snapped over to the medic. "You're sure this is the right mech? The frame doesn't look the same."

"It is. We had to destroy the frame, for the sake of public safety. We've put him in one of our loaners."

"What?" Drift said. "This is my body. Why are you lying to this mech? He looks important."

The medic glared at Drift. "This is absurd. Please, sir, just ignore everything that comes out of his mouth. Clearly, Drift here is so desperate not to go to jail that he's willing to conjure up a fake identity to escape punishment."

The mech looked from Drift to the medic and then back again. "Can you prove your identity?" He asked.

Drift bit his lip and took a chance. "Arrest records. Look up Chasma of Rodion, that's me. I could try and contact my former employer? But I've been in a long-term lease, I've been off the streets a long time."

The medic sputtered something about the bot most certainly not needing to follow up on this ridiculous prevarication, but the bot drew out a datapad and set it on the table, tapping at it with two fingers and then looking somberly at the readout. He lifted the datapad to show the medic. "This is Chasma of Rodion. No spark signature data, but it certainly looks like a match."

"Well, he's probably the loaner for this body. But on the inside? That's Drift."

The mech set the datapad down with a clatter and ran his hands over his helm. He looked back at Drift. "Do you have any way of proving him wrong?"

Drift looked over at the medic, then flicked his optics back to the mech across from him. "Well, if I'm not Chasma, then Chasma would be in the back room. Waiting to be put back in a body. If I'm not Chasma, he should be able to fetch him."

The mech nodded sagely. "An excellent point. Citizen, would you please?"

The medic shifted from foot to foot. This was an empty, he'd said so. Not a loaner. "I'll check and see," he said. He made his escape, closing the door behind him with a click.

Drift immediately leaned forwards. "Sir, I don't care if I go to jail for this. I didn't do it, but jail's not so bad. They feed you, they keep you alive. That mech," he cast the door a quick look, "he was threatening to kill me if I didn't play along. I just fragged it up on accident, I didn't realize he meant I was supposed to pretend to be Drift. Look, do whatever you want, just don't leave me-"

The mech reached across the table to pat Drift on the back of the hand. "Do not worry. I will see justice through, little mech. Did you know Drift?"

Drift considered his options, then nodded. "Yeah. I mean, I worked with him, for a bit. We were both doing courier work in Dead End. He got fired, I didn't see him much after that. Do you think they killed him?"

"Don't worry about it," the mech said. "That's not your responsibility."

The door burst open and the medic stepped back inside. Alone. "Chasma was transferred to another clinic," he said.

The mech frowned. "But his body was left here? Really, citizen, I am not amused by you wasting my time. Why don't you just pay this mech and we can send him on his way, then sort this out?"

Drift watched the medic practically vibrate with fury, but didn't come up with any proof that Drift was Drift. It was baffling-there were so many ways he could have done it. Chasma had never been a clinic user, he wouldn't even have a database entry. But whatever reason they had Chasma's frame, clearly keeping that secret from this mech was worth more than getting even with Drift.

The medic and the rich mech took him back the front desk and turned a currency card over to Drift. He would have bet money he didn't have that the card was empty, but the door was right there. He wasn't going to say anything when freedom was a mere hundred feet away,

The rich mech frowned when Drift turned to go without receiving back his ID. "Have you forgotten something?"

Drift shrugged and patted his chest. "Naw, it's tucked away safe." He'd just have to find a way to make it without. He gave the mech a jaunty wave as he walked away, then slipped out of sight as fast as his wobbly legs could take him. The moment he knew they couldn't see him, his knees gave out.

He choked on a laugh that desperately wanted to be a sob. It had worked. His frame was gone and he was stuck in some dead bot's shell, but he'd survived. His spark turned in its casing, the cling to this frame wavering and uncertain. Drift had never had this hard of a time animating the loaner frames they'd stuck him in before. Perhaps it was the shock of knowing this was permanent. He pulled himself deep, ignoring the sensory signals bouncing around, centering himself in around his spark. It was the same. It would always be the same. Everything else could be changed, they could rip him limb from limb, but he was still there. And he had a second chance, right now. All he had to do was get up and take it.

He crawled to his feet, pulling himself up with one hand on the wall. He cast a quick thank-you to Ratchet and Chasma, for the second chance he hadn't deserved. The desire for Syk no longer pulled at his frame, only a phantom echo of the hunger lingering in his spark.

Later - CH3

It had taken him longer than he'd expected to run out of options. When he'd lost Naucratis, he'd found Spindle and the workshop and that had been good. When he'd lost Spindle, he'd managed to make ends meet through the Relinquishment Clinics. When that had gone bad, a doctor and a larger-than-life cop had seen fit to drag him back from death. But now, locked out of work by his record, the clinics by his body, and government assistance by his missing ID...he was finally at the end of the line.

It wasn't that starving was more painful than he'd expected. It was approximately exactly as painful as he'd expected. The flavor of the pain was a little different, but even that was starting to fade.

No, the surprising part was how long it fraggin' took.

He knew that he could give up at any time. If he just let himself slip offline, that'd be it. This was Dead End. Someone would find his body and strip it clean. So he'd been hanging on out of sheer stubbornness. They'd get him in the end, but as his body cannibalized itself there was less and less worth salvaging.

But now that slow decline had turned from a source of frustration into a conundrum. He'd found a body. As weak as he was, it took awhile for him to crawl to reach it. He put a hand to the darkened optics and found them warm, though the bot didn't wake. He was still alive.

And that was the crux of it. He was still alive. It wasn't impossible that some do-gooder might happen across this empty and bring them both to safety, fix them up...aw, you're not even fooling yourself. Come on, Drift. Own your choices. He could siphon energon from this bot and stay alive a few more weeks. But if he did, this bot was almost certainly going to die.

So he had waited for the bot to die so he didn't have to choose. But he was growing weaker and weaker and soon he wouldn't be able to put off the decision any longer.

You wanted to die before. What do you have to live for now? He didn't know. He just knew he wasn't ready. Not now. His teeth fit fit so neatly around the main fuel line at the crux of the neck.

The energon hit his processor first and the horror hit him all over again, but he couldn't stop his body, lapping at the energon that leaked from the hole in the fuel line. His optics were leaking, dropping blubbering drips of coolant onto the pavement. His tank was churning, threatening to reject the fuel. But he couldn't stop.

Later - CH6

Drift clutched three cannisters to his chest, dropping awkwardly from the rim of the trash compactor to the sidewalk below. The impact jarred his knees and he lurched sideways a bit till he recovered his balance. He looked both ways. No sign of police. He snugged his body in the space between the compactor and the alley wall, inspecting his find. Most times a cannister would come out of a recharge berth spotless and there'd be nothing to eat. These had looked like they were opened by hand, better chances. He tipped the first upside down, swiping his glossa around for any traces of energon inside. It tasted metallic and half-turned, but there were a few drops caught around the inside of the lid. Drift's tank panged in excitement and he did his best to ignore it. There's not going to be much, don't get your hopes up. He discarded the first cannister once he'd licked it clean.

"Hey."

Drift's head snapped up, arm tightening around his remaining treasures. There was a bot standing over him. Big, bulky, clean plating. Looked well-fed enough to pound him. A little smile that Drift couldn't help reading with the worst of intentions. Drift scrambled to his feet, using the wall to help him backpedal. He was heading deeper into the alley, but they were blocking the exit. If they followed him he'd try and break past, surprise them with a burst of speed. He still had that in him, some days.

The bot put his hands up. "Hey, I didn't mean to scare you. You looked like you could use a friend."

And what was that supposed to mean? Drift bared his fangs, leaning against the wall a bit. Whatever this shiny-aft bot had in mind, Drift didn't want to hear about it. He'd seen bots in Dead End get disappeared before, he wasn't in a hurry to become one of them. "I'm good," he rasped. Energy levels low, his vocoder was only at half power.

The bots face crumpled. He slowly, oh so slowly, sat down on the dirty pavement in front of Drift. "My name's Gasket," he said. "And I don't need anything from you. You just looked hungry. Got a name?" The bot reached into a chest compartment and drew out a transfusion cable. He held it out to Drift tantalizingly.

Drift eyed it warily. Those cables could be modded so they'd transfuse whichever way the operator wished, regardless of fuel levels. But a bleeding-spark offering him active energon wasn't to be turned down. He held out his hands to take the cable and look it over. "Drift," he said. "I'm Drift."

Gasket let him take the cable and inspect it for any after-market modifications. It seemed to be the genuine article. Drift scanned the alleyway warily. It was the time of night where the foot traffic thinned out, bots already gone from the oilhouses back to their cozy little habs. Which was to say, it was dark. You had to be at full alert. Drift flipped his fuel port open and plugged his half of the cable in, feeling the clamps snap into place. He passed the cable back to Gasket, who breezily opened up his fuel port and connected them.

"So how did you end up on the streets?" Gasket asked. "Work class decommissioned? Rejected your Functionist assignment? Turned away by the relinquishment clinics as too fragile for swapping?"

Drift's eyes hungrily watched the energon rush down the cable to meet him in a rush of heady clarity. He sighed against the wash of bliss, arms going strutless as he sunk against the wall. "Little bit of everything," he said. "You forgot the criminal record."

"Of course, how could I forget!" Gasket said, theatrically popping himself in the head with his palm. "Sorry about that. I've been where you are, some weeks. Work class decommissioned and my spark is apparently 'too weak' to accept reformatting." He smiled. "I've got a little place off the streets, a couple of us trying to make it together. We get those when they're full," Gasket said, nodding at the cannisters in Drift's arms.

Thieves. Drift eyed Gasket with newfound curiosity. He'd tried stealing, when he was new to his syk addiction. It had ended badly, but at least the officer hadn't arrested him. Thought he was too pathetic to arrest. He hadn't been strong enough to try lately, barely getting enough fuel to keep his processor running. "Why are you telling me?" He asked.

"Would you trust me more if I said you look like a racer and we could use a speedster to help us with getaways?" Gasket said. "Cause the real answer is that I just hate seeing bots like us suffer. But we can pretend it's the first one if it'll help your cynical Dead End spark accept my offer."

"Well, now that you've topped me up, I feel obligated," Drift said. Gasket smiled, taking that hedged excuse as the wholehearted acceptance it really was. He just looked happy at the idea of Drift joining him.

Gasket stopped the transfusion with an apologetic smile. "That's about how much I can risk," he explained, unhooking the cable. He offered Drift a hand up. "You okay to travel?"

With the fuel settling into his lines, Drift was fairly sure he could have flown. "I'll make it," he said.

Gasket led him out onto the main street of Dead End, hollow shells of the buildings of the CC quarter boxing them in on either side. Drift followed close at Gasket's shoulder to keep pace with him in the dark. They'd never redone the street lighting, since Dead End wasn't officially habitable. Gasket led him to a building that had, a long time ago, housed the maintenance bot's union and apartments. One of the boards over the windows was loose. Gasket lifted it to expose a broken window that led them inside the building. They made to the back of the building and the central staircase, which had been repaired with slipshod welds layered one on another.

At the top of the stairs, Gasket jimmied the lock to the exit onto the roof. Up on the roof they could feel the sway of the building, the rush of the wind over their heads. Gasket crouched and Drift imitated him, scurrying to the edge of the roof. The gap to the building next door was only a few feet. "This way we don't have to bust an entrance in at ground level," Gasket said. "Can you make the jump?"

Drift scoffed. Backing up a few steps, he ran for the gap and leaped, pulling his body tight into a ball for the landing. Gasket jumped after him, landing with an ungainly stumble. Gasket grinned at him again, that stupid smile. "You're really good at that. I bet you will be good at getaways."

"Anything to screw with the bots who run rich off the system while we starve," Drift said. "If I get to screw over rich bots, I'm in."

Gasket sighed. "It's not about revenge. It's not the lucky folks' fault that they're doing okay. We're just doing what we have to to get by."

"Well maybe they didn't ask to be lucky," Drift said, "but I don't see them doing anything but profiting off the system."

Gasket unlatched a pair of locks on the roof entrance, looking over his shoulder at Drift. "There were the anti-apartheid protesters, marching side-by-side with the Colds to get them legal rights."

"Well that did me a pit of a lot of good, didn't it?" Drift said. "Same as all the other bots who used to live here before Dead End was Dead End. And Colds still have to work whatever job they were built for and nobody builds bots for the high-status jobs."

Gasket waved him into the hideout, then began locking up behind him. "I just help who I can see in front of me," he said. "If more bots did that, we'd see a lot of change." They descended the stairs to a doorway. Gasket knocked, tapping out a precise string of knocks that must have been the signal. The door popped open a moment later, the minibot at the door lighting up when he saw Gasket.

"You're back!" The bot said, throwing himself on Gasket. Drift leaned away, watching Gasket wrap the bot in an enthusiastic hug, nuzzling their faces together in an unseemly display of...touchy-ness. Gasket set the bot down and then circled the room, emptying various trinkets out of his storage compartments to give to bots and touching and patting and hugging people as he passed them by. He better not be planning on putting hands on my plating or he's going to lose those hands, Drift thought. There were eight bots in the room, two of them with mangled legs that left them no longer mobile. Drift frowned, catching the shaky hands of a syk addict on his scan of the room. He certainly isn't picking these bots based on their ability in thievery. Bleeding-spark, just like I said.

Drift crossed his arms and waited. Eventually, Gasket circled back to him. "You ready to meet the crew?" He asked, reaching out for Drift but drawing his hand back at the last second so he didn't brush over Drift's plating.

Drift looked skeptically at Gasket. He wanted to make a comment on Gasket having an awful lot of companions that looked pretty useless, but he knew Gasket would just be disappointed in him. He flashed back to the workshop with Spindle, finding odd jobs for the various unemployed bots of the quarter around the workshop because Spindle had always been a bleeding spark under that gruff exterior. The way Spindle had thrown his arm over Drift's shoulder whenever they finished a project, how he never needed to say Drift had done a good job. Inexplicably, he found himself choking up, unable to speak.

Gasket softened, stepped closer and offered Drift a hand to take. "Hey, it's okay. You're home."

Drift fit his hand in Gasket's and tipped his chin up to stop his optics from overflowing.

Later - CH4

In the confines of their hideaway, the three mechs were silent, waiting for Gasket to return. It was best to be quiet at night if you had something worth stealing; they had two fuel cannisters from their raid, still unopened. Especially if you weren't in a state to defend yourselves.

Vim wimpered, curling closer to Drift's frame. Drift sighed and ran his fingers reassuringly over his side. Shouldn't have snuck that Syk dose. You'll be suffering for awhile yet. He couldn't really blame Vim. He could remember the eternal hunger of his addiction, how it had clawed at his spark. But it had nearly been their undoing, Vim grabbing the boosters when they were supposed to be making their escape. Gasket had even gotten mad. Drift had never seen Gasket angry before. But the anger had passed in a flash and Gasket was back to his normal over-sympathetic self. He'd asked Drift what would help Vim, then had them retreat to the hideout to keep him safe.

Wastrel played with one of their empty cube glasses, spinning it like a top. They were waiting to open the cannisters until Gasket's return and the hunger gnawed at the edges of their patience. Drift knew, even in advance, that Gasket was going to be confused by them waiting. He'd tell them it was stupid to sit hungry when you could eat. But the raid had been Gasket's idea. The group was Gasket's. They weren't going to open them without him.

Vim moaned and Drift put his hand to his mouth to silence him. With the Syk blowing through his systems, Vim was probably even more hungry than the rest of them. Running dry on a kick could be fatal. Drift contemplated the fuel cannisters. It was good fuel, but it'd be harsh on a sparking system. Active energon would be safer. With a delicate pop of pain, he used a single fang to puncture a small hole in the line on the inside of his wrist.

He brought the cut up to Vim's mouth, let him latch onto his wrist. A leaker and a dirty little siphonist. He ran his free hand over Vim's helm, petting at him aimlessly, distracting himself from the intimate sting of someone's glossa on his wrist.

They lay like that for hours. Wastrel took over holding Vim for a bit. Then they swapped back. Drift sat back to let Vim rest against his chest, his frame still scalding from the booster.

Gasket gave the knock and Wastrel moved their makeshift barricade away from the door. Gasket slid inside, smile quickly turning to a concerned frown. "Is he okay?" He said.

Wastrel tapped his finger to his lips. The not talking rule was Gasket's rule, though he was always the first to break it.

"He's through the worst of it," Drift said in a low voice. "Too hot, but I don't think he blew any circuits."

"Sorry. I thought I'd be faster." Gastket said, putting the cannister of cleaning solvents to the side. He popped open one of his hip compartments and pulled out a cleaning cloth and a bottle of coolant. Drift took the coolant from his hands.

Together, they got the safety seal off of Vim's coolant port. Drift poured as Gasket held him steady and then Drift lifted Vim's arm above their heads to speed up the circulation. A good Syk dosage could evaporate all the coolant in your system before it ran clear. Next, Gasket got the lid off the cannister and dipped the cloth inside. "Solvent'll evaporate off and cool off his frame," he explained.

"Mm sorry," Vim rasped. "Not worth this."

Gasket sat back and frowned. "Vim. You're my friend. You're all my friends. You're worth everything. Don't worry, we're going to cool you down and then we'll all have a drink, since you utter fools haven't uncapped them yet."

Gasket flicked a finger-full of solvent at them, splatter cool on Drift's cheek. He grinned at Gasket. Caught me again.

Wastrel moved closer to help Gasket, soaking the cloth in the solvent and passing it back and forth to Gasket as he wiped down Vim's steaming frame. Under the grime, the blue of Vim's frame shone bright.

When Vim was again cool to the touch, Drift eased away, letting the wall support him. Gasket capped the solvent and Drift looked on, coveting. But it was dangerous to call attention to yourself in Dead End, and a clean frame was a beacon screaming 'mark waiting to be robbed'. They'd dirty Vim up somehow before they went out again.

He went to break the seal on the contraband. Gasket brushed his fingers over the inside of Drift's wrist, still tacky with drying fuel.

"Drift," he said in a chiding tone.

"It helped him," Drift said, pulling his wrist back to his chest.

"I know, I know," Gasket said, placating. "Let me help you?"

Drift extended his wrist again, letting Gasket take it in his hands. He smoothed over the puncture with the now stained cleaning cloth. The sting of the solvent nipped at the edges of the cut. Gasket smoothed over the hurt with a gentle finger, then laid a thin patch over the leak. "All better," he said. His smile was soft and infectious.

It was nothing, Drift wanted to say. It barely hurt. I've had worse. But Gasket already knew that. That was the whole point of this stupid little room. This stupid little gang, their hand signals and their desperate plans and the stupid stories they'd make about the rich bots swanning down the street. Laughing amongst themselves as they watched from a railing high above the street, heads swimming with hunger and the height.

Drift opened the fuel and held it out to Gasket. Predictably, so predictably, he pushed it back towards Drift.

Later - CH5

"Why do you always say that?" Drift asked, scooting closer to Gasket's side. It was cold up on the roof, but Gasket had wanted to see the stars.

"Say what?" Gasket asked. He wriggled his arm out from between them and wrapped it around Drift's shoulders.

"Primus. You're always saying it. Primus. Do you believe?"

"I saw a shooting star. It was pretty cool. It's just a thing you say when you see something cool," Gasket said. He snuggled closer, slotting his head in the crook of Drift's neck. The others were still recharging downstairs. Drift wasn't sure why Gasket had singled him out for this special attention, but he wasn't going to let a little cold weather take this away from him. "I don't really know," Gasket continued, finally. "I don't see how else we could be here? Why are we around if there is no Primus? How?"

"We're around because someone built us. No Primus necessary," Drift said.

"Yeah, but your spark was spliced off a forged spark. So, Primus kinda necessary. I don't think Primus, like, watches us or anything. I just think there must have been something that created the first Cybertronians, way back. And Primus is as good a name for that thing as anything else."

Drift didn't answer him, looking up at the stars above. You could see more of them in Dead End. There weren't any streetlights and the apartments didn't have power. "I guess," he conceded. "I just don't like thinking there's a reason for all this."

"All this?"

"Everything you've been through. Everything I've been through. I don't want there to be someone who decided that was okay."

"I understand." Gasket said, nodding into Drift's shoulder.

A shooting star arced over their heads.

"Primus," Gasket said.

Drift punched him in the shoulder.

** Drift as an Assassin

Later - CH5

"Stop bleating. If you say one more fraggin word about Primus this gun is going through your optic. Not the bullet, the gun." Drift ground the barrel of the gun against the lens for emphasis.

Naucratis finally shut up, limbs splayed on the ground beneath Drift. He'd changed frames. Fair enough, Drift had changed too. Changed enough that Naucratis clearly hadn't recognized him yet. Well, that was going to make this more fun.

"I got impatient waiting for you to call me back," Drift said. "How's the rest of the crew been, Naucratis?"

Frozen between two orders, Naucratis hesitated. "The crew?"

"You're running too many games if you can't even remember your own pawns," Drift said. "Only thing I need you alive for, Naucratis, is the contact information of five bots. Evas, Courser, Deviton, Ibis, and Dodge. And then, of course, there was poor forgotten Drift. I already know where he is."

"Drift?" Naucratis said, boggling. "What have you done to yourself?"

"Current. Addresses. Contact information. Now. You are worthless to me, you fragging pile of scrap. I owe you nothing."

"I don't, I don't know. The Tarnian municipal authorities arrested me for workplace violations, they took them away from me. I went to jail, Drift. I lost contact with them after that, please, don't shoot. I'm sorry we abandoned you."

Drift laughed. "Can't say as apologies are currency I trade in these days. So did any of your get-rich-quick schemes actually make any money, Naucratis of Ibex?"

Naucratis looked around the ruin of his apartment. Drift had come in through the window, for maximum effect, and there was glass broken everywhere. The subsequent tussle had knocked over or broken most of the furniture. Nice thing about stalking a paranoiac is that Drift knew nobody who lived around this building was going to report anything to the police. He had as much time as he wanted to do this right. "There's a currency card hidden below the berth. That's all I have. I never, I never got rich. Not after jail. It's hard to get work when you've got a black mark on your ID."

Drift nodded, faux-seriously. "Is it? I'd heard that somewhere. Such a shame. People should try harder to rehabilitate criminals, the recindivism rates these days are through the roof and it is simply uncivilized." He rolled his optics. "Not good enough. I think I want you dead more than I want that money."

"Primus save my spark. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't think about-"

"Mmm, that was the issue, wasn't it? You know, idle curiosity, I do have another question." Drift leered at him. "Why? Why did you make us?"

You could see the gears turning. As he reached for some story that might save him, some lie to lull Drift into sympathy. Reached and reached and came up empty. "I wanted to beat Blurr," he said.

"So why not sponsor a racer? Some forged bot? Sponsor someone, use your designs to help improve them. Why us?"

"You know why," Naucratis said. Because any real bot would have known you don't race for room and board. Because any real bot would have walked away the first time your temper flared up and you went too far. Because we didn't know any better and you wanted to get rich.

"I want you to say it."

Naucratis bit his lip. "I'm sorry. For everything. May Primus forgive us for the things we-"

The barrel of Drift's gun punched through the optic. He ground down on the brain module beneath, crushing it in a squelch of scraping metal-on-metal. Drift stood up. He tossed the ruined gun on the ground. "This is all there is," he told the body. "There's nothing after this. It's just day after day of you getting the choice to die or hurt someone. And you? You picked the wrong someone to hurt."

Later - CH4

Someone banged on his door. Drift checked his weapons as he stood. He was expecting Pike, but you could never be sure. Even before he'd started contracting as an assassin he'd been a wanted bot. Through the peephole he sighted the rounded minibot, all three sets of arms crossed in irritation.

"Drift," Pike said, when he got all the bolts open and could open the door. "I must admit, I was expecting something...less...hovel-ish? Aren't you rich? Why live in a maintenance tunnel?"

"I'm on seven criminal watchlists," Drift said, ushering him into his tiny space. It wasn't a hovel. It was clean, it was dry. He had everything he needed—a desk, a place to store his weapons and ammunition, a portable recharge berth. He had one in every city he took contract in. "It's best to keep a low profile."

"If you say so," Pike said. "Storing all your ill-gotten gains in a gold currency card off-planet?"

Three currency cards, two deposited with off-planet banks, one converted into a foreign currency with more projected stability than Shanix. Redundancy was essential, but so was ease of access.

"It's not in here for you to steal, if that's what you're asking," he said. "I cleaned off the desk for you. Is that a suitable surgery space?"

Pike rolled his eyes. "Sure. Are you okay with this? I don't want you freaking out and stabbing me halfway through implanting the trackers. I could always install them in a spare pair of hands and then just graft them on—it'd be a faster surgery."

Why does he own a pair of hands? Thieves. Packrats, the lot of them. "No. I am deeply uninterested in wearing other people's body parts.” Ever again. “This is fine—it was my idea, anyway."

"Okay. Just checking. I mean, I like the plan. You're sure you haven't worked retrievals before? You're wasted on violence."

"First time," Drift said, eyeing the collection of scalpels Pike was laying out on his desk in neat rows. Who the frag needs seven scalpels for a simple implantation surgery? “First time I've gotten to work with a partner, too. The contracts I'd picked up before now had all been solo.”

The job should have been simple, in and out. A bot named Rend had misappropriated a pair of forged hands from an empurata procedure done at The Institute. They wanted the hands back and Rend punished, no connection to The Institute. So their first plan had been simple: find the bot, find the hands, take the goods to the drop-off point.

But after they traced Rend to his new job at the primary Hospital of Iacon, where he was working as a nurse, the hands were nowhere to be found. Not in his office, not in the hospital at large, not in his apartment. No cubbyholes hidden along his commute. They'd been tracking him for most of a week now with no sign. New theory: he'd disposed of the hands before they found him and already grafted them onto some bot under the table.

"What makes these hands so valuable anyway, that The Institute would pay that much for their recovery?" Drift had asked, three days into the most tedious stakeout on Cybertron.

"It's not so much that they're valuable as that they could be tracked back to the forged bot that originally had 'em, before they got empurata-ed. Still trying to keep the whole The Institute thing hush-hush for the general public. That's my theory anyway. Nobody tells me anything," Pike said.

New theory on hand, Pike had raided both Rend's home and his office for a document that might trace the final destination of the hands. Nothing. Apparently Rend didn't believe in writing down his records, preferring to keep it all locked safely in his head.

"If they'd wanted this job done quickly," Drift had said, driving Pike back after the failed raid on the apartment, "they should have sent one of those brain doctors to get it out of his head. Memo-surgeons, right? They have a bunch of them at The Institute. Just have them do it."

"Eh. Why risk the secrecy of your entire government conspiracy when you could waste the time of two common criminals instead? It's not like they care about money, they can always just print more."

”Hey, we're not common criminals.” Drift had grinned. “We're exceptional.”

"Okay, done." Pike said, setting down the scalpel. "Next we're doing painting. What do you want your 'primer' color to be?"

"Red. It'll show nice and visibly under the grey."

"Yeah, that's a sound choice." Pike began assembling his airbrush kit out of the case. The trick to faking a recent hand transplant was getting the details right. Rend had worked at The Institute before he ran off with the specimens, he'd know what to look for. Peeling paint covering up a flawless primer layer was bit on-the-nose, but a classic.

Drift let Pike work in silence for the next hour. They'd gotten used to each others company over the past week. Not that the thief wasn't nosy, overly chatty and irritable, but he wouldn't mind taking them on as a partner again. Especially if it meant landing more interesting gigs like this one.

Eventually they finished and packed up. "He'll still be at the hospital, right?" Drift asked.

"Yeah, he works late most nights. Mind giving me a ride over?" Pike was altered for mass displacement, but he didn't even need it to fit inside Drift's cab for the drive over to the hospital. Drift let them out by the front entrance, then went into the building next door. Residential meant the keycards were easier to hack. He found a window on the facing side that opened towards the hospital.

"No eyes?" Drift asked as he gauged the jump. The last thing he needed was to be shot down doing a cakewalk retrieval job.

"You're clear," Pike said over their comms.

"Thanks," Drift said, thumbing off his comm and climbing out onto the ledge. Twenty feet, angling for a window three stories below.

His feet left the ledge and the air rushed up to meet him. For a moment he was way, way back clinging to Nimbus as they soared over a wall of fire. Then he grabbed for the window ledge and stopped his descent with a lurch. The closest open window on this side of the building was a few windows away, so he crabbed along the side of the building, digging his fingers into the seams in the metal siding. He poked his head up just enough to check that the coast was clear, then hoisted himself inside.

He examined his hands, fresh paint already beginning to chip around the fingertips from his climb. Revealing the red primer underneath. That wasn't quite enough. Biting his lip in concentration, he scrabbled at the center of his palm, digging in and scratching at the paint. His fingers came away streaked with pink. He clamped a hand over the cut to slow the leak. Perfect.

He barged into Rend's office, dripping a bit on the floor. "Doctor?" He said, dribbling with paranoia. "I need your help. They're looking for me."

Rend looked up from where he had been reading at his desk in the dark. "What?" He said. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have busted in like that," Drift said, looking back over his shoulder and conspicuously checking the hallway before closing the door. "Dr. Rend, I need your help. I got these hands," he held out this hands to demonstrate, "and there's something in them. The government's been hunting me down ever since. I heard you were good at hand surgery and that you can be discreet. Please, I'm desperate."

"Primus, you're bleeding," Rend said, fluttering over. "What did you do?"

"It's inside me. I know it. That's how they keep finding me."

"Where did you get these hands?" Rend asked, examining the weld-lines Pike had put around Drift's wrists that morning.

"Rodion. I lost mine in an explosion and this doctor claimed he could do a replacement. And it was all good until the police showed up at my door telling me I was going to be arrested for having 'stolen property'. I went to find the doctor but they'd raided his office too. I've been running ever since," Drift said, eyes darting to the door and then to the window. "But they keep finding me. There must be something in the hands that lets them track me."

Rend adjusted his glasses. "That is concerning." He hesitated.

"I can pay you. Please," Drift begged. "I have a record. Stupid newframe stuff, but if they arrest me I might get disappeared. Just get it out of me."

Rend looked him over, a jittery mass of nerves with flaking paint dripping all over his floor. And he took the bait. "All right. Get on the berth, I'll scan them and see what's going on."

"Catch," Drift said, tossing a pair of crumpled transponders at Pike. He plucked them out of the air and looked Drift over, hands neatly bandaged, fangs poking out over his smile.

"He took the bait?" Pike asked, just to give Drift a chance to say it.

"Yep. I told him I'd dump the transponders in the canal for him. He's real cheap, ya know. Only took two hundred Shanix to bribe him."

"He was taking pity on you because you look like you live in the gutters," Pike said, dropping the transponders in their pack.

Drift chuckled. "I don't, actually. Not anymore. So now we wait?"

"Now we wait."

The bot was named Steno, a court transcriptonist. He'd apparently had Rend do the operation when he found himself beset by early-onset form fatigue. "Can't believe Rend didn't think to make sure his secondary line wasn't tapped," Pike said as they listened in. "Not nearly paranoid enough."

Steno made his way to Rend's house that very night, drawn in by Rend's story about needing to do emergency surgery on the hands to stop the form fatigue from recurring. "He's a better actor than you are," Pike said.

"Thanks," Drift said, crunching on a few energon crisps as they waited. "Never really set out to be an actor, myself. Should we wait for him to open up this poor guy's hands and find out there's no tracking chip?"

"Nah," Pike said, getting up. "I don't want to have to reassemble the goods. Let's go."

"Everyone, hands up!" Drift shouted, kicking through the door. He leveled one blaster at Rend and the other at Steno. They froze, optics widening in confusion.

"But you're-"

"Listen, not very interested," Drift said, wiggling the blaster in his hand a little bit to draw attention to it. "Shut it while my associate checks the goods."

Pike slipped in the door under his arm. "Hey, hello, Steno. Sorry about the confusion. The hands you've been given were stolen. We've been asked to return them to their original owner."

"But what about the tracking chip?" Rend whined.

"But I need hands!" Steno said, panicked. "You can't take my hands. I need them or I'll lose my job."

"Hey, Drift told you to shut it." Pike said to Rend, holding up a finger to shush him. Turning back to Steno, he help up his hands soothingly. "It's alright. I brought you a set of replacements. Not quite as nice as stolen forged hands, but they're quite suitable."

Steno nodded. "So you're the repo guys?"

"Basically," Pike said cheerily, dropping his pack on the ground and digging out the replacement pair of hands he'd dragged along with them.

"And who's he?" Steno asked, jerking his head at Drift, who'd switched to pointing both blasters at Rend once Steno had seemed placated.

"My muscle," Pike said. "He's here to take Rend into custody once we have the hands back in hand."

"Oh."

"But you were," Rend babbled, "you were a patient? You asked for my help?"

"We tricked you so that you'd call your patient in for us," Pike explained, if only to shut him up.

"Please shut up," Drift said. "I get twitchy when I'm annoyed and I'd hate to splatter you right in front of your patient."

Pike guided the patient over to the desk and pulled out all their supplies to do the transplant. "Don't worry about it," he reassured Steno, "I do this all the time. We'll do a neuro chip, you won't feel a thing."

Drift and Rend waited in awkward silence while Pike chattered Steno through the surgery. After, Pike escorted them to the door, thanking Steno for his understanding. Returning to the room, Pike checked the hands over and boxed them up.

"Alright, so we're good," Pike said. "Just need to bring these to the drop-off and take Rend into custody."

"Custody?" Drift asked, lining up the shot. Double-tap. Brain module, spark. Energon splattered the wall and Pike dropped to the floor in a panic. "Don't know what your orders were, but I was supposed to bring back a souvenir."

Using the barrel of his blaster, he poked into the hole in the chest cavity, making sure the spark had faded. Yep, we're good.

"Primus!" Pike stared at him. "You just shot him."

"I did," Drift said, holstering one gun and reaching over to the desk to filch one of Pike's laser scalpels. "Don't worry, my contract doesn't include shooting you." He drew a line over Rend's neck with a careful finger, then began to cut.

"Primus," Pike repeated. "You know, I'd started to forget. It's stupid. I mean, I knew you killed people. But you were just...normal...all week. I'd started to trust you."

"It's just a job," Drift said, flicking the scalpel off and setting it back on the desk. He lifted up Rend's severed head with his free hand.

"You're sick," Pike said. "I'm going to the drop-off point."

Drift contemplated their retreating back. I never pretended to not be this. You just can't quite comprehend it so your mind deflects around it. Bots die one way or another. The only difference is if it's by my hand, I don't starve.

He tried to ignore the hollow feeling in his spark that he couldn't quite trace. You were never going to be friends. It was just one job. It doesn't matter.

But that week...he hadn't realized how long he'd gone without having a conversation with someone who wasn't paying him or dying by him. When he'd risen up from the pink haze of the weeks that followed Gasket's death, he'd found himself unrecognizable. He'd gone too far. There was a line, a line that bots like Pike knew not to cross. It was best if he kept to himself.

Pike would get the hands to the drop-off point. He'd better drop off the rest of their commission so they could both get paid.

** Deadlock

Later - CH8

Deadlock crept down the halls of the undergrid, checking over his shoulder to ensure he had not been followed. He had been to the rallies before, to stand at the edge of the crowd and hear Megatron's words for himself. But today was different. Today Lord Megatron had spoken to him. He had known Deadlock by his old name and he'd cast it to the dust, offering him a new life where he would be needed and where his talents could fight for good. He'd touched his cheek and asked Deadlock for his loyalty. He'd already had it. Deadlock had expected to linger on the sidelines, a footsoldier for Lord Megatron's revolution against everything he hated - the government, the police, the functionists, the mode-creation separatists. Megatron apparently wanted him at the front of the charge.

Pride surged in his spark as Deadlock checked the path for the mark of paint that indicated the correct turn. They had dispersed after Megatron had gathered his recruits. It was dangerous to conduct business close to the surface. Even with the Senate dead, the skies still swarmed with spies. Megatron was a wanted mech and to join with him was to brand yourself a terrorist in the eyes of the government. So he had given directions for the recruits to disperse and travel into the undergrid, to meet again for their initiation.

Deadlock turned another corner and met with a stony-faced mech, Decepticon sigil worn over his spark in a badge of purple. The mech nodded in greeting and held out his hands. "No weapons are allowed in the initiation chamber."

Deadlock nodded his understanding. The unsworn soldiers were not yet trusted. He disarmed himself slowly, a smile playing about his lips as he pulled smaller and smaller guns from increasingly improbable hiding places. Deadlock raised his arms to allow himself to be scanned, then passed through the doorway under the auspices of two huge mining types.

The room was dark, lit from above with a purple glow of light filtering from some chamber above them. There was a great dais at the front of the room with a solid platform of solid metal at the back. A great hammer sat on the platform, Lord Megatron standing beside with his hand resting on the handle. He saw Deadlock enter and nodded, a slow and nearly imperceptible acknowledgement. Deadlock nodded back, unsure what level of reverence was appropriate. The fighters of the pit treated Megatron as a Lord, but his writing spoke of the end of such hierarchies. His speeches spoke of the inevitable but regrettable need for hierarchies in militarized revolt. Deadlock turned to stand with the other recruits, standing silently in anxious anticipation. They shifted silently such that none of them brushed shoulders as Deadlock slotted into place. There were two medics in the room, he noticed, standing just beneath the platform, medic sigils painted on their backs.

Deadlock did not bother to study the mechs around him-he knew them or knew of them. They were the recruits of his city, his resistance, his underworld. They knew him as well, leaving him a bit more space than the other waiting mechs. Deadlock had never set out to make his fellow Decepticons fear him. He'd merely done what he did best. He didn't need the money anymore. Sometimes he could kill just for him, a little bit of vengeance here and there. Rodion hadn't been a safe place to work at a Relinquishment Clinic for many years. And if you worked for the Senate, or for the new upstart 'Prime'...you deserved what was coming to you.

One of the medics moved through the crowd to approach Deadlock, waving him closer. "Lord Megatron requests your presence," the medic said, pointing over to the dais. Deadlock looked up, startled, and found Megatron still staring, considering him. Deadlock dipped his head again in acknowledgement and walked over. He did not see stairs of any sort up onto the platform, but Megatron was a tall mech and would not have needed them to ascend onto the platform. Deadlock slowed a moment, aware of the eyes on his back. He'd always hated an audience. But he took two steps and leapt, landing lightly on the dais in front of his Lord.

Megatron regarded him somberly. "Someone would have offered you assistance."

Deadlock chuckled. "I take care of myself." Then he caught himself, back-talking his general before he'd even been accepted into his army. Deadlock cringed.

Megatron merely nodded. "You will adjust. We are not merely building a movement or an army, Deadlock. We are building a new way of life for our people. One in which we build each other stronger. It is not enough to be individually strong, or we will all crumble."

Deadlock regarded Megatron for a moment. He is always on, isn't he? Megatron spoke as he wrote. Not at all what Drift had imagined when he'd watched those pit fight recordings. "What do you want of me, Lord Megatron?" He asked. The wince that crossed Megatron's face at the honorific was nigh imperceptible.

"I have asked all of you here to swear yourselves to the Decepticon cause," Megatron, raising a hand to his own chest and the badge that rested there. "And to take part in the Rite of Deceptibrand. The ceremony is intimate and requires both loyalty and courage. I find that recruits often need an example to give them the strength to continue. I would have you as that example."

Deadlock cocked his head. "You don't think I might need an example?"

"I don't think you fear anything, any longer," Megatron said, letting his hand rest on Deadlock's shoulder.

Deadlock looked to the hand on his shoulder, then back to Megatron, unknown feelings curling in his core. He hadn't...Megatron wasn't wrong. Besides the anger, there hadn't been much to feel lately. Deadlock had felt himself drowning in the anger, clawing at him like his addiction used to. But there was no one to trust, and thus no one to worry for. There was nothing left saving, some days. He had latched onto Megatron's words when he read them because they spoke of a hope that couldn't be extinguished, a rage that couldn't be quenched. To forsake resistance to nihilism and apathy was the greatest betrayal, Megatron had written, because that was a fighter choosing to snuff out a fire before it could burn their oppressors. Loyalty and hope were drugs Deadlock had not yet tasted, but he yearned for them, craved them in his very spark.

"I'll do it," he said.

Megatron lifted his hand from Deadlock's shoulder and turned towards the crowd, picking up the thread of his speech as if he'd never left off. It was nothing he had not heard before, read before. He'd been devouring Megatron's writings, new and old. But to hear it from only a few feet away gave it a deeper resonance.

"They tell us the Senate is dead and, with it, the oppressions we would fight against. But we killed the Senate. We knew they were dead when we stood amongst their scattered corpses. And we will know the oppression of Functionism is over when we have stood upon its shattered corpse. When there is no sense of what it had been, when we have forgotten what it was like to live in its shadow. We will not yield to those who have lived always in privilege. Who pantomime understanding now only because they fear our rage. Because that rage is poised like a dagger to their necks. We are strong because we are angry. Because we are unyielding. Because we, and they, know that we will stop for nothing less than justice," Megatron thundered.

He lifted in his hand a Decepticon badge. "This is a symbol. It is a thing to which we give weight. In itself it is nothing. A small piece of metal, hammered flat, stamped to shape. The shape? A face, a nameless face that could be any one of us and yet is none of us. We are not pledging fealty to some Prime, to some god, to some nameless thing. We are pledging fealty to us, to our loyalty to each other. You give the Decepticons their worth. You give this symbol its weight. And what weight will you give it? Because I will ask of you to pledge your life. Your body. Your spark. Everything you can give to justice, because no one else can give it for you. Do you pledge this?"

A roar rose up from the crowd, shaking the walls around them. Megatron lowered his fist, still clutching the badge in his hand. "Then today you will all become Decepticons, not just in name, but in action. Deadlock and I will perform the ritual first. Then the medics will assist each of you through it."

Megatron turned to him and laid his hand over Deadlock's chest. "Please, open."

A voice, an echo, a chorus of medics in stark white rooms leveled that same command, spat it back at Deadlock in his mind. But Megatron was not a clinic doctor and this was not an order. It was a request. Deadlock let his chestplates unfold, spark bared to his lord. Megatron kept his hand there, washed blue in the glow of Drift's spark.

Megatron spoke again, voice raised to be heard by the audience. But not the booming oratory that had carried him earlier. "I would take from your spark a piece of the casing that keeps it safe. I would take this thing, most precious to you, that you could form it into a sign of your commitment to our movement. I would do this even though it will hurt. I would do this even though it will make you vulnerable. I would do this for those reasons and for one more."

Megatron let his own chest casing unfold, revealing a spark glowing green. Deadlock froze, transfixed. He'd never seen anyone else's spark before and it was...beautiful. But there, right to the left of the core of his spark, Megatron was missing a narrow slot of metal, cut from that which ought never be cut. Megatron reached down with his other hand to take Deadlock by the wrist and lift Deadlock's hand to hold over his own spark. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the waves of energy beat against the palm of his hand. "We all have suffered, we have all lost to the tyranny of the system that stands. The differences in our suffering gives us strength, the multitudes of our adaptations gives us cunning that they will never have. But this is one suffering we will share, one sacrifice we will all make. We will never be able to understand all the pains of our comrades, but this one shared core, this one hurt, we will all have in common."

Deadlock blinked up at Megatron, the crowd watching them suddenly so far away. There was nothing but the pulse of Megatron's spark on the air on his palm and the knowledge of how close Megatron's own hand stood to his spark, fragile and waiting.

"May I?" Megatron asked.

"Yes," Deadlock said, unsure of what he was expected to say but certain in his answer.

Megatron lowered Deadlock's hand and took a laser scalpel from the shelf beside him. Leaning closer, he whispered in Deadlock's audial, "Cross your arms behind your back and hold tight. It will hurt a great deal, but less than you're expecting." Then he lifted the scalpel to Drift's spark and cut.

It was like fire, it was like nothing Drift had ever experienced. His spark reared back from the intrusion and he jolted once in pain, unable to hold himself still. But Megatron's hand was back on his shoulder, a unmovable force that held him still as the blade made a cut parallel to the first and then freed the casing fragment. Megatron cupped his hands around the fragile thing and lifted it from Deadlock's chest, exposing a slot of Deadlock's spark to the air and leaving him breathless with the pain and emotions he could not describe. Megatron put the fragment into Drift's hand and it was warm, still warm from his chest as he curled his fingers around it.

"You've made it through the first test," Megatron said, a smile on his lips. "You can seal away your spark now." He did the same, frame closing over that green light and leaving them again illuminated only by the lights above. "Now walk to the forge and take up the hammer. Strike the plating until it glows."

Deadlock took a shaky step forward, then straightened his back. He was being watched. He was Deadlock, not Drift. In three long strides he was at the platform and took up the hammer, setting the rectangle of plating down reluctantly. The hammer was heavy, unwieldy in his hand. He raised it above his head and struck. Sparks lit against the fragment along with a crack of heat. Clearly not just a hammer, a source of heat. Deadlock struck against the plating again, watching the sparks dance across the platform in its aftermath. He struck again and then again, letting a rhythm build in his haphazard strikes.

Behind him, Megatron spoke again. "I named you Deadlock. But you forge yourself. I cannot make you into a Decepticon, because only you can do that. You forge yourself anew."

The plating lit to red and then began to glow. Megatron stepped up and thrust a form onto the plating, molding it into the shape of the Decepticon sigil. He lifted the form by the handle and pressed the glowing brand against Drift's plating, branding it onto his frame.

It burned. Oh, it certainly burned. But it paled in comparison to the pain from before and Drift snarled in triumph. Megatron stepped away and Deadlock was complete. Megatron touched his fingers to the surface of the brand, already cooling to take up the purple color Deadlock was so familiar with. "And with this let no one question your loyalty or your devotion because you are Decepticon."

Deadlock let the hammer fall to the platform and stepped to the edge of the dais. He wanted to scream, he wanted to say some speech, mangle his words into something inspirational, he wanted to roar at the crowd in incoherent joy. Instead, he just let his hand linger on the brand on his chest and then raised his hand above his head. The hush broke into a roar, the crowd stomping their feet and hollering. Deadlock let himself be guided to the side of the dais as the rest of the initiates began the rite. The medics circulated through the crowd, opening chests and quickly cutting out slots of spark casings. Some mechs shuddered, some yelled, some's optics overheated and sparked. The first of the initiates was led up onto the platform and given the hammer to make his own badge. Deadlock watched the crowd.

He had never felt whole in this frame before. He'd settled in, certainly. He'd made use of it. Over time he'd made peace with Chasma's frame, easier now that he was out of Dead End and away from people that had recognized the frame and had shunned him for stepping out in a dead bot's body. He'd replaced it in bits and pieces over the years, upgrading parts when he was injured. Never made any big changes, even once he could afford it; it just felt wrong when he was living on borrowed time. But this badge, this was his and only his.

As Megatron stepped forwards to brand the next initiate, Deadlock caught movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the recruits, near the side of the hall. A laser scalpel in his hands, ripped away from the attending medic. The recruit hefted the scalpel and then raised his arm to throw.

Deadlock threw his body in the path of the blade, catching it through the palm of his hand in a hot blaze of pain, catching it out of the air from where it would have struck Megatron in the optic. Deadlock pounced on the assassin. One knee to the chest, an elbow to his neck as Deadlock ripped the scalpel out of his hand with his teeth and pressed it to the base of the assassin's jaw. Deadlock panted, energon spattering on the floor around them. Arm trembling as he resisted the urge to kill this traitor immediately, to snarl and show Lord Megatron that he was something less than a person and incapable of control.

A presence stepped behind him, and Megatron said, "You can kill him, Deadlock. There is no information he can give us."

Deadlock's captive squealed under him but that didn't stop Deadlock from stabbing the blade through his helm. The body tightened and grinned, maniacal. Deadlock watched until its plating dulled to grey and fell limp under his hands, then pushed himself back to his feet and turned to face his lord. "Megatron, sir," he said.

Megatron touched a finger to the back of Deadlock's hand and frowned. "There was no need, Deadlock. He would not have hurt me."

Deadlock shrugged. "I couldn't risk that."

"Thank you." Megatron looked around and waved the medic over. "He would not have attacked unless he had contacts outside. We will have the enforcers on our doorstep. Once this is patched, can you join the guard at the door? We cannot stop the ceremony partway through."

"I can go now," Deadlock said.

"After," Megatron insisted. "You'll do me more good with a gun in each hand." He turned to return to the dais as the medic took Deadlock's hand to apply the patch. "You have already proven yourself, Deadlock, you do not need to impress me."

Deadlock watched him go with hunger in his optics, sure as sparks that that was absolutely what he would devote himself towards doing. Forged anew into something Lord Megatron would respect. He eyed the door where his guns and the imminent threat of intruders awaited. First day as a Decepticon and life was already looking more exciting.

Later - CH6

"Deadlock in position." He adjusted his grip on Dirge's wings, eyeing the base below them through the swirl of red clouds. His HUD swarmed with weapons readiness checks. Two seekers banked above them, keeping their target in sight.

Megatron spoke over the comms, his voice coming in clear to Deadlock's left audial. "Proceed, Deadlock. Comm for pickup after the mission is completed." The line cut with a fizz of static as Megatron turned his attention elsewhere. Deadlock maintained no illusions that Megatron was watching this mission or any other of his with especial interest. He was given these missions because he was trusted to get results.

"See you on the other side," he said to Dirge, before releasing his hold and rolling off Dirge's back. The roar of the wind met him like a solid thing. It threw him through the air, careening into an uncontrolled spin. Deadlock pulled his arms and legs in to form a ball, reducing the target the seekers would have to shoot around. He couldn't use comms to reach them, his audials useless in the wind. They would wait until he was close.

Plasma fire ripped past him, singeing the air around him. Deadlock counted to five and pulled out into a dive. He could see the hole blasted in the bunker's roof beneath him and shifted his body to meet it.

As he passed the roofline he jerked his knees up to flip his body upright, triggering the jet propulsion system they'd welded onto his legs to slow his descent. He landed hard. The ground crackled under his feet, flames shooting out around him from the jets. All around him an emergency alert system was blaring evacuation orders. Bots were running through the hallways, wakened from their recharge cycles and not yet to battle stations. Deadlock grinned. Easy pickings.

He drew two blasters from his hip holsters and sprayed plasma over the hallway. No survivors. Easy mission parameters. Bots fell and Deadlock spun to meet the troops assembling into firing stances behind him. He picked off the closest bot. Kicked the next in the face, disarmed him and then pulled him in front of him as a shield as he shot at the rest of the bots in the hallway. The air was hot with plasmafire and Deadlock danced. He spun under bolts and downed bots until the air was still again.

The siren was still going. Deadlock regarded and then discarded his near empty blasters. He scanned the battlefield quickly and plucked up two new weapons, hardly fired. Their former owners had gone down quick.

Deadlock transformed and raced down the hallway, crushing bots under his wheels. They'd studied the scans for this bunker, he would be close to the shuttle bay.

Deadlock leapt from his transformation into the launch bay, Autobots meeting him with unguarded backs. Making it easy on me. Deadlock lay down a line of fire, then began picking off bots. They turned to return fire, but these reservists didn't have half a chance against Deadlock. He launched a few missiles at the shuttles, targeting their engines. The explosions ripped through the room. Bots near the shuttles were thrown to the ground. Bots in the shuttles were caught in the conflagration. Out of the corner of his eye, Deadlock saw a blur of red and white.

He'd ducked before he registered the rattle-snap of pistol fire. He looked up and saw the retreating back of a medic, lugging a patient with them. He stood to follow, but white pain cut through his shoulder. Trajectory above him. Maintenance catwalk. Snarling in frustration, Deadlock spun and locked his build-ins on the snipers above, left arm useless at his side. They went down, but not before he caught a bullet in his hip and a blast of plasma fire through his left wrist. He spat curses and ignored the pain, switching his HUD to infrared to scan for heat signatures. No bots moving. He jogged out into the hallway to follow that medic.

They weren't in the hallway. Deadlock stepped slowly, moving over the still forms of downed Autobots. There wouldn't be a secondary shuttle bay in an outpost this small. The medic's best chance would be to hide somewhere while he waited for the calvary to arrive. Doubtless someone had thought to call for help when Deadlock first arrived. But this outpost was pretty far from the main field of combat and the reservists and trainees here weren't high value targets. He had time.

He had a patient with him. He'd need to go somewhere to treat them. Deadlock scanned the ground and caught a splatter of energon amidst the mess, a trail leading down the hallway. He limped after it, touching his fingers to the hole through his left wrist. It hadn't cauterized itself. Energon coated his hand and was beginning to drip down onto the floor. He marked the time and the rate of fuel loss, not bothering to patch it up. He'd make it till extraction. The trail he was following lead to a normal habsuite, not a medical bay like he'd anticipated.

Deadlock eyed the door and drew his last blaster. He rolled his operational shoulder and cracked his neck. Then he backed up a few steps, shot out the locking mechanism of the door and rammed the door with his shoulder.

He flattened the door beneath him and put two shots in the spark of the patient on the berth. Energon splattered over the medic as he grabbed for his pistol. He met Deadlock's eyes. Deadlock's spark stuttered.

He threw himself onto Ratchet's gun arm, getting his elbow on the back of his neck and forcing his face into the body of the dead patient. Ratchet growled something and Deadlock, in a panic, jammed his elbow into Ratchet's neural cluster. It ruptured under his elbow and Ratchet collapsed limbless beneath him. Deadlock grabbed the mediviewer from the berth and ran it over Ratchet, rattling it irritably as he tried to decode the readout. No permanent damage, but the ruptured neural cluster would keep him offline for at least a few days. Deadlock sank down to the floor, digging the heels of his hand into his helm. Slag. Slag it. Slag everything.

Why was the Autobot's chief medical officer out in the field? So soon after he'd been captured by Bludgeon? Probably was out surveying the trainee medical officers or something but Deadlock wasn't prepared for this. There had been no indication Ratchet would be on the scene. He forced himself to release his helm before it dented under hand.

He'd never made it all the way back to Ratchet's clinic, before. He'd been ashamed. At how confident he'd been and how fast it had all gone wrong. And Ratchet, he was an important bot. He'd saved Drift, but that was just a blip in his life. He saved thousands of guttermechs. He'd pushed Drift out the door with barely enough time to give his name. And to realize, years later, that Ratchet was right: he was special. It was just the thing that made him special was his gift for violence.

Deadlock knew he ought to execute the Autobot CMO. This was a rare opportunity. It would be a huge blow to the Autobot cause.

He jiggled the mediviewer a bit and checked Ratchet over. He couldn't see the scars from what Bludgeon had done to him. Bludgeon had bragged about torturing the CMO, talked it up as good sport and Deadlock had seen pink, barely restrained himself from visiting some sport back on Bludgeon. Megatron had been there and he'd controlled himself.

You're betraying Megatron by not killing him. The mediviewer crumpled in his hand. You owe him a debt. He saved your life.

"Deadlock, come in!" A voice blared to life in his ear and Deadlock startled. "You've got incoming. We need you up on the roof now for immediate evac. They're hustling it, there must have been some important assets in this outpost after all."

"On my way," Deadlock said, already limping towards the door at doubletime. He snuck one last glance over his shoulder as he went. Ratchet's face was slack as if in sleep. He burned the image onto his circuits, to carry with him. Then he made his escape, dragging himself to the extraction point as fast as he could with a buggered hip and only one arm.

Later - CH6

A knock at the door pulled Deadlock back online. He powered up his optics, propping himself on his elbow, and glared at the door. He hadn't meant to fall into recharge, but surgery always took it out of him. His blaster was within reach and he pulled it into his hand as the knock at the door repeated itself. "Who is it?" He asked, voice crackly with disuse.

"It's me," Megatron said. The door slid open, framing broad shoulders that blocked near all the light from the hallway. Megatron, face stern, stepped inside. He waved the lights on as he went. "You did not show up for our lesson, so I came looking for you. I was told that today's raid went poorly." He looked down at Deadlock, laying on the floor, his new legs propped up on the folding berth. With immense delicacy, he settled himself on the berth, testing it against his weight. When it held, he turned his attention to Deadlock's legs, running his hand over the weld lines above Deadlock's knees.

Deadlock shivered. "It's nothing. I forgot about our meeting, I'm sorry."

"I didn't mean to wake you," Megatron said. "I can leave you to your rest."

Deadlock sat himself up, ignoring the twinge from his legs, framing still integrating with his plating. Getting your legs blown off at the knee was never a pleasant experience, but the Decepticon medics they had at this outpost weren't the gentlest surgeons he'd ever gone under the scalpel with. "No, Commander. Don't leave. You have to keep practicing in order to maintain fluency." This was his one chance, his stroke of luck that gave him time alone with the Commander of the Decepticons, the thinker behind Towards Peace. He wasn't going to waste it because he was a little uncomfortable.

Megatron settled a hand on his shoulder. "I've told you, Deadlock. Call me Megatron. We are equals, and in this space you are my teacher. And don't get up, I know you're not supposed to be putting weight on those." Megatron slid to kneel at his side, hands moving feather-light to lift Deadlock onto the berth, settling him on Megatron's lap. He attended to Deadlock's legs, carefully checking that they were straight with nothing pinching with a focus that had Deadlock's face heating. He wanted to chide Megatron, but you didn't. If he wanted to lower himself to care for you, you took that gift for what it was.

Instead, Deadlock held his hands up, palms facing Megatron. Huge hands reached out to meet his, tingling his nervereceptors as their fingertips met. Chirolinguistics with Megatron was a logistical challenge, the size difference between their hands forcing them to slow their words to fit together. But when Megatron had first asked if Deadlock would teach him, he'd been determined to overcome whatever barriers stood in his way. Including his lack of experience teaching. Megatron had simply smiled through his initial fumbling attempts to explain the grammar of migration between wrist, palm and finger focused signs. He'd always comported himself with the utmost respect, asking questions, seemingly fascinated by Deadlock's one skill outside of killing.

Megatron initiated the signing. "Are you comfortable?" he asked.

A smile flitted across his lips, Deadlock pushed it away. "I can't feel them at all, your surgeons put in a pair of neural blockers," he signed. "It was my own fault. I should have thought they'd put landmines in and had the area swept."

Megatron nodded. "Command is one long series of mistakes, sometimes it seems. Shall we, from where we left off?"

Eventually Deadlock had run out of words and syntax to teach Megatron. Then it was mostly a question of practicing to develop the dexterity and muscle memory to gain fluency. Megatron had wanted to give Deadlock something back in exchange for the lessons, an absurd thing to say, he'd given Deadlock a whole new life, a new name...so they'd begun to work through Towards Peace in Chiro. Megatron had wanted to teach him about speechwriting, but this was better. Deadlock was seeing the book taking shape anew in Megatron's hands. And it helped, to remember why he'd signed himself to the cause. He liked to think it helped Megatron to remember why he'd begun all this. They were nearly to the end now.

They finished the chapter some time later. Megatron was still poised. Deadlock was flagging a bit, the neural blocks beginning to wear off. Megatron must have noticed, because he did not offer to try for a second chapter. They sat in silence for a few moments, hands still touching.

"How did the planning go today?" Deadlock signed. Megatron had locked himself away, working on their next course of attack. They'd missed him on the battlefield, but Deadlock knew that it would be worth it eventually.

"I miss being in the field," Megatron signed back, frowning. "I miss the clarity of it."

In Chiro, Megatron was more forthcoming than he ever was out loud. Perhaps it was borne out of a fear of being spied upon, or simply fear of admitting weakness. But while he was, to Deadlock's observation, always confident and taciturn out loud, his demeanor in Chiro had more soft edges. These admissions Megatron entrusted him with, however small, made his spark warm. He was trusted.

"The feeling, of the moment of battle, where there is no time but now. Where there is no place but here. Where every action of yours has the import of the entirety of the world," Deadlock quoted with a toothy smile. "I know that feeling."

"You were listening," Megatron said. "I worried, when I first brought you to my side, that there was nothing more to you. That you did not care for the cause, merely for the sadism. Your reputation was quite monstrous. But it's easy to make monstrous what you don't understand. I am sure my reputation was much the same."

"I was that thing, for awhile," Deadlock admitted. "When I first started...killing. It wasn't out of desire to change the system. Or even to get rich or get revenge. There was nothing left of me but the anger."

"May I ask what happened?"

"A friend...it's not really the right word. I don't know what he was, to me. They killed him. I killed them back. It wasn't enough."

"I'm glad you came back to yourself," Megatron signed. "A monster can be of some use on the battlefield. But a leader is worth far more in a war."

"I don't have the command aspirations you imagine me with. I don't play well with others," Deadlock signed back.

"You can't keep throwing yourself at your enemies without backup. You're too useful to me," Megatron's fingers lingered on the word 'useful', as if he'd considered a stronger word of affection.

Deadlock shook his head, then leaned forwards to rest his head against Megatron's chest. Weariness dimmed his optics, but he kept one hand clasped to continue the conversation as he stretched out to sleep. "Got any words of wisdom for a new commander, Lord Megatron?" He kept a playful lilt to the title that he'd have dressed down any other bot for.

"Don't get too close. If you lose your emotional distance, it becomes difficult to make sound command decisions."

Deadlock smiled. "That's practically the opposite of the advice Gasket would have given me," he said.

"Gasket?" Megatron repeated.

"My friend," Deadlock said. "The one who died. He was...indefatigable. Like he had unending faith in me, in all of us. He always believed that change was coming, that he'd be able to do something to help us get through whatever came. He said there was no point in saving people if you didn't love them."

"He was not at war, of course," Megatron said softly.

"He wasn't," Deadlock agreed. "He'd hate this. I try not to think about him much. I don't like to think what he'd say if he saw what I've done since his death."

"You've done what was necessary, even if it wasn't easy," Megatron said. "I should let you rest. And I must arrange troop assignments with the offworld ships with the fleet commanders who have docked for orders."

"Of course," Deadlock said, letting Megatron extricate himself from under him. He watched with half-lit optics as Megatron moved to the door, casting one last look back over his shoulder before departing in silence.

Clanging at the door roused him from recharge. Snarling in annoyance, Deadlock swung his numb legs over the side of the berth and limped to the doorway. "What is it?" He asked, punching the door code in with excessive force.

The door hissed open on another huge-framed bot. Not Megatron. This bot was a darker grey, with a faceplate and a narrow golden visor, thin line of blue biolighting across his bulky shoulders. Turmoil, commander of the cruiser Revenchist. He didn't exactly look happy to see Deadlock either, arms crossed and visor flashing.

"Deadlock of Rodion?" He asked, as if he didn't know who Deadlock was. Deadlock let him. He had nothing to prove and wasn't interested in the ego games Decepticon command seemed to enjoy.

"Present," he said. "What do you need, Turmoil?"

"You're late for boarding," Turmoil sneered. "We're lifting off in an hour."

"What."

"Did you not read your command assignment? You've been transferred onto the Revenchist and," Turmoil sighed, "given command of a cohort of thirty bots."

Transferred onto the Revenchist. Transferred away from Megatron. "I need to speak to Lord Megatron," he said.

"He's out. Left first thing this morning to attend to a meeting with Soundwave. Something about a new chemical weapon, air dispersal. You can check your datapad if you wish, but we don't have time to wait for you to delay. The Revenchist is on a schedule and I expect you on-board in time to not disrupt that schedule."

Turmoil turned on his heel and stalked off down the hallway. Deadlock stumbled back inside to claw through his possessions in search of his datapad. Which, sure enough, was blinking with an alert. He read the orders in disbelief. Lord Megatron is not to be questioned. Not quite noticing what he was doing, Deadlock bit down on his hand, fangs piercing the fragile plating, seeking pain. What did I say last night?

Later - CH2

Deadlock finally spotted the remaining stragglers of his command over the next hill of...well, that was a hill of bodies, wasn't it? He gave the nearest Autobot insignia he could see a kick and tightened his grip on his captive's remaining leg. In his head, he tried to do an accounting of how much ammunition they'd wasted in this firefight. Turmoil wasn't going to be happy. Of course, Turmoil was never happy. Not since he'd been saddled with Deadlock. No matter.

"Deadlock!" Brisko yelled, skidding down the hill to meet him halfway. "New orders from Turmoil. He wants us back at base in ten. No need to clean up, they're sending in a clean-up crew."

And why, exactly, had Turmoil sent those orders to Brisko of all people, when Deadlock was supposedly leading this mission? Briefly, he let himself indulge in his five favorite imagined deaths for Turmoil.

"Well, we have ten minutes to enjoy ourselves, then, don't we?" Deadlock said, jerking his head back to indicate his prisoner. Brisko grinned.

They go to the top of the hill and regrouped with Staxx, Awl and the rest. "Is anyone hurt?" Deadlock asked, dropping his captive with the rest and striding over to his troops.

"Just Wilder," Awl said, stepping forward. "Got caught up in an anti-personal mine blast, knocked for a loop. He's stable, just unconscious."

"Good," Deadlock said, letting out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. No men down. This was a good raid, not the one that was going to make him lose his command. "Good work, everyone. We've got ten till our ride arrives, I hear. I was scoping out the area from that ridge back there, coast is clear. So if anyone wanted to liberate anything from the dead and the dying...you've got ten minutes."

They scattered. Deadlock chuckled and turned to the prisoners. His crew had moved six of the least wounded Autobots up to the top of the hill. Least wounded was relative, of course.

He walked over to them and crouched down. "Hey," he said. "So there are two options here. We can leave you here and the clean-up crew can take all of you fine Cybertronians to Grindcore. Or I can kill you clean, right now."

The Autobot nearest him began babbling. Deadlock tuned him out. The Autobots they captured all seemed rather inadequately prepared for the fact that they were going to die in the course of this war. They were all going to die before the coming of Megatron's better world. Of course, Drift knew he and the majority of the Decepticons would die as well. Perhaps it was knowing their deaths would contribute to an actual future that gave them the steel to admit the inevitable?

It was just taking so damned long. Deadlock closed his eyes and imagined a thousand downed combatants babbling the same helpless rubbish. Couldn't they just all hurry up and die already so the war could be over and he could be done?

"Please, I have a Conjunx. I can't die here. He's waiting for me-"

Deadlock lined up his shot and fired. Clear through the spark, instantaneous. There was no sense in being cruel for the sake of cruelty.

"I'm sorry, I was unclear. I am going to kill you, or you are going to Grindcore. There, the Commandant will grind you down until you are very nearly dead and then maybe you will die. Or maybe you will enjoy a life as a slave on one of the warm worlds. But between now and that slim, scant chance at eternal misery, I'm offering you one chance to die quick."

The babbling started back up again. Deadlock sighed. "I am not negotiating," he said, now very loud. "This is not a negotiation. If you want your death to be quick, crawl over here."

There was a long moment of silence, then two of them began to move his way. The others started yelling in protest, but two silent bots kept moving till they were at his feet. Smaller frames, maybe intellectual class before the war. There had been a time when those two bots had lorded over him and the rest of the guttermechs.

He let himself feel that anger for a moment. Anger was the only thing he felt anymore.

"Crawl on top of each other," was what he said. "I don't want to waste two shots. Ammunition's scarce these days."

He fired the shot and felt nothing. Mechanically, he got out the medical scanner he'd stolen and checked lifesigns. No spark signal. Clean shot.

"They made the smart choice," he said conversationally to the rest of them as he heaved the bodies over the edge of the hill into the field below. Better if the clean-up crews didn't catch wind that he was neglecting their 'leave some survivors to play with' orders. The other Autobots wailed. He tuned them out and started watching the horizon for their shuttle.

The light of the sun refracted weirdly over the horizon. He looked away and then looked back, realizing with a sinking feeling that the crackle in his vision followed him wherever he looked. Slag. Slag it to the pit. There was another four minutes till pick up and he was no more than two away from a serious fritz.

If Turmoil found out...well, that was just the thing, wasn't it? He would finally have an excuse to send Megatron his official recommendation: "Not suited for command. Not worth keeping."

Deadlock had only kept ahead of that inevitable censure by never letting himself fail. Never lose more soldiers than any other commander. Never let any injury keep him off the field when he could physically stand. Never slip in front of Turmoil, never question any of his tactics. Even when the whole of his organizational structure betrayed every promise set out in Towards Peace. Never fail. Never fail.

It wasn't that he cared what Turmoil thought. There was only one bot left alive whose approval Deadlock cared about. He didn't plan on letting him down. And what Megatron had asked him to do was serve under Turmoil. Just because Turmoil and his body were conspiring against him wasn't going to stop him.

Time. Time. There wasn't much of it left, so he had to make it count. What were his resources? Three wounded Autobots. Two guns, forty-six shots left. Two emergency cubes, his medical scanner, a welding torch. His battalion, obviously.

He needed an immediate, acute injury to cover up his impending quasi-unconsciousness. His soldiers would protect him Turmoil if he were wounded instead of defective.

He looked around. None of his soldiers were watching the top of the hill. Most of them weren't even scavenging in pairs; poor form. He would talk to them after this mission. Even on a empty battlefield, you kept one lookout and one gleaner at all times. But nobody watching.

"Looks like you don't get a choice after all," Deadlock said to the Autobots on the ground, reaching way over and picking up an abandoned Autobot blaster. Short range, it would probably blow a hole about the size of his fist through someone. The Autobots watched him with wide eyes as lined up the shot, just to the left of the fuel pump. It'd leak fast, fast enough that he should be unconscious before any of his crew got to him.

This is going to hurt. But only for another thirty seconds. And I'll either die or it'll work. Either way, Turmoil will be none the wiser and he'll have no ammunition to smear my name to Megatron. Either way worked.

He grabbed his chosen bot, a round green mech with enough compartment space he could have hidden a blaster.

He dragged that bot on top of him with one arm and fired with the other. The Autobot screamed and Drift blanked for a nano-klik with pain. Then he turned the blaster around and downed the bot on top of him and then the two witnesses. He was fading fast. He took the gun hand of the dead bot on top of him and crushed it, scraping it against the ground.

The edges of his vision were fizzing in and out now, pulsing in time with the bubbling leak in his chest. Before his hearing fizzled out as well, he could hear his crew yelling and footsteps as they ran towards him.

Safe.

Later - CH4

The shuttle docked and Deadlock looked to the door with trepidation. Once he got up, he was going to have to leave. And then unload all the weapons, file his report with Turmoil, check in with Nacelle and the rest of the company. After he'd dragged himself into the shuttle's pilot seat, the tiredness had sunk into his struts. He didn't want to get up.

He let himself sit in the dark of the shuttle for a few minutes, then dragged himself to his feet. It'd only get harder the longer he waited. He stumbled to the door and thumbed it open, stepping out into the harsh lighting of the shuttle bay.

There were several figures waiting for him at the bottom of the ramp. Deadlock blinked at them, waiting for his optics to adjust. Slow optic reflexes, sign of insufficient recharge. You should blow off all those other responsibilities and get some sleep. Eventually they resolved in Nacelle and six of his company. Deadlock frowned in confusion, not yet letting go of the doorway.

"Commander!" Nacelle said, hurrying up the ramp to meet him. "You look like the Pit! A successful mission?"

Deadlock eyed him suspiciously. "Yes and no. He's dead, I didn't get to kill him."

"Come on guys, some of you get up here and unload. I want the shuttle stripped down, refueled and checked back in," Nacelle yelled down to the others. "Do you mind if someone unloads your weapons and brings them to your hab, Deadlock?"

Nobody touches them. "That's fine," he said. "I can go straight to reporting to Turmoil, then."

"Reporting to Turmoil? Like that?" Nacelle asked, hands on his hips.

Like what? Deadlock looked down and remembered the oily sludge that had risen waist high, now adhered to him in a thick crust. Over that a splash of energon had dried, painting him pink where it had clung. "Oh. That."

"Don't worry about it. I'll take notes and compile it into a report for Turmoil," Nacelle promised. "We can go straight to the washracks."

Did something happen while I was gone? Did all the Decepticons get replaced by bad body doubles played by soft-hearted Autobots? Has someone been spiking the energon? Do they need me to sign off on a new expense report?

"Let's go," he said.

The trip to the washracks was slow, but Nacelle didn't comment on Deadlock's staggering pace. It had been a long three months. Nacelle tentatively asked again about the mission.

"Finally went out without his security detail and someone dropped an airstrike down on our heads," Deadlock said. "K-class, I'd bet my left optic someone was aiming for him specifically and not just the installation. Turmoil knew I was given that assignment. I saw enough to be sure he was dead, but that mess roused the rest of the 'bots. They saw me and gave chase. Hadn't planned on ending that mission with a thirty-bot shootout."

Nacelle snorted.

"What?"

Nacelle looked down. "Well, most Cons make an offhand comment about getting in a single-handed shootout with thirty 'bots, you figure they're having you on to make themselves look good. But that's the real count, isn't it?"

"I rounded," Deadlock said. "Between thirty-two and thirty-four, I'd say. Hard to be sure when they're trying to shoot you to pieces."

Nacelle hurried ahead to get the door to the washracks, like Deadlock was some invalid incapable of manning the door controls. He'd talk to him about it later. At the moment he was busy marveling at the empty washracks, the lure of a clean frame. "How've things been shipside?" he asked.

"Awful." Nacelle said, taking post by the door. "Turmoil keeps trying to disband the unit. He pronounced you officially missing-in-action four times while you were away. Every time you reported in we'd send someone down to inform him that, no, you weren't dead yet and he didn't have to disband the unit."

"That sounds like him."

"I'm afraid he gave away your officers quarters about a month in. We fought to get it back, but he was convinced you were dead at the time."

"I'm not exactly surprised." Deadlock dug through the bucket at his feet for a scrub brush to help get at the gunk crusted into his transformation seams. The solvent spray was doing nothing.

"Don't worry about it, though, sir. We've cleared out Scab and Quix's habsuite for you, they'll be berthing with us until we've gotten your room back."

"Huh," Deadlock grunted. The brush wasn't doing much of anything. He just wanted to be asleep already and the fraggin fuel was dried in there like epoxy. With a snarl of frustration, he threw the brush at the far wall and watched it clatter to the floor. He glared at his clenched fists. Fragging useless. Your chance to show command your worth more than just an infantry ground leader and you let him blow away your prize, ten feet way.

Nacelle appeared in his vision, passing the brush back to him. "Do you want me to do that?"

Deadlock snorted. "I can't figure what you think you're getting out of this, kid."

Nacelle frowned. "You're my commander. It's my duty to help you."

"It's your duty to follow my orders on the field. This? This is weird. I'm not seeing your motive."

Nacelle stepped back, hands up. "I'm sure you don't see it, sir. But you're a good commander. You judge your soldiers based on merit. You don't play politics with Turmoil. You don't waste time on theatrics. You'd rather bring us back than bring the enemy down, if it comes to that. We all want to keep you around as our commander."

"Huh," Deadlock said, looking down at his fuel encrusted hands. "Can't say as I noticed." How else would he lead them?

"So let us help?" Nacelle asked.

"Do what you want," he said. "I'm too tired to care."

He let Nacelle take the sprayer and brush from his hands and kneel in front of him. Let him begin to dig his frame out from beneath the sludge. Don't get close—that had been Megtron's only advice when Deadlock had been given his command. He hadn't found it difficult.

Later - CH3

"Deadlock, sir? It's your turn on watch."

Groaning, Deadlock levered himself into a sitting position. It took three tries to get his optics online and once they were it took another minute to recognize the soldier in front of him. Scab. One of his company, but not the bot that was supposed to go before him in the rotation.

"What happened to Nacelle?" Deadlock asked, already turning to look. There he was, laid out with the rest of the company.

Scab shrugged. "We couldn't bring him online. We tried a hardwire hookup and everything, he just wouldn't come online."

Deadlock nodded. "Very well. Anything else of significance to report?"

"Turmoil finally commed us," Scab said. "Should I relay the message?"

"Yes, soldier," Deadlock said. Bad news. They only want to 'relay' a message if it's bad news. Otherwise they just paraphrase it.

Scab straightened to attention and droned, "We are unable to break through the aerial defenses at your position. Hold your ground for the Decepticon cause." He slumped a bit. "That's basically 'die with dignity', right?"

Deadlock shrugged. "More or less. We've got a few weeks to go yet, soldier. They could break through before then." Like the Pit they would. Turmoil would probably be more than happy to get rid of him, collateral damage or no. "I'm taking the shift, cycle down to conserve fuel."

"Yes, commander."

He stood up and wandered over to their sniper position. It had been a good position, when they'd first retreated there. High up. Defensible and a possible extraction point for whenever Turmoil finally got off his aft and bothered to extract them. That had been two years ago. The battle was never-ending. Decepticon command kept dropping more soldiers and more K-class to keep fighting the Autobot MTOs that were poured onto the field. Deadlock's soldiers kept gunning down anyone that came within sniping distance of their outpost. And the war rolled on.

They were starving. Pure and simple. Three months in, when Deadlock realized they weren't going to be pulled out, he'd instituted the shift system. One bot manning the guns at all times. A week on, twenty-nine weeks off. Twenty-nine soldiers and himself.

One day, the bot at the guns was going to slip into powersave without waking up the next bot. The sniper post would go dead. And eventually the Autobots would work up the nerve to climb up here, find them all incapacitated, and kill them.

And now he had confirmation that Turmoil intended to leave them here. Deadlock swiveled the scope, sighting out the field. No hostiles within range. None living, anyway. There were a number of bodies.

He'd reached that sleepy phase of energon deprivation. Every moment you were online, your body fought to take you offline to conserve energy. It made it hard to think of a plan and he needed a plan. What would force Turmoil to rescue us? Winning the battle, probably. But that seemed a bit outside his reach. Slightly easier? Taking down the aerial defense post the autobots had set up on the mountain across the gorge.

Both of those ideas are impossible. If he could go two years back in time and have a fully armed and fueled company against those newframes in the field? Absolutely possible. But right now he had a bunch of unconscious bots and one very sleepy commander.

He manned the sniper post for the rest of the day, deep in thought. He was pretty sure what the correct course of action was. Their risk of death if he maintained the course was nigh certain. No matter how risky his plan was, he couldn't make them more dead.

Mind made up, he retreated briefly to the back of the cave to fetch their med kit. He got out a welder to alter the transfusion cable. By default, a transfusion cable would only siphon fuel from the high fuel pressure to low. A safety feature to protect the medic using it. He'd learned how to jigger them back in Dead End.

Next he selected his five least favorite soldiers and dragged them to the front of the cave, one at a time, checking the viewscreen in between. Quix, who once attempted to poison him after he assigned him to sniper duty. Flash and Bang, who were Turmoil loyalists and who always reported back to Turmoil after a mission to give their analysis of his performance. Luxe for being a self-righteous aft who disrupted group cohesion. And Vent, who took too much pleasure in sniping down their enemies. Usually in ways that would lead to slow and painful deaths. War brought out the sadist in some bots, but they didn't all let it get in the way of doing their job – downing their enemies quickly and efficiently such that they couldn't shoot your fellow soldier in the back.

“If you wanted to murder people slow, you should have joined the DJD,” Deadlock panted to Vent's body. It was dark now, which meant it was easier for a bot to sneak up on their position. The small circle the floodlight illuminated on the ground meant you had to sweep quickly in order to not miss a spot.

He kept up the post as he siphoned off of the five soldiers he'd selected. Twenty nano-kliks each. Longer than that and the risk of snuffing their sparks would turn into certainty. He could feel the rush of activated energon hitting his processor and then spreading throughout his body, bringing sensors online that had been dead for months. His HUD turned itself back on and then flashed a number of irritating warnings at him, so he manually disabled it. I know I'm dying, that's the point.

When he'd taken all he could risk, he coiled the cable back up. Dumping supplies from their communications officer's pack, he filled it with four empty fuel cannisters, the siphoning line, and as much ammo as he could carry.

The fissure in the cave that lead back out onto the hillside was a tight fit and Deadlock had to crawl, pushing the pack ahead of him. Rocks scraped at his plating as he dragged himself along in the darkness. Mentally, he ran through the positions of the dead autobots he knew lay littered on the slope.

Once he reached the lip of the cave, he swung the pack onto his back and took off down the gravel of the slope towards the nearest body. The ground sank and skittered beneath his feet; he bent his knees and kept running. He could't see the body and nearly fell when he caught his foot under it. It was a big bot, visor gone cold but hopefully the energon would still be good. Deadlock used his fangs to pierce the main fuel lines and then flicked his glossa over the leak, testing it for spoilage. The fuel was cold and starting to settle, but it hadn't curdled yet.

Good as we're getting. Deadlock connected the transfusion cable between himself and the body's main fuel port. He lay down beside the body, guns in his hands, hoping the massive frame would shield him from any autobot searchlights. The battle must have been in a lull, he could only hear the sounds of explosions dimly in the distance. From here, thirty paces east, we should hit the next body.

He siphoned the first bot dry, then made the sprint to the second body. There was so much fuel in his system he was practically floating. Afraid that his tank would reject any more, he pumped this body into the fuel cannisters he'd brought along with him.

A light lit across his frame as he skulked away from the body back towards the cave. Deadlock whipped his head around to find the source and dropped the pack, ducking down as the firing started. A shout went up along the Autobot lines. Not great. They kept themselves back behind their floodlight where it was impossible to pick out their frames against the glare of the light. Deadlock lay down a spray of shots and grabbed his pack again, bolting for the top of the slope. A shot pinged off his finial and he felt it snap, energon leaking down the side of his face. He let off two shots over his shoulder, triangulating an origin for the shooter. Someone screamed.

Nacelle awakened slowly, optics blinking on and off. He patted at his chest, puzzled by the cable feeding into it. His fingers felt it out and followed the line up to Deadlock's chest. Finally, his optics flickered to full brightness as he came online. He looked up at Deadlock in confusion.

“Hey kid,” Deadlock said. He was quite the sight. Energon leaked down around his splintered finial and covered his hands and face. He grinned, fangs poking over his pink-stained lips.

“Hello Commander,” Nacelle managed. And that's why I'm waking Nacelle first. Keeps his head.

“Want to learn how to be a dirty siphonist?” Deadlock asked. “I'm looking for a volunteer.” He held up a gun and passed it over to Nacelle.

“Are we getting evacced?” Nacelle asked.

“No. We're taking on this whole fraggin' valley and then we're taking down the aerial defenses on that mountain across the way. But first I need your help draining some bodies. So we can get the rest of the company on their feet. You up for it?”

Nacelle, eyes wide, nodded. “Anything you can get your hands on—”

Deadlock finished, “—is now the property of the Decepticon cause. Good soldier.”

Later - CH5

Deadlock sighed. Always another idiot to deal with. He held up the faceplate in his hand, matrix sigil painted very clearly on the inside surface. "Do you deny that you have defied the direct order of Megatron, your sworn leader? What is this?"

The Genericon on the slab cringed back. The medics had retreated to the far side of the room after calling Deadlock in to deal with the mech. "It's the matrix, sir."

"Right, the 'Matrix of Leadership'. The symbol of our enemies, the object that their leader uses to reinforce his 'worthiness' as ordained by some unseen higher power. That matrix?"

A tiny voice. "Yes."

"The matrix that was used to pacify the populace of Cybertron by giving authority to a series of corrupt 'ordained' leaders who presided over the apartheid of cold constructed bots, the enforcement of the Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy? Who believed that amputating the face and hands of political protesters was just and fair? Who believed that if the masses starved, that was all right, as long as the Prime was able to make war where he chose? That matrix?"

"Yes, but not for them. It's a symbol of Primus-"

"Primus is a fantasy. He was created to lull the little people, me and you, into believing there was something after death. That it wouldn't matter if our lives were small and full of suffering. We would all be going to the Afterspark together, so it didn't matter if you lived a sad and tiny and pointless existence."

The Genericon had the nerve to bear the lecture silently, though his optics began to spark and leak coolant. Deadlock took pity on him; no need to drag this out longer than necessary.

"Megatron ordered all of his soldiers to renounce the fiction the senate and the Primes had forced upon them. You stood side by side with your spark brothers and lied to us all, just to continue to live that lie?" He cast the faceplate down on the berth. "Do you have any last words, soldier?"

The Genericon didn't speak.

Deadlock turned on his heel, waving to the medics. "Call up to high command and see if we have greater need for K-class or minebots. I'm sure there's something useful we can make out of him, even if we can't trust him on the battlefield."

He closed the door on the desolate wail that rose up behind him.

Later - CH5

Deadlock crawled, fingers digging into the shuttle's floor. His gun was clenched between his teeth. Air whistled around him, depressurizing through the hull breaches. Shields finally failing. He hauled his body to the door of the cabin. The power controls were down, he had to wedge himself against the bulkhead to lever the door wide enough to slip inside. He wrestled it closed behind him, venting in visible plumes. The air was growing cold now.

"The crew?" Nacelle asked.

"They're dead," Deadlock said, dropping the gun to the ground and then stumbling to Nacelle's side. "We've lost hull integrity out there, I couldn't find any more power packs."

"So, one gun, two of us. Not bad odds?" Nacelle joked. Through the window above them, Deadlock could see the amassed fleet of Autobot pursuit vessels, encircling the wreckage of their patrol fleet.

"Not bad odds," he agreed, checking over the blaster, inch by inch. The Autobots hadn't blown them out of existence yet, that probably meant they weren't going to. He didn't maintain any misapprehensions about what the target of this attack was - they were looking to wipe out one of the Decepticons with the highest kill rates. Namely, him. They'd have to board the shuttle in order to confirm the kill.

"Deadlock?" Nacelle said, name swallowed up in a spluttering of energon leaking out of his mouth. He reached out his hand, Deadlock took it.

"Yeah, Nacelle?" He asked, keeping his eyes on Nacelle's mostly intact face.

"If I pray right now, are you going to execute me for believing in Primus?" Nacelle asked, spitting energon on the floor next to them. Deadlock squeezed his hand.

"We're already going to die," he said. "I don't see any reason to hurry that along." Not necessarily, Deadlock. The Autobots might be looking to take you, not kill you. A Cybertronian can endure a lot of pain before their spark burns out. His eyes skipped over to Nacelle's spark, clearly visible through his crushed chestplate. On another day, in other circumstances, if their medic hadn't been lost on the planet surface...it wouldn't have guaranteed a death sentence.

"Thanks, commander," Nacelle said.

Deadlock checked the radar again. No sign of rescue coming, but the 'Bot scouts were dispersing through the wreckage. His spark burned in his chest and he saw pink for a moment. All of this, just because you were all too incompetent to kill me on the ground. He wasn't audacious enough to imagine surviving this, but he could make the Bots pay in Energon for each of his crewmates. He drew himself up onto one knee, bracing the blaster against his shoulder and aligning the sight.

"Don't thank me, Nacelle. It's been an honor serving with you," he said. Besides him, Nacelle muttered and gasped through unfamiliar snatches of Old Cybertronian, a liturgy Deadlock couldn't understand. He kept a hand around Nacelle's as the color slowly drained out of his frame.

He kept his eyes, and his blaster, trained on the door.

Later - CH8

"You look terrible." Turmoil kicked an upended bench out of his way as he picked his way across the room. Deadlock huffed a laugh and took another swig of nightmare fuel. Turmoil sat down across from him, hands flat on the table. "Mind if I have some?"

"Go 'head," Deadlock said. "We can get fragged up together, just like old times."

It was Turmoil's turn to laugh at that. He picked up the insulated bottle between his thumb and forefinger, decanted a bit of it into his arm port. "I never liked you, Deadlock."

"Geez, thanks for the update, Turmoil. I wouldn't have noticed."

Turmoil turned the bottle around, contemplating it. He set it back on the table with a clink. "I did not need a subordinate assigned to me from on high. I was perfectly capable of promoting someone from within my command. And you, you were always so high and mighty about the fact that for a brief moment in time, Megatron thought the world of you. Can't say as I can see why. You're chaotic, you're insubordinate and you don't stick to the plan."

"That's because your plans suck," Deadlock said, more than a little bit gone. The world had gone spinny back when he was working on plain engex, but it hadn't done anything to level the rage he'd felt bubbling up and so here he was. Empty rec room. Apparently he'd scared the other soldiers away. Freak out a little bit, throw a few tables, threaten to pull someone's spark out through their intake and you could get a room all to yourself. And now he was sassing his commander, which he was probably going to regret in the morning. But only if he remembered it. Deadlock reached for the bottle.

Turmoil wrapped a protective hand around it. "But I concede, you were good at a few things. You're a demon on the battlefield. You've got a good head for ground-level tactics, when you bother to communicate your plans. You were a good squad leader."

Deadlock reached across the table to snag his drink. "Note the past tense there."

"This is a war and sometimes the people under your command are going to die." Turmoil shook his head. Drift barely kept himself from snarling at the mech. Turmoil had never led a squad the way Drift did, he managed twenty combat teams from the safety of the Revanchist and only touched ground when the infantry needed him as a battering ram. "I did not lose four seekers getting you back to watch you fall apart."

Turmoil waited for Drift to make some reply and, when he didn't, said, "Millions of people have died in this war. It was only thirty soldiers."

Drift suddenly had the vivid mental image of ripping Turmoil's throat out with his denta, energon splattering the table. He pushed the intrusion away as best he could, trying to keep steady as the room spun. It wasn't them. It wasn't even Nacelle. It was every single person, every single thing he ever let get close to him in four million years. There was nothing he wouldn't lose, no one who wouldn't push him away, no one who wouldn't be ripped from his hands and he was fragging sick of it.

"Have you ever," Drift said, pausing to take another gulp of nightmare fuel, downing it quick so it didn't have as much time to burn the surface of his glossa, "have you ever been so furious that you didn't even know where you were anymore, or what you were doing?"

"No. And frankly? That is the sort of admission that should get a mech removed from command."

"Frag if I care," Deadlock said. "Put me on the front lines and give me a gun, that's all I want."

"Unfortunately, I've not been permitted to do that." Turmoil paused for emphasis. "My request to high command was denied. I guess your Megatron still cares about you, after all these years. Enough to keep you from crashing and burning the way you so desperately want to."

"The mission today was a success," Deadlock said sullenly.

"You did not follow the planned flight pattern. You did not keep radio contact. You lost three soldiers in an easy engagement. I have soldiers from your command begging to be reassigned because you terrify them on the battlefield."

"Good!" He slammed the bottle down on the table. "Let them leave. I'll do it without them."

"One man army, just like the good old days?"

"If I have to. I will raze the Autobots to the ground single-handedly if I have to."

"You are my responsibility until I can get rid of you," Turmoil said. "So I'll say this once. The drinking is just you substituting one addiction for another. Your rage scares you, so you try to deaden it with engex. It isn't working. And as a mech with a history of addiction, you should know better."

"What did you just say?"

"I know you Dead Enders had a reputation, but I'd gotten the impression you'd tried to move past your addiction. I see now that you'd merely funneled it into other-

Deadlock's fist met Turmoil's faceplate with enough force to knock him back a few feet. But with that much Engex in his system, Drift ended up falling off of the table in a heap, knocking the mostly-empty bottle off the table in an arc of spilled fuel. "Who told you?" Drift shouted.

He had never...he had never told anyone about his days on Syk. If he could avoid it, he never let the words 'Dead End' pass his lips. When you were a Decepticon it didn't matter your mode of creation. A pre-war prison record was a badge of honor. But what he'd been in Dead End had been pathetic. He'd mentioned it to Megatron, once. How had Turmoil heard?

"Mm, engex tends to loosen lips. Maybe you told me and blacked out and now you can't remember," Turmoil said, reaching down to grab Deadlock around the back of the neck and pull him off the floor. He hoisted him onto the table, face first. Drift tried to wiggle out of his grip, but the engex had apparently hit all his limbs at once and he was slagging useless. "Actually, if you really must know, it's been shipwide gossip for years now. Deadlock, Dead End guttersmech. Who knows who let your little secret slip out first."

"What are you doing?" Deadlock snarled.

"I'm not having my second lying unconscious in a pool of his own fluids, destroying rec halls and terrorizing our soldiers. I can't stop anything else you're doing, but the drinking stops now."

Drift caught his meaning a millisecond before he caught a blow to the back of the neck that slammed his head against the table and forcibly activated his FIM chip. He sobered up in a sickening rush. Excess fuel in his tank bubbled up his intake and he gagged. "You didn't."

"That's fused now," Turmoil said. "Good luck finding a medic willing to replace it."

Turmoil released his grip on Drift's neck and let him slide to the floor. "Pull yourself together. I want you and this room clean by next shift rotation and I want you on the bridge to receive our next mission spec thirty minutes after that."

Drift curled in on himself, resisting the urge to purge his tanks and trying to keep his optics from overflowing while Turmoil was still in the room. He clapped his hands over the back of his neck and squeezed. How dare he? How fragging dare he? He didn't get to touch Drift, Drift wanted to bite off his fingers and spit them in his face and that would teach him to-

Drift choked on a sob. It's your body now. It's your body. Don't start thinking like that again. You can't murder him, so you have to get even. Prove him wrong. Be twice the Decepticon he is, twice the commander. You have to start by standing up. Stand up.

Stand up.

** The Circle of Light

Later - CH8

"Stand up, Decepticon."

Drift scrabbled to get his unsteady legs under him. He glared at his attacker. Wing was giving him that condescending look again. "I admit, I didn't have high hopes based on your performance when we fought the first time," Wing said, pretending to consider the finish on the back of his hand, "But you're even worse than I expected. It's like sparring with a newframe. All violence, no intent, no focus."

Drift wasn't stupid. Wing was trying to goad him into getting more angry and making more mistakes so he'd get a chance to hit Drift again. Drift could tell the difference between an opponent trying to hurt him and one trying to humiliate him. It had only taken a few thousand years of practice. That didn't make it easier to hold himself together and not snarl something back at Wing. I'd like to see you fight with an inhibitor cuff on you. I'd like to see you fight after getting shot and crash-landing in some fragging wasteland. I'd love to see you in a fair fight, you'd be so busy taunting people you'd get your face smashed in and oh, that would be satisfying.

Drift raised himself to a fighting stance, hands up to try and catch the oncoming blow. "Go again," he spat.

Wing darted forwards, leg swiping out to try and knock Drift onto his back. Drift shuffled backwards, eyes glued to Wing's hands, ready for the moment Wing would try and flip him again. He was slagging predictable, it was just that he was also fast. Drift shuffled back again to escape to a blow to the stomach. He nearly managed to block one, but missed the timing. Just one hit. Just one hit on his stupid fragging face. Drift kicked at Wing, trying to duck under his guard.

Wing grabbed Drift's ankle and lifted, throwing Drift onto the ground again. Keeping the hold, Wing dragged Drift's captured leg into a stress hold, elbow poised above the knee where a quick strike could drive into the neural net and incapacitate a bot.

Drift snarled and tried to pry Wing's grip off his leg. Wing responded with a chuckle and pushing harder on his hold, pushing the joint to the point of pain. "None of that, now, Decepticon. I'll let you back up in a minute. Just remember, never kick above your center of gravity, you're just asking for someone to flip you," Wing said.

"What counts as a win?" Drift said. "Do I have to kill you before I go free?"

Wing grinned. "Hadn't really thought about it. Figured we could set the terms after you succeeded in hitting me, Decepticon. Now, are you gonna ask me to let you up or are we going to sit here all day."

Did he want Drift to say that it hurt? Well, he could sit and wait, because that was never going to happen. Drift let the mild discomfort roll off of him and schooled his face into his most polite smile. "Nah. I'm good here. So, what are you getting out of this? The other folks here sick of you? Did you always want a pet? Bet they don't have any turbofoxes on this lump of rock."

Wing recoiled. "I'm here to rehabilitate you, Decepticon. You're not a pet."

Drift laughed, an ugly sound. "I don't know, seems to fit. You keep me caged. You keep me fed. You claim to want the best for me but I get no say in anything you do. I wasn't pretty enough for you as I was so you just had your doctors remake me to fit your aesthetic."

"You were dying! We fixed you."

"You violated me!" Drift spat. "That was my body. That was my choice. Do you think I hadn't been fixed before? Do you think I hadn't been crushed before, broken before? Four million years of war and every medic that ever fixed me knew that you don't just remake people however you choose. That was my body. And you stole it. Because you didn't like what I was and you thought you could it into something better."

"Drift, you could have told us that-"

"Do you want to know why I'm bad at this? It's not just because I've been busy learning to stay alive instead of wasting my time learning how to win unarmed duals played by some fucking honor code. It's because I trained and taught my body how to fight in a frame that you stole. Everything is different. My center of mass. My weight distribution. My response times and range of motion. I trained four million years in that body. What am I supposed to do with this?"

Wing let him go and stepped back. "We didn't intend it like that."

Drift pulled his legs in and rolled onto his knees. "Sure you didn't, master. Play dumb. Tell me you haven't been enjoying watching your little pet fall over and fail. Tell me you weren't laughing a minute ago."

"It was a gift," Wing said, looking around helplessly. "We have the technology here, your frame is better than the one it replaced. We couldn't in good conscience give you less than our very best."

"Just let me leave and I'll forgive you," Drift said, leaping on that moment of weakness.

"No!" Wing stood up and paced away, showing Drift his back. "I can't. Dai Atlas wouldn't allow it. And you would die. If you go back to those slavers and try to steal a ship like this, you would die."

"And will Dai Atlas change his mind and allow me to leave your city, knowing all your secrets, once I can defeat you in unarmed combat?" Drift said.

"No," Wing said. He turned to look at Drift. "So 'defeat' had best mean you knock me unconscious so I'm not forced to chase you if you escape the city, Deception. We are forbidden from going to the planet's surface. If you defeat me and then cross the boundary away from the city, you will be free to die as you wish."

Drift smiled. "That's a deal then. Let's go again."

"Now?" Wing frowned at Drift's raised fists. "We don't have to, if you wanted to do something else. I mean, we can't just wander the city, you're not allowed to mingle. But I could try to help you find your center again. We don't have to spar all the time."

Drift considered Wing. It was tempting to goad him again, to tell him to just get his fists up and hit him already. If there was nothing that would get him out of the city besides knocking Wing on his aft, then he might as well spend his time trying to do just that. But there was something in that statement that pulled at him and he found himself lowering his fists. "I was wrong, wasn't I? I'm not your pet. We're both prisoners together." There was no harm in delaying a little bit, just until he was sure he could slip by the slavers unnoticed. "What would you suggest?"

Later - CH3

There was a knock at the door. Drift groaned and rolled over, covering his audials with his hands.

“Drift? It is time for us to spar,” Wing said. He sounded cheerful and energetic, as per usual.

Drift ignored him. Sure, he could go out and get his aft beat again. He could do that. But he could also stay on this nice berth and sleep until he died, and that sounded a lot nicer and less painful.

“Drift. It is morning and I hate waiting. Please open the door.” Wing had been nice enough to give Drift a room of his own after he declared that Drift wasn't allowed to leave Crystal City. He left Drift alone at nights after he locked him inside, which was also nice. Those four walls and one scenic window were one of the prettiest prisons Drift had ever done solitary in. That didn't make it any less of a prison.

If he didn't get up, Wing was just going to keep talking to him. Drift groaned and tried to sit up. His tank roiled and he lay back, hands pressed over his mouth to keep everything inside.

Wing banged on the door. “Drift? Are you okay in there?”

Decepticons do not show weakness. “I'm fine. I'm just not interested in playing along with your little games today. Go beat on someone else.”

“Drift?” Wing now sounded fairly worried. “The purpose of our sparring is not to hurt you. If you were injured, you should have told me. I would have brought a medic.”

“I'm not injured,” Drift said. That was mostly true. He had some painful dents around his thighs that he wasn't sure would allow him to transform. And where would I transform? In the narrow steepled halls of this fine city? In this tiny room? I'm not allowed to go anywhere. What's the point of being a car if there's nowhere to go?

“I'm giving you to the count of ten and then I'm coming in there to fetch you,” Wing warned.

“Woo! Excellent. I'd like to see you drag me to the sparring circle. How will your graced citizens like that?” Drift shouted over Wing counting. “They can watch you drag me through the streets and then hit me till their 'peaceful citizen' has worked all his anger issues out. Oh, maybe you can insult me a bit. That's always fun. You can explain to me that I don't understand suffering, on account of never having been rich and religious and bloody privileged-”

The door hissed open and spit light on Drift's face. He reached up his hands to cover his optics, curling tighter into a ball. Through his fingers he could still see Wing's horrified face.

“What did you do to yourself?” Wing asked, walking into the room slowly, pushing aside empty cubes with his feet. He glanced over at the energon dispenser in the corner and the missing stack of cubes that had been beside it. He walked up to the berth, his hand hovering over Drift's body. Drift turned and snapped at him, fangs bared.

“Don't. Want. To. Talk. About. It,” Drift gritted. His tank roiled and he clamped his jaw shut again.

“Did you drink all of this last night?” Wing asked, flummoxed. He looked around. “That's, like, two weeks of fuel.”

Drift glared, not talking. Wing sighed,as if Drift were the bot being stupid and unreasonable. He looked around and seemed to realize there was nowhere to sit in the room, nothing but the berth and the energon dispenser and the window. “I didn't even know you could do that. Don't the dispensers cut you off after your daily allotment?”

They try. But if you've got a lot of time on your hands, a stolen direct link-up cable and half a brain module, it's not hard to hack. Drift glared.

“That looks really painful,” Wing said, eyes glued on Drift's midsection, swollen around his fuel tank. Expandable bladder tanks were standard on racing frames, to accommodate the shrink and swell of fueling right before a big race while keeping weight down. “I could get a medic in here, we could pump it out of you.”

Drift screamed behind his clenched teeth. Fuck you. No. He shook his head, processor-ache be damned. No. No. No.

Wing frowned, perplexed. “What do you want me to do, then? Just leave you here to suffer?”

That would be nice. Alternatively, you could hit me really hard in the head and knock me offline. That'd be a relief. Drift nodded enthusiastically.

“Not happening. What if you hurt yourself again?” Wing asked. “Okay. We're going to my room.”

No, we are not going to your room. I am not going anywhere. Drift lifted one of his arms and let it drop back to the berth, limbless. Then rolled his head to stare at Wing. Good fragging luck with that.

Wing scooted his arms under Drift. Drift let him try and pick him up. “Scrap, Drift, you are really heavy,” Wing muttered. But on the second go he staggered upright.

“Don't drop me,” Drift said. “I will definitely purge if you drop me.”

“Well that's a pleasant image,” Wing said, shuffling to the door and then out into the hallway. “Maybe you'd feel better.”

“It would be wasteful,” Drift hissed, trying to distract himself from the roll and sway of Wing's footsteps by running through the first chapter of Towards Peace, backwards.

“Unlike glutting yourself on a week's worth of fuel in a single night,” Wing said. He didn't quite manage to keep the contempt out of his voice.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you put an easily-hacked dispenser in the cell with the uncivilized Decepticon,” Drift said.

Wing reached his own room and keyed it open with a voice command. Could probably hack that too. He walked them into his pristine, neatly laid out room and set Drift down on the grand berth by the window. Drift observed that this room not only had a desk and a console and an entire shelf of datapads; there was also what appeared to be some sort of musical instrument set up by the balcony. And one enormous sword hanging on the wall. Yep. Pacifists. These people are definitely pacifists.

Wing dragged his chair over by the berth and sat down. “I'm not here to judge you, Drift.” Oh, sure. That's the funniest thing I've heard all day. “I just don't understand. Why would you do this to yourself?”

Drift smiled, his favorite toothy smile that emphasized his fangs, just to make Wing uncomfortable. “I was hungry.”

“And then you drank three drams of fuel and then you weren't hungry any more,” Wing said.

“No. I drank three drams and I was still hungry. So I drank another three and I was still hungry. Is this hard to understand?” Drift spat. “I am fragged up.”

“That makes no sense,” Wing said. “We replaced your frame. You should be better now.”

Drift laughed. “You have lived in your perfect little world so long that, if you ever knew what suffering was like? You've forgotten. Some things you can't fix. Some things you can't change.”

“Why did you do it?” Wing asked. “I just don't understand.”

“I wanted it to stop hurting,” Drift said. And it didn't. Lesson learned. Some things you can't fix, even with all the fuel in the world.

Later - CH5

After some experimentation, Drift had decided the single most irritating thing he could do was bounce the seemingly indestructible datapad off the ceiling. Toss, toss, rebound. He was playing a game, waiting to see how long Wing could hold out without snapping or stomping out.

It was taking awhile, but that was alright. Drift had learned a lot of patience as Deadlock. He pillowed his head on his arm and tossed the datapad again, watching it spin lazily in the air around its central axis. Slightly off kilter. The throw was a little light and it just skimmed against the ceiling before falling back into his waiting hand.

He wondered if they'd evacuated the apartments around Wing's when the 'Decepticon' interloper was housed here. Did anyone else hear Drift's banging on the walls, the constant arguing, Drift's attempts to irritate Wing by humming a single discordant note for several hours? He'd hate to think he was wasting this performance on just Wing, who wasn't especially appreciative. But the cityfolk seemed pretty zealous about avoiding his 'ideological impurity' or whatever. In the morning and evening, when they traveled to and from Wing's apartment, the roads and paths were clear all the way to the sparring ground.

The two times Drift had gotten a healer called in to tend to sparring mishaps, he'd been strictly forbidden to speak to him. Drift had ignored that, but apparently the medic had gone so far as to mute his audials. Wing had the decency to seem apologetic about that. His explanation of why Drift was considered diseased had seemed sorely lacking. What kind of paradise forced everyone to follow the inexplicable whims of the tallest and loudest and strongest soldier? Sure, Dai Atlas was old. And he'd helped found the city. Other than that, Drift wasn't really seeing the connection as to why everyone had to do what he said. Especially when what he said was stupid slag like 'The former Decepticon must stay away from all citizens, lest he lure them into joining the war and leaving the city and doing other naughty things. As Decepticons are aught to do.'

The pad rebounded and Drift had to roll off of his back to grab it out of the air. Wing huffed a laugh from where he was sitting on the berth, pretending to read something and pretending he wasn't watching Drift. "You could read that, you know," Wing said. "I got it for you to read, Decepticon."

"I could," Drift allowed. "This is more interesting." The datapad was a codex of city laws, rules and regulations. He had been reading it, but only when Wing's back was turned. And only because he was interested in finding out why this Dai Atlas guy got to dictate everyone's lives to them. "You know, I thought we'd agreed you'd stop calling me Decepticon off the sparring ground. I do have a name."

"You have to earn your name," Wing said seriously.

Drift looked over at him, giving him his best unimpressed stare.

Wing broke after barely a half minute of staring, busting into an awkward smile. "Sorry. Just slipped out." He climbed off the berth to sit down next to Drift on the floor. "This whole isolation thing is driving me a bit crazy too."

"You could go out, if you wanted," Drift said. "I'm locked out of the dispenser and I promise I'm not going to do anything stupid. You could go out, have fun with your friends. Whatever you all do here." Drift wiggled his fingers vaguely towards the street below.

"It seems unjust to keep you prisoner here while I roam free," Wing said. "I will follow Dai Atlas's edict, but I won't be a hypocrite about it."

"Mm-hmm," Drift said slowly, rolling over to look at him and setting the datapad down beside him. "What I'm hearing is that you have no friends."

"That's not—" Wing crossed his arms over his knees and buried his head, ducking away from Drift's gaze. "I have people I talk to. Knights I spar with."

"But what with all your whingeing about being stuck in here with me, being stuck with me, all that, you never talk about anyone in particular. No names ever come up. You might know people and talk to people, but I don't think you have any single person who you actively miss. And nobody seems in a hurry to get in contact with you either," Drift said.

"Like you can talk, Dece-" Wing caught himself and buried his head back in his arms. "Drift. I'm sure you had lots of close friends and trusted confidants among the Decepticon ranks. They're famous for their friendliness. Those friends of yours must have been sad to see you go. I'm sure they put up a big fuss when you were exiled."

Drift laughed.

Wing glared at him. "What?"

"Well, I can see why you don't have any friends," Drift said. He rolled back onto his back to stare at the ceiling. "It's a war, Wing. The people I trusted died."

He let the silence linger with satisfaction for a bit as Wing tried to think of what to say in response to that. But talking was more entertaining than silence and he very much didn't want to get back on the subject of why he'd been fighting the war, so he decided to distract Wing. "So, the Knights of Cybertron. All this religion slag. Do you buy into that?"

Wing sighed. He uncurled himself and pushed himself to his feet, then held a hand out for Drift. "Let's go out on the balcony."

Outside, the sky above wasn't real sky. Just the domed roof over Crystal City. A million lights illuminated it in a cascade of colors, simulating the sunset of the real sky above. Down on the street below, tiny figures strode about their business. Wing settled on the edge of the balcony, looking out over the crystal spires of buildings. Buildings that presumably housed people or workshops or whatever it took to keep a utopia running. From where they were standing, they just looked pretty.

"I believe." Wing said, firmly. "I believe in Primus, in the Guiding Hand. I believe the Knights of Cybertron were real people and that they're somewhere out there."

"Okay," Drift said, drawing out the second syllable of the word. "So why'd you clam up just now when I asked?"

"What if the only reason I believe is because I couldn't keep going in a world that was so...hopeless? Our race is cast to the corners of the galaxy. Our numbers dwindle daily and sometimes I can't help but wonder if that's a good thing. But if the Knights are real...then someone out there figured out how to do this right."

"This?"

"Yeah. Living. Existing. Making things better instead of worse. It's not that I expect Primus or the Knights or the Guiding Hand to drop out of the sky and fix everything or commune with me personally. But just knowing they're out there, that gives me a little hope. And then I feel worried about that hope. Is my belief true, if it's so self-serving?"

Drift shrugged. "Dunno. Never been religious myself. But all the religious people I've known? They all got something out of it. Some sort of personal peace. I don't think that made it less real."

"And then I wonder what the Knights think of us, all hidden away here. Hoarding our skills and our knowledge and our resources. Do they judge us for not going out and doing good works?"

"That I'd pay to see," Drift said, grinning. "Knights of Cybertron return to give a smackdown to Dai Atlas, perennial stick-in-the-mud and general isolationist."

"Only upside about keeping you cooped up in here is I don't find myself every day in front of the Circle, accounting for whatever irreverent slag you've decided to spout off on," Wing said, groaning. "I'm trying to be serious here, Drift."

"I am absolutely serious. What currencies do you think the Knights of Cybertron accept for arranging epic tellings-off?"

Later - CH6

"Can you do it?" Drift asked, cupping his hands around his Decepticon badge. He held it out to Wing.

The smelting pool in front of them was beautiful, ornate lettering around the rim speaking of sacrifice and renewal. The room was beautiful, pulling in Old Cybertronian design aesthetics, the gilt concentric circles glittering gold.

He needed to let it go. He was proud to stand by Wing's side and face down his former faction. He could hardly do that wearing his Decepticon badge. But he couldn't...

"Of course," Wing said, taking it from his hands. He ran his fingertip over one of the points of the badge. "It's heavier than I expected. I wonder what they make these out of." He glanced up at Drift, who schooled his features into stillness. Betraying no emotion as Wing slid the fragment into the smelting pool, a sheen of purple spreading out on the surface of the pool then bubbling into the gold. As they watched, the metals commingled and disappeared. Drift let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Thank you," he said, forcing his hands to unclench.

Wing smiled at him, then threw an arm over his shoulder. "One of us, Drift! How does it feel?"

Drift caught his reflection dancing on the surface of the smelting pool, his new helm more like the way he'd looked as a newframe than he'd been since Gasket's death. And the circle comes around again. He forced himself to smile back. "It will be an honor to die at your side," he said, tucking his chin on Wing's shoulder as he stepped into the hug.

"We're not going to die, Drift," Wing said. "I mean, okay, we might not all make it. But there aren't that many of them. You and me? We're going to make it out fine."

"We're thirty bots against an army. Thirty pacifist bots, most of whom haven't held a sword in years because Dai Atlas keeps them locked in the vault. I'm not saying it's impossible. But we can't just ignore our odds. Wing, you're brave and you're idealistic and I'm thankful that you opened my eyes to what I'd lost after Gasket...but you haven't seen real combat in millions of years. There's no shame in staying here," Drift said, turning it around on Wing.

Wing chuckled, running his hand idly over Drift's spinal strut as he pulled him close. "I think you like me, Drift."

"Anyone would," Drift said. "You're not so bad, once you get to know you. I've never...I've gotten close to a lot of bots over the years, Wing. They left, or they died, or they left and then they died. Every time, I made myself harder, made myself more of the monster the Autobots thought I was, in hopes that people would stop leaving me or I'd stop caring."

"Drift, I'm sorry." Wing stepped back to rest his helm against Drift's, gold optics lidded. "I wish I could have stopped that from happening to you. But I have to be there with you today. The Knights of the Central Guard, we would never leave a mech behind. We stand as one, we fight as one."

"I get that," Drift said. "We'll go together. I'm one of you now, right?"

There was a knocking sound behind them and they slipped apart. Axe gave a little wave from where he was waiting in the doorway. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said, smiling wide. "But we don't have much time."

"It's fine," Wing said. "Did you find them?"

Axe held up a pair of swords in their sheaths. "Found some, just your size, Drift. Ready to become a Knight?"

Drift felt his face heating. "I've never held a sword before, Axe. I'm not sure how much use I'm going to be with one on the battlefield." Nevertheless he accepted one of the swords from Axe, cradling it in his hands, feeling the heft of it.

"The forms I've been teaching you were designed to be used with a sword," Wing said, kneeling by Drift's side and hooking the sheath onto the attachment point at his hip. "I have faith that it will come to you. Turn around."

Drift turned around and let Wing take the sword and attach it to his bare hip. His hands came to rest on the hilts of the swords at his sides. They felt right there, like he'd been missing a piece of himself that was now restored. "Can we at least practice before?"

"No time," Axe said. "I've got Aviaticus on comms and he says there's movement across the Gemerin plateau. We must rejoin the Knights."

"Very well," Drift said, reaching out a hand for Wing. They clasped hands and Drift felt the inane urge to sign something to Wing. But he knew from experience that Wing had no understanding of Chiro. "Let's see how good a teacher you are, Wing." He smiled, a bit manic, nerves jumping under his plating. These Knights were all too fragging calm. It was making him jumpy.

"I'm the best," Wing said, grinning back.

"That is highly unlikely," Axe commented dryly.

That started Wing and Axe arguing, while Drift wrestled with temptation. Giving in, he signed out three short pulses, hand rising up to press at the base of Wing's wrist.

Wing jerked his hand back, startled. "You shocked me," he said. "What did you just say? I know that face, that's the face you make when you've said something in your sign-y language."

"Good luck," Drift lied. "I said good luck."

** Autobot Drift

Later - CH4

"So, it was Drift, right?" The new bot asked. Hot Rod. His name is Hot Rod. His name is ridiculous. The bot was red all over, with an absurd flame decal painted on his chest. Drift wasn't really clear yet on how he related to the Autobot command structure—they'd just gotten done rescuing him from Bludgeon.

"Yes," Drift said, trying on a smile for size. Always better to make allies than enemies. "I'm called Drift now."

"And you used to be a Decepticon?" Hot Rod asked, looking him up and down. "Kup was telling me—wait. Were you Deadlock?"

Drift froze, smile still painted on. "In another life, I called myself that. Yes."

"Shoot, you nearly murdered me about a million years back? Oh, you probably don't even remember that skirmish." Hot Rod nodded. He didn't make a move towards violence. Drift watched him warily. "Anyway, welcome to the good guy's side," he said with a startling smile.

Drift stepped back. He'd expected anger, he'd expected indifference. Weary relief would have been acceptable. But the number of Bots that responded to his past service with either blasé indifference or actual brainless enthusiasm was alarming. Did they have no sense of self-preservation? If this had been a scheme, and Megatron had always been so good at schemes...Drift could have killed them all in recharge the first night.

Hot Rod deflated a little, sensing Drift's confusion. "Hey, sorry. We don't have to talk about it. How was your Act of Affiliation?"

"My what?" Drift asked. The conversation around them was turning to old war stories, he noticed vaguely. Blaster was talking about Simanzi.

Hot Rod pointed at his own chest, at the Autobot badge, then at either of Drift's shoulders where the insignia had been painted on. "Act of Affiliation? The ceremony where you join the bots?"

"Umm, I'm pretty sure we didn't do a ceremony," Drift said sheepishly. "Kup asked if I wanted a badge, got out a stencil and sprayed it on."

"O-kaaaay," Rod said, nodding along. "Well, I won't tell command if you won't. Ask Percy to send you a copy of the Autobot Code sometime. If you run into Ultra Magnus, he's going to quiz you on it. There's supposed to be a test before you get your badge." He paused and thought for a minute. "So why do you have two badges?"

"It was asymmetrical?" Drift said. "I asked Kup if it was supposed to be asymmetrical and he painted me a second one. Is that irregular?" Had he ever seen an autobot with two insignias? He had eidetic memory, but it all glazed over when he tried to trawl his memory banks for an example.

"Naw, I'm sure you're fine," Hot Rod said, waving it off. "Oh, I know this one," he said, catching onto a thread of something Blaster was saying. "Mind if I..."

"Go ahead," Drift said. "I should go talk to Perceptor about that code you mentioned." I don't want to be here and listen to you all talk about killing my old teammates. I really don't want to sit here and listen to you all talking about me trying to kill you and the people you know that I killed.

Hot Rod looked a little awkward, but he let Drift escape.

Drift took the walk to Perceptor's lab at a fast walk, escaping from the echoes of voices raised in raucous laughter. He only slowed when he reached the door and wasn't sure if he should knock. Was Perceptor even in his lab? It was the only place he'd seen him besides the battlefield. He gave the door two knocks.

"You can come in," Perceptor said from somewhere inside.

Drift edged through the doorway. Perceptor was in the corner, by a window Drift hadn't noticed the first time around. Too distracted by Perceptor baring his naked spark while crafting that new chestplate.

"Oh, Drift," Perceptor said. "Did you need something?"

Drift walked over to see the stars. He imagined lying. "Not really. Hot Rod mentioned something about an Autobot Code, that I should probably read?" He smiled at Perceptor, a pained thing. "But mostly I was just running away. They're telling old war stories out there."

"I can see how that could be awkward," Perceptor said, looking out into the stars. "You can stay here awhile if you want."

"Thanks," Drift said, sitting down on the other edge of the window ledge. "Thinking about something?"

"Thinking about dying, mostly," Perceptor said. "That was my first and hopefully my last real brush with death. It turns one's thoughts inwards."

"Ah," Drift said. He tried to think back and figure out when his first brush with death would have been. How close did you have to skim the line? After the Dead End riots, that was probably the first time he'd given in to death. But that wasn't the same sort of near-death experience as Perceptor had just dodged. "It's mostly turned my thoughts towards ways of surviving, in my experience."

"That too," Perceptor said, touching a hand to his new eyepiece. "I hadn't expected people would be so...negative, about such a logical decision."

Drift nodded. "You do an excellent impression of the logical reasoning machine. They forget you feel."

"That might be part of it," Perceptor said. "Thank you, by the way. Kup will say it's unnecessary, but I feel it is important to say. Both for your support in my decisions and for saving my life. I know that under standard Wrecker protocols, I would have been left behind."

"Too many people get left behind. It's what started this mess of a war in the first place," Drift said. It's important to him. "I accept your thanks," he said, catching Perceptor's eye and holding it. "I offer mine own. Your whole team...I can't imagine the risk you're all taking in extending me this much trust."

"Desperate times, I think," Perceptor said. "If you'd defected a million years ago and come knocking? You'd have been lucky to be turned away and not shot. I don't know if anyone's warned you, but the Autobots are basically at the end of their rope. We've been losing for awhile."

"Thanks Percy," Drift said with a chuckle.

Perceptor cocked his head, confused. "For what?"

"For everything," Drift said. "But mostly for being honest."

They sat in that quiet space for awhile. The stars here were new to Drift. He'd never gone to Earth before, if that was really where they were headed.

"So, about that Autobot Code," he finally said. "Is it long or anything? I've got some time tonight, figure I could just rip through it."

Perceptor chortled. "Oh, Drift." When did this bot last laugh? It was a strange sound, as if Perceptor had heard of the concept of laughter but never actually attempted to put that theory into practice before. Drift was a trifle concerned. "Is it long? You should see the Ultra Magnus annotated edition with footnotes!"

Perceptor dissolved into completely incomprehensible laughter. Baffling.

Later - CH5

Something was wrong. He'd felt it ever since he'd let those grains of sintered metal run through his hands at the mouth of the blast zone. He'd felt it when they followed Prime down into the pit. But now, standing at a standoff with Galvatron, the general knowledge of something being horribly wrong was crystallizing into something worse.

He was always aware of the slot he'd cut out of his spark casing in return for his Decepticon badge. The spark wasn't meant to be exposed. It recoiled at every touch of air. But now he was aware of nothing else, losing the thread of what Optimus was saying. There was something slithering around the slot in his spark casing. Trying to slip inside and-

His body seized up and he tried to call for help, but all that came out was static. He could hear Ironhide saying something to him, but the words fell meaningless. All that was real was stabbing pain in his spark and an overwhelming compulsion. Kill the Autobots. Join with us. Kill them.

His body lunged, striking out at Ironhide and then throwing itself at Rodimus. Old forms. So practiced they didn't go through his brain anymore, pure body memory. He screamed into the static. His sword cut the air above Rodimus's head. Join with us. You are one of us. Whatever lies you tell yourself, you left the door open and you welcome our presence. Kill them.

"I can't. I won't. And you can't make me," he tried to say, words splintering into static as he dropped his blade. He reached back behind him and drew his Great Sword. Wing's Great Sword.

Wing, were you this afraid?

The blade pierced his chest and then broke through his spark in a wave of unending pain. He fell to his hands and knees. Energon dribbling out of his mouth and his chest in wet splashes.

But he could feel the presence fleeing his spark as the life left his body and that was all he could have hoped for. Ironhide and Rodimus leaped forward to catch him in their arms and this wasn't such a bad way to—

"Bit of a drama queen, aren't ya, kid?"

Drift's optics sputtered on. There was something important. He'd been thinking of something important. Ratchet was looming over him, arms crossed. That was good. Ratchet was alive. Wait, I'm alive?

Ratchet chuckled. "Well, I'll try not to be too hard on you. Ironhide said it was something about the big Decepticon hivemind monster started trying to take over your body. So I get it. If someone tried to force me to hurt Prime...well, I'd have done what I could to stop that from happening. But it didn't occur to you to maybe try cutting your legs off? Something a trifle less inevitably fatal than stabbing yourself in the spark?"

They were in a medibay. There weren't bots lying all over the ground, like there'd been in the front lines, improvised hellholes where he'd been operated on before. He couldn't hear screaming or explosions in the distance. Except for the chiming of instruments and Ratchet, he couldn't hear much of anything. The battle is over.

"I'm not dead," Drift said, trying out the sentence. His vocoder crackled over the words.

"Yeah, 'miraculously'." Ratchet accentuated the word with finger-quotes. "Something about that sword allows it to channel energy through it? I don't really understand. But while it was inside your spark it was acting as a bridge so that your spark was only partially interrupted. That's the theory anyways. The massive leakage nearly did you in anyway. And you now have another pair of slots cut out of your spark casing. At this rate you're going to be more holes than casing. Just did a minimal patch on your externals. There's a lot of patients to see now that the war's over-"

Drift's hand snapped out to grab Ratchet's arm. Ratchet startled, then gave him a little half-smile. "Mixed bag. The war's over. The Decepticon army was destroyed by that gestalt monster. Megatron's missing. But Prime is dead. And we don't even understand what's happened to the planet."

"No, not that," Drift said, shaking his head. "I knew all that."

"Kid, no you didn't. We've been keeping you under while we patched up your massive internal leaking, examined your impaled spark and patched up your frame."

"I had a dream," Drift said. "But it was more than a dream. I think it's a message."

He shuffled through the thronging crowd, arms wrapped protectively over the fresh weld on his chest. He squinted to see in the dim light, ceiling domed high overhead. Bots averted their eyes as he moved through, offended either by his swords or his insignia or his injury. He couldn't tell which. There were people standing on tables, sermonizing for the assembled crowds. Drift made for the closest crowd. He didn't know what religion they were, but knowing the name wouldn't have helped him anyway. He knew nothing.

"Please," he said, speaking to the closest bot he could find. "I'm looking for guidance. I've had a vision from Primus."

The bot shook his head, frowning. "Primus was killed by Mortilus. He is in the Afterspark now - what you had was just a dream, not a vision."

I stabbed myself through the spark beside Vector Sigma. I know this wasn't just a dream.

He staggered on.

"When Primus merged with Vector Sigma, he gave up his divinity in service to us. He can't speak to us anymore. It was a dream."

"You're not an adherent to the Primal ways. You wear no beads and have never been initiated. Primus would never speak to you."

"...the Knights of Cybertron? They're not real. Whatever spoke to you, that wasn't Primus. It was probably Mortilus in disguise."

"Primus only communes with the most spiritually pure, the most morally noble of Cybertronians. I mean, look at you. You and all those other soldiers sent our species to the brink of extinction. You don't deserve Primus's blessing."

Drift sank down to sit down by one of the walls, away from the people. All of them were so caught up in their rules and traditions and he knew he was doing it wrong but it was so important and he was just so, so tired. In the back of his mind, he could hear Ratchet's speech about diminished sparks and getting plenty of rest to allow his spark to recover. Maybe Drift should have paid that more mind. But the message had been pounding in his head, screaming its urgency. Why me? I can't marshal a starship. I can't muster a crew. I can't even interpret this dream. You should have chosen someone better.

"Hey."

Drift lifted his head from his knees to see a large green bot standing in front of him. Blocky and built for manual labor, Drift couldn't see any insignia. One of the returned, then.

The bot sat down beside him. "I heard you asking for help. Don't worry about all the traditionalists out there. Primus absolutely speaks to us, to all of us. He does so usually in the little things—the glitches on your HUD, the colors of your aura, the way casting fragments fall upon the ground. But, to a lucky few, he can speak in dreams."

"Can you help me interpret it?"

The bot smiled warmly. "Of course. But first, I should ask, do you believe?"

Drift shook his head. "I didn't, not till this morning. I didn't want to. It seemed like all the religions wanted you to believe in an Afterspark. And I didn't want there to be anything more—I wanted it to end when it ended. And they wanted me to believe there was a plan, a purpose to our lives. And everything I've done, everything that's been done to me—I didn't want there to be intention beyond that."

"Those are both fair things to feel," the bot said, nodding. "Especially for a soldier, such as yourself. If it helps, as a Spectralist, I don't believe in life after death. I believe in a continuance of energy, a return of our energy to that Primal Wellspring. Not a continuance of consciousness. You'll still get to rest, at the end of things. And while Primus created us and he gives us guidance, he is not able to directly influence the world while he lies reformatted as Vector Sigma."

"Why me?" Drift said. "I have been the furthest from a righteous mech. Why would he choose me to be a messenger when there are so many others who could serve better?"

The bot laid his hand on Drift's shoulder. "Maybe he saw that you were lost and needed new purpose. Maybe this is a message that you already have his forgiveness and must begin to learn how to forgive yourself. Maybe you are simply at a confluence of possibilities and are uniquely placed to carry out his mission. Some things are not knowable. So tell me, do you just want to know the message? Or would you like to find faith as well, Autobot?" The mech held out a direct linkup cable.

Drift took one end of the cable and plugged it in, waiting for the other mech to do the same. Data transfer had always been something business-like. Efficient and cold. But with this mech it was like floating out of his own body into some shared, secret place. The words were not just words. They were images, they were text, they were all-encompassing knowing.

Your spark was lit by Primus. But if it were a mere physical thing, it would fade with the passage of time. Instead, the spark is eternal. This is because Primus strengthens our sparks, breathes life into them faster than entropy can diminish them. This is the core belief of Spectralism. When each new part of your spark coalesces with the old, it adds the character of its surroundings. In this, your spark takes on the character the people and places you surround yourself with. By improving your world you can sanctify your spark. Your spark is also influenced by your actions and your emotional energy.

It is essential to sanctify your spark. For just as the world around you influences your spark, the character of your spark will impact the whole of the Afterspark upon your death. We Spectralists strive to lessen the suffering and evil tainting the Afterspark.

There is an ambient energy and value in all things. You can see it through their auras. They are visible only through practiced meditation and by opening your EM field reader wide so as to see the invisible. By their strength you can see the inner strength. By their color you can see the inner character. Spectralists have learned to modulate their own auras, optics and voices to reflect their character and strength.

Show me your dream and I will tell you what I see.

When Drift emerged from the connection, it was as if he was seeing the world anew. It was as if he'd run through that training module for cold-constructs all over again and learned to speak, to see and to understand the world around him all over again. He could feel coolant leaking out of his optics, but he couldn't muster any shame to wipe them away. He turned to his Spectralist brother and said, "Thank you."

"What is your name, Autobot?" The bot said.

"Drift." Drift smiled. "And yours?"

The bot froze, then frowned. He tilted his head left and then right and then back again, peering down at Drift. "Drift? Drift of Rodion?"

"Yes?" Drift said in a small voice, unsure of the change in mood. He was still heady with the feeling of companionship and knowing and what horrible thing would they know him from?

The bot threw his arms around him and drew him into a hug. "Drift! You've changed so much. Your frame, your optics. I didn't even realize it was you. You must not have recognized me either; the senate had me reformatted after we left you. It's Ibis."

"Ibis?" Drift said, looking up at the huge construction bot and looking for the sleek blue frame of Ibis somewhere inside. Reformatted. No wonder I could never find you. "I looked for you, for years. I didn't-"

"I'm sorry," Ibis said. "You were right, back then. We should have stuck together."

"No," Drift said. "He would have abandoned us all there in Rodion. Things didn't go well after you left. I'm glad you and the others made it out...did the others make it out?"

"We lost track of each other. I believe Courser and Deviton joined up with the Autobots. Evas and Dodge were colonists, but I haven't heard from them in millenia. Oh, Drift," Ibis touched his helm to Drift's, "what happened after we left you?"

"Rodion wasn't a good place to be, back then. I did horrible things, to survive. And then I let that become who I was and I just did horrible things. It always seemed to be for good reasons, at the time."

"I am so glad that life brought us together so I could help you," Ibis said. "The guilt over leaving you was what led me to Spectralism. It comes full circle. I'm sorry that I can't go with you on your mission—I have to stay here and wait for the other Spectralists to return. But I want to you have these." He opened up a side compartment and brought out a small case. Within there were twenty-seven metal triangles, coated in vibrantly colored enamel. "My casting fragments. Use them whenever you need to ask for guidance."

"I don't want to go alone," Drift admitted.

"You won't be alone," Ibis said. "We both saw the dream. You're journeying to find the Knights. That means you'll rejoin the Circle of Light. And you're guiding that bright star, so you can't be alone. And all those other crewmembers, they'll be with you too. You won't be alone."

"But will they ever accept me?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You can't dictate that. And you can't undo or forget the past. But if you are kind and honest and you work to forgive yourself and others...I think everything else will work out. You are your actions and others will come to see you by those actions."

Later - CH6

"Are we there yet?" Rodimus whined.

"If we were there, I wouldn't be covering your optics," Drift said, grinning. "You can walk faster, you know. I'm not going to let you bump into anyone." He was right behind Rod, arms over his shoulders, hands fitted over his optics. Rod had said he would keep his optics off, and it wasn't that Drift didn't trust him. But he was so excited about this surprise. He didn't want anything to ruin it.

"You've guided me into at least five people and two walls," Rodimus said.

"You went left! I said right!" Drift said, bonking Rod in the back of the head gently with his helm.

"Well, I forgot you were facing the same direction as me, okay? Just don't tell Ultra Magnus I let you wander me all around Kimia with my optics off."

"Wouldn't like you trusting a former Decepticon with your life?" Drift asked. Best to get the lay of the land for the journey ahead. He and Ultra Magnus had never been close.

"Probably not," Rodimus agreed. "Not that I think of you that way but, you know. Ultra Magnus moves slow. Once you win his loyalty he'll be yours forever. It just takes a long time getting there. But I was actually thinking that this is probably really undignified and he wouldn't like that."

"You? Undignified?" Drift said, guiding them around a corner and up to the docking bay. "Can't imagine it. Okay, we're here. I just have one question—do you really want to go looking for the Knights of Cybertron?"

"What?" Rodimus said. "Of course! I am all aboard with this plan. Bee's adamant that we can't take Omega Supreme with us, but I am going to figure something out-

Drift lifted away his hands. "No need." He sidestepped to get a look at Rodimus's face as he onlined his optics. They furrowed in confusion for a moment as Rodimus tried to figure out what he was looking at. Then glee bloomed across face and his optics widened. He turned to Drift, waving his arms wordlessly.

Drift caught Rod as he threw himself into a hug. "You found us a spaceship? Drift, you're amazing."

"I got you a spaceship," Drift corrected. "It's named the Lost Light and you're going to be captain."

"Can we go inside? Right now?" Rodimus asked, jittering on his feet.

Drift reached into his hip compartment and brought out a keycard. "Sure. Let's go see your ship, Captain Rodimus."

Rodimus took the card and transformed on the spot. "Race you!" He yelled, blazing off down the plain up to the ship. Drift leapt to follow him. They skidded to a halt next to one of the access towers. Rod transformed back and looked up at his ship, huge above their heads. "We're going to need a bigger crew," he said. "Three bots is not enough to pilot a ship this size."

Drift pointed him to the swipe point for the access tower and they stepped into the elevator. "They'll come," he assured Rodimus. "I've seen it."

Rodimus turned to look at him, a smile hovering on his lips. "You're not kidding with this religious reawakening, are you? Ratchet told me you'd gone crazy. But you're for real."

"I had a vision," Drift agreed. "We will take this ship and our crew to find the Knights of Cybertron and, with you at the helm, we will succeed."

Rodimus nodded along, apparently taking Drift at his word. "Okay. Let's do it."

The access elevator opened up right outside the bridge. Drift led Rodimus onto the bridge, where he proceeded to run around like a maniac, cooing and oohing over each piece of equipment before dramatically draping himself across the captain's chair. Drift watched with amusement.

Drift had never been especially close to Rodimus. He trusted him, and Rodimus had trusted him back, seemingly without reservations. He liked him. Rodimus was personable and agreeable. If he was at your side in battle you were both going to come home safe or nobody would. But they'd never been especially close. They just didn't have much in common and Rodimus...he'd always been social butterfly-ing about with half the bots in the Autobot army. It had taken awhile for Drift to realize that it wasn't that Rod was close friends with everyone. He was close friends with no one. He spent all his social currency maintaining a thousand acquaintanceships, but never deepened that friendship. It was hard for Drift to imagine. Drift had always...well, Rung would probably tell him he overfixated. He poured everything into one or two friendships at a time. It wasn't that he tried to do it. It just happened.

"We've got to leave right away," Rodimus was saying. "If we wait, Bumblebee and Prowl are going to talk me out of this somehow, or they'll steal our crew away or sabotage the mission or...I don't know. They'll stop us somehow. So we've got to leave as soon as possible. I'll call Magnus and we'll try and figure out who in the inner guard is likely to be persuaded. We should give a speech, rally up whoever we can get."

"You should give a speech," Drift corrected. "I can't. I'm...you know."

"Ex-Decepticon. Yeah, I know. People need to get over that already," Rodimus said, rolling his optics. "Okay, I know I just said we have to get started preparing right away. But what if we took a quick spin, just around this level? I want to get a feel for the size of this thing. What do you say, friend?"

Drift grinned. "Lead the way, Captain."

Later - CH8

Drift's optics flickered on, everything soft and hazy in his field of vision. It was warm. His fingers skimmed the surface of the heated tarp lying over him, bringing a smile to his lips. He hadn't even had to say anything.

Footsteps approached from the far side of the berth and Drift turned his head. Perceptor. He gave a little wave and Percy nodded in response. "You're awake, I see," Percy said.

"Yeah, I feel fine," Drift said, wiggling his feet under the blanket. A little sore, a lot tired, but not bad. Not like the other times. "How did it go?"

"You'll have to tell me," Percy said, drumming his fingers on the datapad in his hand. "I'd done my own rebuild, but this was definitely the most extensive frame rebuild I've done solo. Feel up to sitting yet?"

Drift nodded and Percy helped lever Drift to a sitting position. The blanket fell away, exposing new and freshly polished plating. Drift turned his arm over, admiring how it caught the light, flexing his hand to be sure everything was in working order. He'd have to get himself to the training room after this to start adjusting to the new frame, but this felt right. It felt good.

"Good?" Percy asked, watching Drift's face carefully. "I followed our design schematics, but you know I'm not an artist. The paint job's not the best work."

"It's perfect," Drift said, swinging his legs out from under the blanket. Whoa. That's different. Ibis had told him one of the most important initiation rituals amongst Spectralists was the remaking. Changing your image to reflect the you that you wanted to become. The old Drift had been one thing if he'd been a hundred things. Angry. Quick to violence, slow to words. Helpless. Inflexible. This...this was his statement, everything he wanted to be and become.

Percy offered his hands and helped Drift stand. This was right. He was rounded and smooth, adaptable and flexible. He was the colors of second chances and of healing. He lifted one hand to touch the winged sheath on his back, the place where Wing's sword would rest. You'll always have my back, Wing. And I'll always have your sword. He blinked away tears and offered Percy a shaky smile. "Thank you, Perceptor. This means a lot to me, as does your friendship."

He couldn't quite see it, but he felt like he was beginning to feel Perceptor's aura, a cool and comforting presence at the place where their hands touched. Perceptor looked so steady, like he'd taken the end of the war completely in stride. “I gave you a physical badge,” Percy said, nodding at Drift's chest. “Since you always seemed disappointed in the painted alternative.”

Drift looked at it, raised slightly off the surface of his chestplate. That was unexpected, but a thoughtful gift all the same. Percy was more observant than he let on. Oh, science things everyone expected Perceptor to be on top of. And in a sniper's nest nobody doubted that Perceptor had eyes on everything. But Drift had always admired how he picked up on the little things.

"Will you be going with us?" Drift asked. "I know they'll ask you to stay."

Perceptor looked away. "I have not yet made up my mind. I've been doing things for duty for a long time. It's tempting...some space to do research. Some time to come to terms with myself again."

"I know what you mean," Drift assured him. "Whatever you decide, make the decision that feels right in your spark."

"What? Drift, you can't say that to people," Rodimus groaned. He sauntered into the room, paused and then dramatically gave Drift a look up and down. Rodimus made a whistling noise. "Primus. That is a look. But no, really, Drift. You can't be telling people not to go on our quest. You're in charge of hyping everyone up!"

Drift smirked at him. "What? I thought that was your job."

"Oh, you have no idea. I have been talking to everyone while you and Perceptor over here have been doing your little magic makeover."

"Oh?" Drift asked, wiggling his free hand in invitation. Rodimus took it with a bit of a confused head tilt. Rodimus felt warm. Maybe that was the beginning of his aura. Drift wasn't entirely sure what an aura was supposed to feel like. He hoped he wasn't just imagining them into existence, but he definitely felt something when he touched Rodimus's hand. Concentrating on his balance, he let go of Percy's supportive grip. He wobbled a bit on his feet.

Rodimus darted out an arm to catch him around the waist before he could fall. "Hey, you okay? You look a bit tipsy there."

Drift nodded. "Yeah, it's normal. My brain's internal image of my sensornet is still catching up with its new configuration. I'll be streetworthy in a few hours, hopefully I'll be battle-ready in a day or two."

Rodimus adjusted his grip so his hand was resting comfortably in the small of Drift's back, right over his spinal strut. It felt strangely exposed in this new configuration, but Drift had wanted that. Flexibility, adaptability; something had to give. It took a moment for Drift to realize that, standing like that, they looked a bit like they were about to start dancing. Rodimus must have been having the same thought, because he began to rock gently side to side. He squeezed Drift's hand with a widened optic that seemed to ask if it was okay. Drift squeezed back.

Percy cleared his throat, an unnecessary but diplomatic gesture. "You're good to go, Drift. Just let me know if you have any minor problems. Serious problems should be escalated to Ratchet or one of the other medics. I'm going to head out, I'm sure you two are busy planning."

Drift frowned. "I don't want to push you out of your space-"

Percy shook his head. "Don't worry. There's a bit of a scientists get-together happening. Brainstorm, of all people, organized it. We're going to try and piece together what academic records survived Kimia, remaining laboratory equipment, that sort of thing. But, really, comm me if you need me for anything."

"Of course," Drift said.

Percy gave him and then Rodimus a parting nod and headed out. Rodimus watched him go, still rocking them in a slow and leisurely circle. "He scares me sometimes, you know? Percy used to be such a nerd, the war really changed him."

"It changed all of us," Drift said. "And he's not scary. Just a bit formal."

"That's right, you two worked the sniper patrol for a while, didn't you? That always felt a bit shitty, honestly. The way Kup was always sending you out as bait."

Drift shrugged. "I didn't mind. I trusted Perceptor to have my back and he always did. Are we dancing, Rodimus?"

"What? No, of course not." Rod grinned, easily diverted. "There's no music, how could we dance with no music?"

Drift rolled his optics and bumped his helm against Rodimus's. "Come on, we have places to go, right? We can walk and talk, if you keep me steady." But he couldn't help remembering doing something almost like this, with Wing, back in Crystal City. The way Wing had led him out onto the iced-over surface of the deep storage vault and taught him to slide over the ice in slow and lazy circles. The way he'd laughed when Drift fell on his aft, but circled back around to help him back to his feet. The excited smile on Wing's face when Drift had told him it helped him adapt to his new body. That slow and fogged-up memory of cold and quiet darkness was one of his happiest memories with Wing. He wished they hadn't wasted so much time sparring. He wished he hadn't wasted so much time arguing and ignoring Wing. He wished...

As Rodimus led them back into the hallway, Drift tried to recall where their conversation had been going before he got sidetracked by Rodimus being so...Hot Rod. "You were saying something about talking to people? While I was under?"

"Yeah," Rodimus said. He cast Drift a bit of a sidelong look. Guilty, even. "I talked to Ultra Magnus and he's definitely in as one of the command staff. I offered him second. You don't mind, right? He's just, you know, he's Ultra Magnus. I couldn't tell him to be Third because you were Second, you know him, he's just really rigid and-"

"It's fine," Drift said. "I want to be there, but I didn't really imagine you'd be keeping me as part of the command structure. I get it." Drift, ordering around a bunch of Autobots? That was quite the thought.

"Drift, you bought me a spaceship. You're staying as my Third in Command, no matter who else joins up. If Optimus Prime himself walks into my berthroom and begs to join the mission I'm going to tell him, 'Sorry mate, no can do. You'll have to be Fourth, because I'm not shifting my friend Drift from third.”

Drift snickered, shuffling a bit to keep his balance. His thigh bumped into Rodimus and woah, that was going to be an adjustment. His sense of where his legs were and what shape they were was still totally off. "Don't even lie, Rod. If Optimus showed up, you'd be handing over the Captain's chair like any good Autobot."

"I would not!" Rod protested, letting go of Drift's waist to put his hand over his spark. "You gave me that ship fair and square. Anyway, stop distracting me. You're very distracting. I was telling you about Magnus."

"Yes. Magnus."

"Well, he says I'm not allowed to 'improv' the speech tomorrow so...we'll have to figure something. Magnus wants us to all have a meeting and talk about it."

"Is that where we're going?"

"Nah. I'm taking you to Prowl. He wanted to talk to us about something first."

Drift gave Rodimus a sidelong glance. "He's not revoking the Reintegration Act or something, is he?"

"What? No. Of course not. I'm sure it's nothing like that. And even if it was, Prowl couldn't just decide that, he's not in charge of the laws. Probably just wants to try and convince you to convince me not to leave or something like that. You know Prowl. Never lets go once he gets an idea in his head."

And just like that the warm glow that had been following Drift from the moment he woke up with his new frame faded and grew cold. There were some bots who were enthusiastic about Drift's conversion-his faction, not his religion. Nobody much knew about the religion thing yet, except Rodimus and Ibis and Percy. But there were some bots that were enthused to have Drift as an Autobot. There were some who'd been ambivalent. There were some bots that were openly hostile. Prowl was none of the above-instead he seemed to view Drift's defector status with a predatory gaze, always looking for ways it could be used strategically. Whatever was waiting in Prowl's office, Drift wasn't going to like it, of that he was sure.

** On the Lost Light

Later - CH2

Drift sealed the door shut behind him and engaged the command locks. He fumbled for the data pad on his desk and penned quick messages to everyone he was supposed to meet with, letting them know he was going to be off duty and engaging in a Spectralist ritual of solitude to center his spark until his next duty shift. Nobody on the Lost Light wanted to hear anything about Spectralism, so they wouldn't know 'rituals of solitude' were something he'd just made up. He let the data pad fall back to the desk with a clatter, rubbing at the center of his crest where the ache was in his head sharpest.

Focus. He dutifully unsheathed his Great Sword and rested it on its stand. With rote motions he unsheathed each blade and lay them in their place. He rifled through his selection of data sticks. The one with the green mark he plugged into the console and set to play as he sat down on the berth.

The sound of a weaver's workshop filled the air, the rhythmic clack-clack of the shuttle and the singing vibrations of the threads surrounding him. He let his hands rest on his lap, wiggling his shoulders and trying to find a comfortable posture to last him the next few hours.

He shuttered his optics before he could lose visuals, then manually shut down the HUD display. This was how Wing had taught him to meditate, back at Crystal City. But while Wing had always wanted him to float as a thought, free from his body, Drift preferred to use meditation as an escape into the body. A way of knowing his spark's new home. Every body had a different cadence, a different sense of being. But it was still the same spark illuminating it for him.

He let himself settle into the space they'd cut out his spark casing, letting the tide of his fuel pump and the hazy crackling wildfires of proprioceptive feedback enchant him.

"Drift! Drift, wake up!"

There was someone shaking him by the shoulders. Drift floated for a moment longer, realizing that his hearing must have come back without him noticing. He'd carried on the sounds of the recording throughout, even when he physically couldn't hear it. He tried bringing his optics back on line.

Rodimus's face blinked into existence, bare nanometers from his own. Drift blinked.

Rod stopped shaking him, but still looked a bit frantic. "Drift! There you are. I was really worried. You didn't show up to spar, so I came to see you, but then you didn't answer when I hailed you. And you didn't unlock the door. And I could hear /weird noises/ inside your room." He looked around and waved his arms to indicate the recording.

"So I overrode your door locks and you were, like, dead? You scared me," Rod said, patting Drift on the shoulder. "I was a nanoklik away from calling Ratchet over to resuscitate you."

Drift tested his voxcoder with a gentle acknowledging hum. No problems, so he tried talking. "I sent you a memo."

Rod at least had the good grace to look sheepish. "A memo? You know I don't...look, if you need me to know a thing, hunt me down and tell me, alright? I'm buried in memos from Magnus at all times. What did it say?"

"Hmm?" Drift said, rolling his shoulders. He must have risen out of the fritz while at the nadir of that stage of meditation and not noticed.

"The memo?" Rod asked, sitting down beside Drift, bumping up against him and resting his chin on his shoulder. "What did the memo you sent me say?"

"I had forgotten today is an important Spectralist grace day for me, based upon the date I affirmed the faith," Drift said. "I was taking my off-shift time to center my spark using the meditative techniques I learned at the Crystal City."

"Ah." Rodimus said. "How good do you have to be at meditation to ignore me?"

Drift smiled. "You have to be a master to ignore you for long. Do you want to still do the lesson?"

"Isn't this important?" Rod asked.

"Mm, it's important to take time to reflect. But it's been," he consulted his chrono, then remembered it probably hadn't synched back up yet, "a while now. I think I've dwelt in my body enough for today, if you wanted to do the lesson."

As Drift stopped the recording and rearmed himself, shortest dagger to Great Sword, he considered was a near miss that had been. If he hadn't risen out his fritz before Rodimus showed up and Rod couldn't rouse him, he'd have called in Ratchet and known Drift was broken and wanted Drift fixed. He shuddered and hurried ahead, doing his best to keep Rodimus distracted. Plenty of gossip since he'd gone into his room three hours ago.

His room was not a safe place to fritz, not if he didn't want to be found out by Rodimus. He was going to have to find a better spot.

Later - CH6

Drift gritted his teeth and rolled off the berth. Cables snapped as he fell, impacting the ground with a crash. Hearing was a bit swimmy, but he could still enjoy Ambulon and First Aid yelling at him. He let it roll off him, dragging himself onto his hands and knees. Ratchet was in danger. He had to get to him.

An enormous shadow blocked his path. Drift craned his neck to get a blurry picture of Fortress Maximus before the huge bot put his hand on Drift's shoulder, stopping him from moving.

Drift hissed, hands slipping on the floor. "Let me go!"

"You're killing yourself," Fortress Maximus said. "Ambulon said to put you back on the berth."

"I need to get to Ratchet," Drift said.

Maximus cocked his head to the side. "Why?"

"He's important," Drift said, words cluttering up his mouth, not able to make them fall into place. "I need him to be okay and he's alone with Pharma. I need to get to Ratchet."

Fort Max looked down on him, pityingly. Then he scooped Drift up into his arms, holding him as if he was a sparkling. Drift snarled and thrashed, but he couldn't break free. Fort Max walked carefully, angling his body sideways so he could fit between the berths with Drift in his arms. Through his red glazed eyes and the sprinkler system beating down on them, it was a few minutes before Drift realized that Maximus wasn't walking him back to his berth. They exited the room, Maximus hustling them down a hallway. He stopped in front of an opened CR chamber, a ladder leading down into the floor below. Maximus knelt and set Drift down on the floor.

"Why are you helping me?" Drift asked, coughing red onto the floor.

"There's no cure," Maximus said. "So they're asking you to stay still and die a little slower. If you need to, you should be with Ratchet."

Drift smiled at him, big and blurry above his head. "Thanks, Max."

"I'd follow, but I don't exactly fit," Maximus said.

"'S okay," Drift said. "I'll comm when I find him so you guys can...I'll comm when I find him."

Pushing against protesting joints, Drift stretched out his arms to grab ahold of the ladder. Then he dragged his legs forward into the space, venting hard. He set his jaw and began to climb down into the space below. He made it most of the way down before one of his hands slipped. He fell in a heap at the bottom of the ladder.

Woozily, he looked around the space. Evil science slag. Transformation cogs lined up on shelves, rust puddled all over the floor, table knocked over. Ratchet and Pharma had been there, but they weren't there anymore. He followed the trail of rust on the floor to a second ladder across the room, leading up into a hatch on the ceiling. Drift whimpered, letting his head fall down to the floor. He needed to climb that. Ratchet needs me. Drift began to crawl across the floor, belly sliding along the pooled rust on the floor. His optics were getting less and less useful, sour taste of them coating the back of his throat and making him gag. His hands bumped into the ladder and he squeezed at the bottom rung, spitting at the hopelessness in his spark. Ratchet needs me.

What he would have given for a booster of Syk just then. A little dissociation from his body and his limitations would have been nice. He dragged his feet onto the ladder and pushed himself to stand, supported by the ladder. Okay. Just a short climb.

Not just a short climb. Halfway up, his hands seized up, clenched around the rungs of the ladder. Drift growled, bracing his back against the narrow space and then jerking his knee up to knock his arm free. He slid down a few steps, shoulder jerking and nearly dislocating in its hinge. Vision nearly useless, he stared upwards at the tiny patch of white above him, the end of the ladder. He needs you. Drift swung his deadweight arm and stiff hand back onto the ladder and kept climbing, joints screaming in pain.

As he neared the top of the ladder, he began to hear voices. It took a moment to realize the voices were real. Pharma snarling at Ratchet. Ratchet, venting heavily, saying that he was thousands of miles from anyone he cared about. Drift pulled himself out onto the surface of the roof, wind swirling around them as he heard Ratchet spell out exactly how little he cared to keep living. Drift spat black rust onto the pristine white roof, trying to get his feet under him. Through the blur of snow and his liquefying optics, he could see Ratchet standing over Pharma. Pharma dangling over the side of the roof. Drift drew his sword with a shuddering hand, reaching out for one of the transmission towers to pull himself upright.

Ratchet turned his back on Pharma. Guns clicked into place.

Drift threw himself at them, sword slicing through Pharma's wrists. Heh, lucky swing. I was just hoping to get in front of the guns. He skidded along the surface of the roof, pain glazing his vision white. He could hear Ratchet saying his name from above him, warm rust bubbling out around him. Ratchet's hand fell on his shoulder and Drift smiled. Together. We'll go together. That's not so bad. He tried roll over and tell Ratchet that, but his spark was shuddering wildly and he couldn't seem to coordinate his movements. Instead he did his best to push as much warmth and comfort as he could into his aura.

It's okay, Ratchet. I'll be right here with you. We'll go together.

Everything went white.

Later - CH4

Drift unfroze directly into a run. No, no, that wasn't fast enough. He scanned the hallway with a quick jerk of his head and transformed, accelerating towards the bridge. Decepticons on board. Decepticons on board while he was frozen and helpless. Primus, let Roddy be okay. Let everyone be okay.

He nearly collided with someone and shouted an apology, swerving wide around them.

He burst onto the bridge with all of the grace of a misassembled grenade: transforming to root and nearly collapsing, venting so heavily he couldn't stand up straight. Everyone stared. Everyone. Thank you Primus, for your blessings this day.

"You're okay," he said dumbly.

"Shouldn't we be?" Rodimus said. "That was wicked. We were all here and then boom we couldn't move. Trailcutter wandered through for a bit, but that was it. Pretty boring up here, but wicked. Bets on it being Brainstorm's fault?"

"No," Drift said. "It was Decepticons. I saw them."

He'd been walking away from the bridge when the freeze hit. He hadn't been comfortable with the idea of being there while Rodimus was disciplining Rewind for whatever was on those tapes Red Alert had brought to his attention. It just made him uncomfortable. He'd made it most of the way back to his hab before he found himself unable to move.

Not exactly a new experience. It was like a fritz but the only thing you lost was motor control. He considered the possibility he might be a mini-fritz of some sort for a few minutes, before the deep and unsettling silence of the ship sank in.

Panic would be unhelpful. Panic would be deeply and distressingly unhelpful. He channeled his energies into a few litanies instead. Meditating was harder when you couldn't turn your optics off. The visual input was highly distracting. Did that shadow move? Perhaps Drift really was the only one frozen and this was an elaborate practical joke.

"Oh, that. We know that. Trailcutter was telling us about that. They were here to steal the whatsit we'd pulled in from space after the collision," Rodimus said, patting Trailcutter on the shoulder. "Trailcutter ran them off and they went away. No harm done."

"No harm done?" Drift repeated. "Do we know that? Have we checked with everyone on board to make sure they're okay?"

"A good point, Drift," Ultra Magnus said. "Gather up the security team, start doing a sweep. I'll go on the intercom and explain what happened."

"And I'll call Brainstorm and figure out what was with the freezing stuff!" Rodimus said, wandering off.

Drift stood there, using all of his focus not to melt onto the floor in a puddle. No harm done. No harm done.

"Well, look at that. It's Deadlock," Lockdown said, red eyes glinting. He leaned close to peer into Drift's face. "Seems to be frozen like the rest of them."

That's Deadlock?" The Con next to him, Drift didn't recognize. He walked over and rapped Drift on the chest, right on his badge. "Smaller than I pictured."

"He's not what we're looking for," Lockdown said, turning away.

"I don't know, we have time. They're all in stasis. Don't we have time for a little fun?" The Con replaced his fist with a blaster, touched the barrel to Drift's badge. "He is a worthless fucking traitor, after all."

Later - CH9

The snow stretched out to the horizon, gusting and swirling over the hillocks and valleys that spilled out before them. Drift clamped his plating a little closer, frame leeching heat uncomfortably fast. Pipes was back by their shuttle, rolling around in the snow. Apparently his frame wasn't very cold sensitive.

The core sampler beeped at him. Drift checked the readout—at least fifteen minutes before the ice core would be ready for extraction. He stood up, watching the device warily. Mechanics wasn't a specialty of his but he hadn't wanted to turn Percy down when he asked Drift to swing by the little unnamed planet and get a sample for him. A chance to get off the ship, to do Percy a favor, to get away from people...Drift shook the frown off his face and turned to Pipes.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Pipes popped up out of the snow and waved his arms. "It's great! Did you finish the thingie for Perceptor?"

"Finished setting up, but the laser needs some time to drill out the core," Drift said. "Want to go sledding?"

Pipes wiggled to knock the snow off his frame. "Sledding? We didn't bring anything for—"

Drift caught the little bot around the shoulders and wheeled him around to look at the hills ahead of them. "You don't need anything to go sledding, Pipes. Well, you need snow. And a bit of impulsive spirit, which is you all the way, right?"

Pipes pulled away a bit and gave Drift a peculiar look. His optics narrowed. "What is this about, Drift? I get out of the medibay and you're right there, waiting to take me planetside for some minor scientific mission. You didn't need my help to set up that science thing. And now you want to play games? Is this a pity thing?"

Drift floundered. "...no?" he said, hoping that wasn't the wrong answer. It was, a bit. Pipes had the worst luck on the Lost Light and Ratchet had mentioned that nobody had even come to visit Pipes during his most recent stay in the medibay and that had gotten to Drift a bit. He'd planned on visiting. He had. It just hadn't happened. "You said you'd never gotten to go planetside before. I thought this might be a nice experience, a chance to replace those negative memories of Delphi with good, healing memories."

Pipes considered that answer. He threw one of his arms around Drift's waist. "You know, you're a nice guy, Drift. Really sweet. Are you sure you and Rodimus—"

"No." Drift said. He considered punching Pipes in the shoulder. Not, like, violently. Just a tap to tell him he was being annoying and Drift was onto him. Maybe don't push your luck. Pipes isn't frightened of you, let's try to keep it that way. "We don't have much time, Percy'll want this back on the ship as soon as we can get it to him. Let's not waste it."

"I can't believe you call Perceptor 'Percy'." Pipes wandered over to the crest of the nearest hill and transformed into his alt mode. "Eww, cold in my wheel wells. That is not a good feeling."

Drift wandered over to him and flipped him over. Pipes wasn't quite so small that it was easy, but the snow made him easier to roll. "There, better?" Drift said, not quite managing to keep the chuckle out of his voice.

"What? No. Now I'm upside down! Put me back, Drift!" Pipes protested, spinning his wheels in the air and throwing off puffs of snow. Drift considered his complaints and decided that it was all in good fun. Sledding on your back was more fun anyway, Pipes was just a snow neophyte and didn't know that yet.

Drift had...he hadn't done this since he rejoined the war. Alright, in actuality, he'd only done this once. In that space of time between leaving the Circle of Light and running headfirst into the Wreckers, he'd tried to take some time, get some perspective. He'd ended up stranded on an ice-covered planet for two days waiting for the next passenger shuttle to arrive after getting kicked off a Galactic Council funded transit shuttle for the high crime of being Cybertronian. After about thirty minutes the boredom, combined with the endless loneliness of that planet, had been enough to drive Drift out into the snow.

"Drift?" Pipes said. "You're spacing on me. Please don't start meditating and leave me stuck on my back."

Drift forced a grin onto his face. "Mm? I don't know, it's a beautiful place for a spot of divine reverence. Perhaps we could take a moment and contemplate—" He reached over and gave Pipes a push, tipping him over the edge of the hill.

Pipes shrieked. As he hit the bottom of the first hill, he must have bumped into some uneven ground, because he stared spinning. Drift watched for a moment more, then backed up two steps. He rolled his shoulders and dove into the transformation, hitting the snow on his back in a burst of cold. The sky spun above him as he accelerated. Upside down and in his alt, he couldn't get a clear picture of the hills as they bumped and jostled him across the slick surface of the half-crusted snow. He hit a hill that launched him off into the air, wind whistling past his plating for a crystalline moment before he hit snow again. His slide continued for another few seconds, speeding faster and faster until he slid straight into a snowbank.

Pipes, from somewhere to his left, busted up laughing.

Drift shivered, snow trickling into his exposed wheelwells. He rocked a bit to the left and right and then flipped right-side up. From that position, he reversed a bit out of the snowbank, wheels digging into the snow and knocking cold deep into his frame. Drift pulled himself back into root mode and shook off the snow. Then he looked around for Pipes.

Pipes had ended up halfway upright when he hit the snowbank. "That was wild Drift," Pipes said. "I've never done anything like that before. Can we go again?"

"Let's get you on your feet first." The hill looked a lot bigger from the bottom. They made the climb slowly, feet breaking through the crusted snow and sinking them knee deep. At one point Pipes broke through over a dip in the ground and ended up stuck in snow up to his hips and needed Drift to fish him back out.

"Okay," Pipes said as they slumped onto the ground next to the shuttle. "I am freezing. And I'm tired. Can we go again?"

Drift checked on the ice-corer, still chugging along. "Sure. Let's try the other side of the hill."

They made three runs before the ice core was ready to extract. Drift lifted it out and Pipes helped fit it into the case Perceptor had sent with them, specially designed to keep the ice frozen and the atmosphere in the ice-bubbles isolated. "You don't know what this is for, right?" Pipes asked as they loaded it into the shuttle.

Drift shrugged. "Something for Percy. That's good enough for me."

"Oh good, I was feeling really stupid there." Pipes looked around. "This was great. Thanks Drift. I don't know how you knew that Delphi had really messed with my head about traveling, but this was exactly what I needed."

Heat rising to his cheeks, Drift turned away for a moment to get his face under control. "It's nothing, Pipes," he said. "I know you were disappointed that Riptide didn't come with us and I'm not a very good substitute, but I wanted to show you something—I wanted to do something...I'm glad you enjoyed it." He shrugged. "I'm not really good at this."

"I think we're all bad at this," Pipes said, nodding sagely. "Assuming you meant people stuff, I mean. Other than that we have totally different skillsets." He looked out over the snow and gave Drift a sidelong glance. "I know we have to get back soon. But one more? I'll be your friend forever."

It was definitely a question with a right answer. A responsible third-in-command answer that would keep Magnus off his back and maybe would draw a small smile out of Percy and wouldn't keep the Lost Light from deviating from their planned flight schedule. Frag all that. And stop thinking about the word 'friend', Pipes throws that word around like there's no tomorrow. You're not here for you, you're here for him. The whole point of this was to do something selfless, to reach out to someone and offer them what they didn't know they needed.

Drift didn't really know how to be a person, not without the anger. He was trying to just flip it, just flip everything backwards, do the opposite of what felt natural. He'd been bad before. If he was the opposite, that had to be good.

Drift, good isn't a thing you can be. And there was Wing's philosophy lectures, sitting in the back of his brain and telling him slag he already knew. Good is a judgment of actions, not individuals. You can't balance people on scales and weigh them into good and bad. You can't dig yourself out—you were never buried. All you can do is your best to do good.

"Drift?" Pipes repeated. "Second time today. You've been spacey lately."

Drift shook his head. "Sorry. I've had a lot on my mind. Okay. We can go once. Just once more. And I've got an idea." Drift waved Pipes over and pointed to the steep embankment just beyond the hill they were standing on. "Let's go for the monster hill."

They locked up the shuttle and headed for the hill. From the top they could see for what felt like miles. The surface flattened out at the base of the hill into a long windswept plain, snow brushed across its blue surface like a glittering film. Pipes went first. He hit the flat at the bottom of the hill and skidded out, spinning to a stop in a puff of snow. He'd carved out a path behind him, leaving a streak of blue exposed to the sky.

Drift had already pushed off when reality snapped through his cold-fogged brain. Blue. The crackling pattern on the ground. That wasn't snow. "Pipes!" He shouted. But at speed the wind was more than loud enough to drown him out. And he didn't know what he'd say anyway. Warn him to get back to the slope? Warn him to stay in his alt?

Drift hit the ice and slid. Something crackled underneath him as he slowed down. He could see Pipes, lying on his back and watching Drift from a ways off. Drift slowed to a stop. Something cracked. Drift vented slowly. "Pipes, I think this was a mistake. Can you transform into your root mode and get back to the shore?"

Drift rocked gently, trying to flip himself over. Ice crunched beneath him and he cringed. Not good. But he wouldn't be able to transform on his back and he wouldn't be able to get to shore lying on his back so he was going to have to risk it. But he waited until Pipes was flipped back rightways and transformed.

Pipes stayed on his knees, running a hand over the surface of the ice. "Drift, how thick do you think this is?"

"I don't think you want me to answer that question," Drift said. "Just get to shore, I'll follow."

"Drift?" Pipes said, scuttling towards Drift on his hands and knees. Drift groaned.

"Keep back!" He shouted, then vented in and clamped his plating tight before flipping over. He landed lightly on his wheels. Nothing happened. Slowly he began to reverse towards shore.

There was a tremendous cracking sound and the world went black as the water rushed him.

The water was so cold it burned at his plating as he sank steadily into the deep. Drift tried to transform and got caught partway through, the cold so intense that his t-cog jammed up. Above him the open hole in the ice glowed like a beacon against the darkness of the surrounding ice. Drift curled into a ball and let himself sink as he focused on his t-cog. Need legs to swim, so we gotta do it. The slow and halting transformation opened up his inner plating and allowed the ice water to rush inside, wires shorting and snapping as it went. He felt like he'd been filled with lead, limbs too heavy to move. He was so, so cold. His spark was burning in his chest.

Above him, the window of broken ice wavered. Or maybe his optics fritzed. Primus, no. Don't even think about fritzing, that's just tempting fate. Drift uncurled himself slowly, dismissing the irritating warning messages cluttering up his HUD. His feet met the lake bottom and he glanced up again to orient himself. Then he walked, feet sinking into the soft sediments at the bottom of the water. Tendrils of sinuous plants floated about him like a curtain as he pushed himself forward. He couldn't see them in the dark, he hoped they were plants. He let one hand rest out in space above him, feeling for any obstacles ahead as he put the patch of light behind him.

An interminably long time later, his hand brushed up against ice. Drift felt around above him, feeling out the surface. He'd reached the shore, finally. Now all he had to do was break himself free. Drift limped a little further forward, until the water was so shallow he had to crouch to fit under the surface of the ice. He planted his feet in the sediment, dug in deep, and pushed. He couldn't really feel his frame anymore, only the indistinct impression of pressure against his back as he pushed. His feet slipped in the mud and he threw his hands up, bracing them against the ice and pushing with as much strength as he could muster.

He heaved himself through the ice and into the air, then promptly fell over, legs still trapped in the water. Feebly, he clawed at the loose snow on the ground, trying to drag himself free. The world looked over-bright and spotty, dimming in and out in spots. His body felt heavy, deeply heavy. At least he wasn't cold anymore. Just sleepy, though it was difficult to slip into recharge with the wind whistling in his audial like that.

"Drift, just stay calm," Someone said above him. Pipes. Aw, Primus, Pipes. Gotta get him back to the ship somehow. "Don't worry, I'm just gonna pull you onto the shore."

"Mm, I'm calm," Drift reassured him. The words came out a bit staticky. "Don't worry. We should probably go back to the shuttle."

"I don't think..." Pipes said something but the wind swallowed it up. Someone moved Drift's legs, rolling him onto his side and curling him into a ball. "I'll be back," Pipes said.

"Okay," Drift said dumbly. The thought occurred to him that Pipes might be planning to pilot the shuttle, which seemed like a very bad idea. But explaining why would take a lot of words and he wasn't sure he trusted himself to get all of that out intelligibly. And when he looked around, there was no Pipes to be seen. Well, he was coming back. Drift would just sleep a bit until he came back and then he'd explain why he shouldn't...the shuttle was a bad...bad idea...

"No, don't worry, I've already got us off the ground. Really, Blaster, please stop—I understand that. Only, Drift is, like, unconscious. So I need you to explain real quick how to land this thing. Okay? You're giving me a bit of a panic, okay? And trust me, I know panic, did I already tell you I watched the TIC drown fifteen minutes ago? Okay, so red button. There are a couple of those—"

Drift was warm and everything hurt. Both of those facts were confusing, though he couldn't exactly say why. He probed out with questing fingers and found the edge of a blanket which was surprisingly heavy.

Someone slapped his hand as he tried to escape his blanketed prison. "Don't move, you'll pull the lines out," Ratchet commanded.

Drift relaxed. Ratchet. Whatever was going on, Ratchet could handle it. "Hey Ratch," he said. "What happened?"

Ratchet snorted. "What happened? Sheesh, kid. You, in a move of complete idiocy, decided to go for a swim in supercooled ice water. And then, in an idea that may be unparalleled in it's badness, you decided to transform underwater, filling your internals with ice water. Which froze the fuel in your lines and shocked your brain into unconsciousness."

"Oh," Drift said. "Oh. Sledding with Pipes. Is Pipes okay? Did we get Percy's ice core back safe?"

Ratchet sighed and patted Drift awkwardly on the helm. "It's all fine. Me and you are going to have a talk later; about those gearstick shenanigans you were pulling and about the importance of checking into geothermal anomalies before venturing onto strange planets. But for now, just lie there. Rest. The blanket's heated, so stay. And I've got an external fuel cycler that's rerouting the fuel in your body through a warming chamber, so try not to move and pull anything out, it'll be gruesome."

"'Kay." Drift powered his optics on and did his best to give Ratchet a reassuring smile. "Thanks Ratch."

"Like I said. Lecture later." Ratchet walked off, waving his datapad in the air in a way that was maybe supposed to be threatening. "Count on it!"

Drift wiggled a bit, inching deeper under the heated blanket so that only his optics were poking out. The warmth, probably combined with the cold-induced near processor failure, was making him feel really sleepy and that was helping with the paranoia. But it was better if you could see less of the medibay, less looming machinery and surgical slabs.

Pipes lurched into his narrow field of vision, waving hesitantly. "Hey! Hi Drift. Ratchet's probably going to kick me out soon. But I wanted to let you know, up till the point at the end there were you, like, drowned I had a great time. Though, actually, I got to pilot a shuttle! I mean, I had to pilot a shuttle, cause you were basically dying and we were at the bottom of a mountain and there's no way I could have dragged you up that. But yeah, overall, that was a ton of fun. Besides the part where you almost died."

Drift considered that. "Good?" he said. "Glad you had fun."

Pipes sat down on the berth, perched on the edge next to Drift's legs. "You were super cool, by the way. You went under the water and I was like, scrap, what do I do? Do I dive in after him? I can't swim. And I couldn't see anything down there and you weren't coming back. But then you just burst from the water like...like...I don't know. Like something exploding. It was awesome, till you fainted."

Drift smiled. "I don't remember it quite like that."

"I've got a great memory," Pipes said seriously. "And now I've got something great to remember, you know, right up until the drowning. I know you said you weren't good at people stuff and all that, but I had fun. And I think Ratchet's about to chase me out, so I'll go now. We should get a drink together in Swerve's again sometime."

"Sure," Drift said.

Pipes waved as he wandered off.

"Making friends?" Ratchet asked.

"Trying,” Drift admitted.

"Well, maybe put a little more effort into not dying, that'd help," Ratchet commented, glaring down at Drift. He grabbed a chair and pulled it to the berth. "I've changed my mind. Lecture now."

"But Ratchet," Drift moaned, "I want to sleep."

"Then let this be a lesson that sometimes you can't get what you want and those times are when you go on unsupervised planetside explorations without clearing your itinerary with any of your crewmates."

Later - CH9

Drift squirmed in the chair and tried to straighten his back as much as possible. Magnus's office definitely had a way of making you feel smaller, and Drift was not a fan. Much like he wasn't a fan of surprise comm messages summoning him to people's offices in the middle of his off shift. And with Rodimus gone meteor surfing...Drift caught himself fussing with the seams on the back of his hand and forced himself to stillness. He tried to smile, project a nice soothing aura to get this meeting off on the right foot.

Magnus closed the door behind him with a bang and stomped over to his desk. He slammed something onto the table, whatever it was hidden beneath his enormous hand. "Drift, thank you for coming," Magnus said in a level voice.

"Of course," Drift said, shifting uneasily. It wasn't as if he'd been avoiding Magnus. There was no need to avoid Magnus—Magnus did all the avoiding for him. If there was a briefing, Drift was only there if Rodimus insisted. Their communications outside of Rodimus's presence were conducted almost exclusively through memos. "What was it you wanted to talk about, Magnus?"

"We both know Rodimus is not the most stable of leaders," Magnus said, sinking into his chair. A chair which still left him towering over Drift, which seemed a trifle unfair.

"Rod can be impulsive," Drift allowed. Had Magnus really woken him up in order to organize an intervention for Rodimus? Or, worse yet, to tell him off for 'encouraging' Rod?

"Because of that, it is of top importance that every member of his support team and this command staff is modeling good behavior and available to support him however necessary. I have allowed you to conduct your business as you wished because I believed that we were in accord on the importance of supporting the captain, even if our approaches differed. However this I cannot allow."

Magnus lifted his hand from the desk to reveal a circuit speeder booster. Drift flinched back, speechless.

"Addiction is not a crime, but use of illicit substances and smuggling contraband onto this ship is strictly prohibited. For that reason I am going to have to strip you of your duties and ask you to report to the brig until Rodimus and I can arrange a trial for dereliction of—"

"What?" Drift stood up and braced his hands against the table. "How, exactly, have you gotten the idea I am in any way involved with that thing? Where did you find it?"

Magnus stared at him. "It's common knowledge amongst the crew that you have a history of syk addiction and dangerous, thrill-seeking behavior with circuit boosters. From my records, there are no other members of the crew that have the means to have smuggled this on board and match that profile."

Drift snarled. "How is that common knowledge?" He balled his hands into fists and pressed them hard against the table, knuckles digging painfully against the tabletop. Vent in, vent out, Magnus was only going to listen to reason. "Do you know where this rumor started?"

"I believe I first heard it in chatter after the attack on Temptoria."

Drift slumped back into his chair, hands over his face. "Swerve," he moaned. "Primus. Look, Magnus, I mentioned in Swerve's presence that four million years ago, before the war, I was addicted to circuit boosters. I haven't touched the stuff since. We can go down to the medibay and have Ratchet run a fuel-contaminants test if you want, but I've been clean for four million years. I don't know how that story got dragged out of proportion, but I hadn't really imagined it being grist for the ship-wide rumor mill."

Ultra Magnus considered him, a frown on his face. Which wasn't really a change, Magnus was always frowning. "You could be lying."

"Well, yeah," Drift said. "That's why I offered that we could go down to the medibay if you wanted proof. I understand you don't trust me, but those things ruined my life. I'm not using and frankly, you accusing me based on something as insubstantial as a rumor is unbecoming of the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord. I expected better of you."

There was a long pause as Magnus considered what he'd said. Drift wasn't worried, not really. Worst case scenario, Magnus threw him in the brig until Rodimus got back to the ship. It'd be embarrassing and inconvenient, but not life-threatening. He was rather more discomfited by the knowledge that someone had brought circuit boosters on the ship and that everything he'd said at Rewind's story-telling session might have become public knowledge. That stung a bit.

Magnus cleared his throat, as unsubtly as anyone had ever cleared their throat as a transitional device in conversation. He slumped a bit in his seat. "You're right. I apologize, that was highly improper of me. I've been...out of sorts, lately." Magnus glared daggers at the booster on the table. "I'd wanted this to be simple."

Drift didn't know Ultra Magnus, not really. But he got the impression that his current state of ever-heightening compulsiveness...that couldn't have been what he was like during the war. He'd have crumpled. And however unpleasant he was to Drift personally, Rodimus liked the bot. Liked and respected. "It could be simple," he said. "Why don't you tell me what happened and we'll solve this together? We'll figure it out before Rodimus gets back and I can clear my name."

Ultra Magnus sighed, then brought out his datapad and set it on the desk, aligning it square to both sides before powering it up. He tapped through a few menus and then began to read, "Contraband located in the laboratory of crewmember Perceptor, who immediately turned it in to security. He discovered the contraband in a vent while cleaning after a laboratory accident."

Drift nodded encouragingly, but that was apparently the end of the notes. "Okay. Did Percy say anything about who might have had access to the lab?"

"I assume the lab is kept locked down when Perceptor is not present, in accordance with standard security regulations," Magnus said.

"Let's go back and talk to Perceptor," Drift said. "He might have noticed some clues that could help us."

The walk was awkward. Walking the halls by himself was already awkward—the crew was about equally split between bots who would at least acknowledge him out of respect for senior command and those who assiduously ignored him whenever possible. Plus the approximately ten bots who sometimes tried to rope him into conversations and who couldn't figure out how to handle the rest of the crew's relative aversion. Apparently Ultra Magnus encountered a similar phenomena, because the bots they passed were either saccharine friendly or optics-sliding-past-them avoidant. Of course, Magnus's problem was probably his overwhelming urge to arrest and throw members of the crew in the brig on sight. In any case, it was surreal.

The most obvious answer to Magnus's problem was to just review the tapes. Red Alert's surveillance system was still alive and well, Drift was still receiving updates. As Red's replacement as chief of security, Magnus should have gotten access to the system. But if he was reluctant to start spying on the crew, Drift wasn't going to bring that up. There were things he didn't need Magnus asking questions about. And the ability to obsessively monitor the entire ship for potential lawlessness seemed...unhealthy, for Magnus. It was for his own good.

Magnus froze midstep and Drift nearly bumped into him, sidestepping quickly to avoid a collision. "I know who it is," Magnus announced.

Drift looked around. Empty hallway. "Who?"

"Trailbreaker. It's obvious. He is constantly inebriated, I have caught him multiple times with banned substances and he clearly has an addictive personality."

Drift made his most sympathetic 'mm-hmm' noise. "Okay, I have to disagree. Trailbreaker has an Engex problem, but that's a whole different game from having a circuit speeder addiction. We can follow up, get a fuel sample, have Ratchet run it, the whole works. But I think that's a dead end."

Magnus sighed. "Please explain, using your..." he waved his hand, "expertise in the subject."

Drift cringed. "Okay, well, Engex and circuit speeders have inverse mechano-chemical reactions. They operate on the brain very differently—whatever feeling people are chasing when they take Engex? That's nothing like the feeling you'd get on speeders. Also, more importantly, they interact very negatively in the body. He's not sober often enough to be taking speeders without any Engex in his system and if he took them together he'd already have ended up in the Medibay getting his fuel lines filtered." There. That wasn't so hard. "And, most importantly, how and when would Trailbreaker have gained access to Perceptor's laboratory?"

Magnus considered this. "We'll leave him on the suspect list, but I do find your argument compelling."

When they reached Percy's lab, he was already at the door, having gotten Magnus's memo alerting him to their imminent arrival. "Oh, Drift, it's good to see you," Percy said. He flicked his optics between Magnus and Drift. "Are you here as part of the...security team?"

Drift grimaced. "There was a small mix-up about me and my apparently public-knowledge youthful indiscretions. But I'm helping Ultra Magnus with the case now. Can you describe who's accessed your lab recently?"

Percy frowned at Ultra Magnus. Drift shook his head at him. He did not need Perceptor having it out with Ultra Magnus over his honor, especially not when he'd just gotten Magnus settled down and ready to be reasonable. Percy looked at him and sighed. "In the past week or so? Rodimus was by, a couple of times. Rad and a few of the other scientists were in here collaborating with me on some experimental designs. Swerve came to visit, but I'm afraid he didn't stay long. Brainstorm had me look over his formulas for the new holomatter generators. Oh, and Rung, of course."

Of course, because Percy had mentioned to Drift that Rung had offered to conduct Perceptor's therapy sessions in his laboratory if that was what it took to rope him into regular sessions, an idea which Percy had at first vehemently rejected. Magnus didn't comment on the statement, but Drift figured they were probably safe assuming the ship's therapist wasn't abusing circuit speeders. Hopefully. They migrated over to one of Perceptor's scrupulously clean lab benches and sat down around it.

"It could be Rodimus," Ultra Magnus said reluctantly. "These sorts of drugs...part of the appeal is the enhancement of focus and mental abilities, is it not?"

Drift shrugged. "In the right dosages, that can work. More likely with the sort of circuit speeder you confiscated than straight Syk. I don't think it's Rodimus."

"But we can't rule out the possibility," Magnus said.

"Let's brainstorm a few more suspects first." Drift paused. He looked at Percy, whose optic widened.

"Oh no."

"It has to be," Drift said.

"Based upon your body language, I get the impression that the two of you have reached some conclusion but I do not know what it is," Magnus said, drumming his fingers on the table. "Please explain."

"It was Brainstorm," Drift and Percy said simultaneously. Perceptor stood up. "I'll go grab him and we'll see what his explanation is." He hurried out.

Magnus drummed his fingers on the table some more. "You figured this out because you said the word 'brainstorm' in a sentence?"

Drift said, "More or less. He's the only person who makes sense. I mean, it could be one of the lower-ranked scientists I don't actually know. But Brainstorm has access to the lab at any time, they wouldn't be able to. So it would make more sense as a place for him to keep his stash. He's always got a project going on, so he's always got an excuse to pop by Perceptor's."

The door reopened and Perceptor shooed Brainstorm in ahead of him, the jet happily chattering back over his shoulder at Perceptor. He froze when he noticed Drift and Magnus sitting at the table. "Okay, is this an intervention? Because I am this close to a breakthrough and I do not need to recharge, thank you very much," Brainstorm said, shaking his fist in the air.

"Magnus," Drift said, nodding at the case Magnus had carried the boosters in. Magnus opened the case and plucked one booster out, held daintily between two enormous fingers.

Brainstorm nodded. "Yes, that's mine."

"It's illegal," Magnus said.

"It's useful is what it is," Brainstorm said, throwing up his hands. "When Rodimus says 'hey Brainstorm, invent us out of imminent death in the next five minutes' sometimes a bot needs a little help keeping their brain in the game. It's not like I abuse them. They're only for emergencies."

"They cause spark failure," Perceptor said.

"Pfft. Have you read that study? Their sample size was minuscule. I don't even think the effects would be reproducible in a larger-scale study. They just jumped on the results cause it reinforced their preconceived notions that—"

"Brainstorm," Drift interrupted. "You're in trouble right now. Try to focus."

"Ah yes, because I'm a sparkling and you two command bots are going to put me in the time-out corner. Look, I'm very useful, I know you're not going to arrest me."

Magnus stood up, eyes blazing. Drift put a hand on his arm. "Magnus, let me handle this."

Drift got to his feet and, when Magnus appeared to hang back, walked over to Brainstorm. "Look, Brainstorm, you are very smart," Drift said. "And I know that you think that you had this under control. I won't bother trying to describe the excruciating experience that detoxing from circuit boosters is. Instead, I'm going to appeal to your powers of observation: Magnus has already confiscated your stash. Your choices are to apologize so he doesn't have to treat you like a sparkling trying to set itself on fire or to dig yourself deeper just for your sense of pride. Be smart."

Brainstorm sighed, an aggrieved sigh that continued longer than seemed entirely reasonable or socially acceptable. "Okay. Ultra Magnus, lord of all rules, please do destroy my very helpful circuit speeders and save me from myself. I am very grateful for your assistance and will do my best to avoid temptation in the future."

"In the future," Magnus said, "you will take someone with you on shore leave, who will report back to me to ensure you avoid temptation."

Immediate crisis averted, Drift slipped outside the lab to let them work out whatever Brainstorm's exact punishment would be in relative privacy. He trusted Perceptor to reign Magnus in if he went too far.

After a few minutes, Magnus exited the room. He began to walk away, then stopped. "Once again, I do apologize for my behavior earlier."

Drift shrugged. "We all make mistakes."

"If you ever need a favor, as long as it is one permissible within the strictest confines of the law, I would feel better not feeling that I owe you a favor," Magnus said. "Wait. I'm sorry. Was that unclear?"

Drift grinned. "Oh no, it was very clear. Actually, I already have an idea."

Later - CH9

Drift leaned against the wall and gently knocked his head against it. You are a pile of increasingly improbable failures. He'd broken into Rewind and Chromedome's room, swords out and he'd had to make excuses and now they were going to think he was unhinged. The stress was going to drive him absolutely around the bend. Maybe he should ask Ultra Magnus to take him off the security detail, tell him he couldn't handle it and the command position simultaneously. But, then, Magnus was currently pulling Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, Second in Command and Head of Security...which went a lot way to explaining how overwhelmed he'd seemed lately.

He propped himself up against the doorframe and keyed in his code, then slipped inside.

He froze. Rodimus was sprawled out on his bed, lazily flipping one of Drift's throwing daggers between his hands. Rodimus saw him, caught the dagger and nodded coolly. "Drift," he said. "You're back late."

"Security team stuff," Drift said. He eyed Rodimus, trying to gauge if he was about to be dragged back out on an immediate adventure or if it was safe to put his swords away. After a brief moment of contemplation, Drift decided he didn't care; he wasn't going out anyway. "Did you drop by for something in particular?"

"Just wanted to chat," Roddy said, getting up to put the dagger back on the shelf. He stepped close behind Drift and put his hand over Drift's hip, pausing a few inches away from plating. Drift looked over his shoulder and nodded. Roddy looped his arms around Drift's waist and hugged him, resting his chin on Drift's shoulder. Rodimus was touchy. Drift was learning to cope, but the initial adjustment period had been rough. So Drift had a bit of a startle response. It was only natural after four million years of war. How the other Autobots had made it through all that without stabbing people on reflex when someone grabbed you unawares was anyone's guess. Anyone but Drift, he had no fragging clue.

Drift set Wing's Great Sword on its stand. "And what did you want to chat about?" he asked.

"Sword-free?" Roddy asked.

"That's all of them," Drift said.

"Kay. Let's sit on the berth, you look tired." Rod said, shuffling backwards and dragging Drift with him. Drift rolled his optics and went with it. Rod carefully untangled himself from Drift and then guided Drift to sit down on the berth before flopping dramatically across his lap. He looked up at Drift with wide optics and pouted. "Swerve told me you lived in Dead End before the war."

"Oh," Drift said. "Yeah. I did, for awhile."

Rodimus crossed his arms and furrowed his brow. "Swerve told me."

Drift shrugged. "I should have realized anything I mentioned in front of him was going to be gossip. I assume he also told you about me being a dirty homeless addict?"

"Well, yeah. But you're missing the point," Rod said.

Drift sighed. "What is the point?"

Rod sighed even more dramatically. "You told Swerve before you told me! We're friends, aren't we? Don't you trust me? More than Swerve, at least?" He waved his arms wildly.

"I didn't tell Swerve, not exactly," Drift said. "Rewind had asked a few of us to participate in a collaborative storytelling therapy for Rung. You know, back when we found Red. Swerve was there. I was just explaining how I ended up in Ratchet's clinic when we first met." He pursed his lips, considering. "I couldn't back out, it was for Rung, you know?"

Rodimus rolled onto his front and pillowed his head in his arms. "We used to talk, though. About important stuff."

Drift traced circles on Rodimus's back, trying to guess how much honesty was the right amount of honesty. He was in a bad mood. And if he'd learned anything from the guided-meditation tapes he'd gotten from Ibis, it was that emotions combined poorly with decision making. Okay, he'd mostly learned that from the entirety of his life. But they'd mentioned it again on his meditation tape that morning and he'd broken down crying for no reason and that had stuck with him. Just like...

"Roddy, you remember me telling you about the Deceptibrand ceremony, right?"

"Of course!" Rodimus glanced over at him, eyes wide with excitement. "It sounded so cool. Like, our ceremony is no piddly little thing but you Decepticons knew how to do drama. Though, I mean, the spark mutilation is a bit far for me. I like my spark casing the way it is."

"And then who did you tell?"

"Hmm?" Rodimus said. "I dunno, I might have mentioned it to some people."

"Well, you must have, because not two days later Ratchet was making jokes about it." Drift swiped at his optic with his free hand. "Okay? Do you know how that made me feel? Having him joke about that? I felt fucking branded, Roddy, because that one thing, that one fucking thing, it's not something you can fix. I will always be like this."

"Oh, Drift." Rodimus crawled up onto Drift's lap and pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry. I never thought anybody might not see that it was really cool and twist it up and make it ugly. I know he means a lot to you."

"Shut up," Drift sniffed.

Roddy hooked his chin over Drift's shoulder and shook his head. "Don't you dare deny it. I'm not jealous or anything. I mean, I am jealous. You know me. I'm bad at sharing."

Drift sent a prayer up to the ceiling above. "The both of you."

"I just want to know you, you know? We had so much in common and I didn't even know it! There's never been anyone I could talk about Nyon before."

"If you want to tell me about it, I'll listen," Drift said. "But you do know me. Everything important about me is the me right now. Everything back then? I don't want to dwell on it anymore. I don't want to be that person anymore. Is that okay?"

"Still friends?" Rodimus said into his shoulder.

Drift rolled his optics. "When did we stop being friends? Did that happen and someone forgot to tell me?"

"I'm glad you're here, on this journey," Rod said. "And not just because, you know, enclosed vessel and we have to fix things when we fuck things up because there's nowhere to run away from our problems. I'm glad we didn't wait any longer to become friends. Four million years is a long time to be lonely."

"Pfft. Like the great Rodimus Prime was ever lonely." Drift glanced over at Wing's Great Sword, glittering on its stand. "But yeah. Same."

Later - CH9

"Thanks for coming with," Ratchet said, sliding into the booth across from Ambulon. "It's been crazy all day, I don't know what's gotten into people."

Drift angled his datapad carefully so he could watch them better in the reflection. He wouldn't normally snoop, but this was the culmination of days of work. He deserved this. He took a sip of his drink and wrinkled his nose. The hard stuff always felt like it was trying to eat through his glossa. But at least that gave him an excuse to nurse that drink for most of the evening, or however long the show lasted.

Ambulon was placing his order with the server bot, but he turned back to Ratchet with a shrug. "So what has been happening? I asked First Aid but he just started laughing and said I should wait and see."

"It's ridiculous," Ratchet said. "Someone started the rumor that Pharma's hands have 'magic healing powers' that can cure any pain. And I cannot for the life of me figure out who. Usually these kinds of rumors, you can trace it back to the slaghead that made it up. But nobody seems to know. And then everybody on this ship is so damned gullible that they actually believe it. I've had to turn away no less than twenty people today who wanted me to bless them with my 'magic hands'."

Ambulon nodded sympathetically. "That sounds frustrating. But if the placebo effect is that strong, maybe you shouldn't discourage them."

Ratchet paused, mid-rant, mouth hanging open. "What?"

"Well, I mean, pain management is something the medical community has really struggled with. Effective pain blockers for conditions like smoothed-joint syndrome or errant sensornet ordinata are still a long ways away. If some silly rumor actually helped the crewmembers whose pain we couldn't manage medically, maybe we should go for it? If all you had to do was lay hands on someone and say 'Primus bless you' or something to get a substantial therapeutic effect, that is a miracle. I'm just saying."

The server bot returned with their drinks and Ratchet grabbed his. "I don't like it. And I don't want to be tripping over bots for the rest of my life. People should stay out from underfoot."

"Well, it's a thing to think about." Ambulon took a sip of his drink. "And I know you're fishing for sympathy, but I'm just saying. It serves you right for reinforcing those rumors about forged hands being inherently better. That's exactly the kind of talk that gets people started talking about Primus and Epistemus."

Trailbreaker bumped up against Ratchet and Ambulon's table, staggering a bit and grabbing for the back of the booth to hold him steady. "Hey guys," he said. "Doc, I hate to bother ya, but I have this wicked processor-ache. Do you think you could—"

"No," Ratchet said, his shoulders up around his audials. "Take twenty-four hours off Engex, it'll go away on its own."

"But Ratchet." Trailbreaker frowned pathetically at him. "My head hurts."

"Not my problem."

Ambulon grinned. "I don't know Ratchet, I mean, you are Chief Medical Officer."

Trailbreaker reached out with one hand and swiped Ratchet's drink. "You touched this, right? So, like, your hands probably blessed it indirectly," Trailbreaker said.

"What? No! Give that back!" Ratchet protested as Trailbreaker tipped the glass back and downed Ratchet's drink. Drift had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing.

Trailbreaker shuttered his optics thoughtfully, then blinked a few times and regarded the empty glass. He set it carefully back on the table. "Mate, that really did it. I was skeptical but whoof, that works. Swerve! Can I order Ratchet another of whatever he had? Put it on my tab." He patted Ratchet on the shoulder. "Thanks, Doc. You're a lifesaver."

Trailbreaker wandered off, noticeably steadier on his feet. Drift hadn't realized he was such a good actor. Or was Trailbreaker not acting and just one of the people who'd heard the rumors? This whole prank had spiraled out of his control at some point, there were a few people who weren't actually in on the joke and Drift couldn't really remember who was who. He certainly hadn't scripted that encounter.

The doors to Swerve's whooshed open and there was someone whose lines Drift had scripted. Ultra Magnus. He sighted Drift across the bar and gave him an acknowledging nod. Magnus walked over to Ratchet's table and stood awkwardly some distance off.

Ratchet paused the rant that was currently underway, glancing over at Magnus. "Hey. Do you need something, Magnus? I hadn't seen you around Swerve's before."

Magnus rubbed his hands on his legs, grimacing. "Rodimus suggested we hold the command meeting 'someplace social'. He appears to be tardy, as usual. I was wondering...I had heard, through some members of the crew, that you have a healing touch?"

"That's just a rumor," Ratchet said, waving his hand. "Don't listen to them."

"Could you try?" Magnus asked in a small voice. "I've been struggling lately and I am, frankly, desperate at this point."

"If it's something mental, you should try Rung," Ratchet said in a more subdued voice. Drift had to strain to hear him. "If it's something physical, we could schedule an appointment tomorrow, I could take a look at you."

"That's quite alright," Magnus said, backing up. "I understand. I'll stop bothering you now."

Magnus walked to the other side of the bar and selected an empty booth. Drift watched as Ratchet frowned after him, clearly torn. He waited a few more minutes until Rodimus made his grand entrance to get up and head towards Magnus's booth. Rodimus saw him walking over and waved. "Hey, Drift! Wow, you're here already too? Am I late? I could have sworn you both said five past—Drift, look out!"

Drift's foot hit the serving bot at just the right angle to send him flying. Drinks flew everywhere and Drift tumbled, recovered poorly, and cracked his head against the central table on his way down.

A staged fall was a work of art and immense skill. Any fool could fall over. But to fall over intentionally and make it look like an accident took complete mastery over your limbs and a good handle on physics and the possible trajectories of objects in your path. And, most importantly of all, the willingness to suffer for your art.

Drift wasn't too humble to admit that he was very good at it.

"Scrap, Drift, you okay?" Rodimus called, patting Drift on the shoulder.

Drift did his best to curl into a ball, moaning under his breath. Frag, that did hurt. Not as much as he was playing it up—he could have continued on like this on the battlefield without a whimper of complaint, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"Hey, kid, you alright?" Ratchet said, suddenly materializing at Drift's side. Oh, he looked worried. Drift hadn't realized he would worry Ratchet—a little bubble of doubt filtered up through his spark. Hopefully Ratchet would forgive him sooner or later.

"I'm fine," Drift said, rubbing at his helm. "Bent one of my finials, but I'll be alright. Tell Swerve I'll cover those drinks." Rodimus helped pull him into a sitting position and Drift grimaced, worrying at his lip with his denta.

"Here, let me," Ratchet said and reached out for Drift's dented finial, brushing against it with a featherlight touch.

Drift gasped. Control, control. Keep it real. Ratchet's touch on his finial felt like fire, delicate plating screaming through his sensornet. It felt warm in a way he couldn't quantify, a gentleness to it he'd never expected and had to shove down fast and think over later. He forced a serene and grateful smile on his face.

"Ratchet?" He lifted his hand up to capture Ratchet's and press it harder against his finial, keeping the pain off his face with iron control. "I had heard, but I hadn't believed Primus would bless a non-believer like you. But of course, if anyone needed to see a miracle with your own optics...thank you."

Ratchet stared at him. He pulled his hand away and stared at it, then looked back at Drift. Then back at his hand. He stood up and backed away. "Alright. I give up. I just can't take this anymore."

Silence fell over the bar as Ratchet climbed onto the central table and stood up, hands on his hips. He stared them down. "Look," he said, voice pitched right below an actual yell. "I have been patient. I figured this would blow over and there was no point in blowing up at all of you but this is too much. Magic isn't real. Primus isn't real. Whatever you think is going on with my hands? It's not. They're hands. They're just hands. Pharma's hands, yes, I admit that, and that is weird. But they're just. Fragging! Hands!"

Ratchet threw up his hands and wiggled his fingers, glaring at them all.

Someone by the bar giggled. Someone else started laughing and then it started to spread, like fire on a fuel spill, unstoppable. Rodimus fell over onto Drift's lap, wheezing with laughter as Ratchet stared at them all, dumbfounded, hands still up in the air.

"What?" he asked.

Drift shoved Rodimus off of his lap and climbed to his feet, putting a hand gingerly to his finial. He curled his other hand into a fist and bonked Ratchet on the leg. "You've been pranked," he said with a toothy grin.

"What?" Ratchet said, staring at him.

"Nobody thought that," Rodimus wheezed. "We were all pretending cause we know you think we're all stupid. Got you!"

Ratchet's optics widened.

"This is payback for the six inches of gelatinous goo you filled my habsuite with, by the way," Drift said. "Need a magic hand for that burn?" He wiggled his fingers.

On reflection, that was probably what actually started the bar fight.

Worth it.

Later - CH9

Drift realized abruptly that he was bored. He'd told Swerve that he'd planned to spend his off-shift exploring the limits of solitude, but he hadn't actually expected it was going to happen. He'd settled in for an afternoon of meditation several times and never lasted longer than twenty minutes before someone called him up with an emergency or Rod started comming him about some errant thought that demanded his immediate attention. And sure, he was supposed to be improving himself by contemplation but...if Drift was honest with himself, he was still skeptical. Ibis and Wing had been big fans of the idea. Dai Atlas had spoken about meditation as if it was a moral obligation. But how was turning yourself inwards supposed to do you any good when there was nothing good inside you?

Drift got up and tried think of what he could do instead. He was off shift and Ultra Magnus would complain if he started assigning himself more security patrols. He could probably join Rodimus on the bridge, but he already felt 'social-ed' out for the day. And nothing felt sadder than sitting in Swerve's alone, ordering himself plain energon and drinking it by himself.

Which did remind him...Drift opened up his comm and checked his reminders. Sure enough, he was due to refuel in the next hour. Drift fetched a glass from his shelf and tabbed open the dispenser by the berth. He watched the energon fill the glass, warm against his palm as the heat propagated through the glass. Drift kept himself to a schedule nowadays. It was hard to tell if you were under or over-fueling when you just felt hungry all the time. This was easier, more scientific. And sure, he could have refueled the way most everyone did, plugging in while he recharged. But the thought of not even getting to taste the fuel just felt wrong, even if it didn't send his anxiety screaming.

Raising the glass to his lips, Drift took a small sip and let the fuel rest on his glossa and linger for a moment. An idea popped into his head, a fit of whimsy. He'd like to see Ratchet.

Drift set the glass aside for a moment and grabbed his spare, filled that up to the top. Careful not to spill, he held both in one hand and got the door with the other. He took the walk to the medibay at a brisk pace, trying to get there before they cooled beyond what Ratchet might find palatable.

At the door Drift paused and braced himself. Nothing's going to happen and there's no reason to be scared. That didn't stop his spark from pinching in his chest as he stepped into the brightly lit room, but he kept his body language loose and a smile on his face. His brain would get with the picture eventually.

"Hey, Ratch, are you busy?" He called as he peered around. Looked like a quiet day in the medibay. First Aid was there, sitting at his desk and sorting supplies. And there was Ratchet, in the back, playing with what looked like a giant solid-light projection of a fuel pump assembly.

Ratchet looked up as Drift entered and smiled for a half second before he managed to slam his trademark irritated-medic face back in place. "What are you doing here?" he grumbled.

"I figured I'd drop by and make sure you're taking care of yourself," Drift said, leaning casually up against the surgical slab where Ratchet was working. "You never take time off, so if I want to see you I kind of have to come to the medibay."

"He is off-shift," First Aid said. "He just refuses to go home."

"Come on, take a break," Drift said, pushing one of the glasses at Ratchet. "Refuel, get off your feet for a bit."

"I'll refuel when I recharge," Ratchet said, fiddling with the pile of surgical tools he had littered across his work tray.

First Aid snorted. "And when's that gonna be?"

Drift watched as Ratchet snatched up and tossed a blocky phone at First Aid, who ducked. The phone clattered across the ground.

First Aid huffed a laugh and stood up to get it. "You're going to break that thing, Ratchet."

"Nah, I picked it out 'specially cause it was practically indestructible," Ratchet said. "Thanks."

"This is a slagging hostile work environment, I'll have you know," First Aid said, handing the phone back over. "I'm going out for a walk—stretch my legs. Maybe you'll be feeling less grumpy by the time I get back. Or at least less throw-y. Enjoy your lunch."

Drift waved at First Aid as best he could while still holding a glass in each hand. He wheeled on Ratchet and smiled. "Take it," he said. "Please."

"Whatever," Ratchet said, taking it with a roll of his optics. "We have the entire stock of fuel in the medibay storage room, by the way, there was no need to walk all the way over here with this." He hooked a stool with his foot and pulled it over to sit. Drift considered his seating options and hopped up onto the surgical slab, scooting forwards so his legs could swing and bump into Ratchet.

Ratchet considered his glass. "I think you drank out of this one," he said, holding up to Drift to show him the smear of energon at the lip.

"Slag, sorry," Drift said. "Must have mixed hands. This one's clean." He offered Ratchet the glass he was currently holding. Ratchet hesitated for a moment, smile sharp on his face, then swapped the glasses around.

He took a sip and nodded his appreciation. "Good stuff," he said.

"It's the same as the rest of it," Drift said, poking at his glass with his finger to check the temperature. Just a tad cool, perfectly drinkable.

"Well, fuel's gotten better than the field rations I remember," Ratchet said. "I mostly stick to engex these days when I'm fueling orally."

"Mm," Drift said. He craned his neck to look at the hologram Ratchet had been playing with when he'd walked in. "What's your project?"

"Just practicing. Gotta keep yourself in practice and some fuelpump configurations don't come up much in a clinical setting. I like to run through all the major lifesaving surgeries at least once a week, whether or not I have the patients to merit it. You don't have time to look that scrap up when they're leaking out on the slab."

"Makes sense," Drift said, not saying that it sounded obsessive and entirely unnecessary. Ratchet had been doing this for millions of years, he wasn't fooling Drift. There was no way he didn't remember how to every type of surgery on every frametype he'd ever seen, one hand tied behind his back. "I've been meaning to ask, do you think you could teach me a bit sometime?"

"You want to be a medic all of a sudden?" Ratchet said, raising a brow at him.

Drift shook his head. "Not like that, just field medic stuff. I learned a bit of field stabilization on my feet back...you know. During the war. But I never had any actual formal education. It'd be nice to know how to keep people alive long enough for you to get there."

"I'm not volunteering to teach the entire crew first aid," Ratchet warned. "Actually, we should ask First Aid to do that. That'd be funny." He grinned at Drift.

"Don't tell him it was my idea."

"I will absolutely tell him it's your idea," Ratchet said. "Shouldn't have said anything, I wouldn't have thought to do that."

"I appreciate the ways you try to tempt my patience," Drift said. "Devotion is nothing if it is not tested, faith is nothing if it is not challenged, your magnanimity is only visible when contrasted by shadow of other's minds. That's the Primal Sacrament, by the way. Damned good poetry, you should read it sometime." He tipped his glass over and attempted to get the last of the fuel out with his glossa.

"I've read the Primal Sacrament, I'm not a illiterate boor. I just think they're rubbish." He watched Drift for a few seconds then just had to add, in the driest possible tone of voice, "I think it's empty Drift. Please stop assaulting that glass with your glossa."

"If I stop will you teach me?" Drift asked.

Ratchet grumbled something under his breath, then held out his hand for the glass. "And get off the damned berth. I'll show you a thing or two."

Drift wanted to explain the way he misused medical equipment every chance he got in the hopes of somehow wiping it clean. The way every time he stepped into the medibay he had to spend a moment to remind himself that he'd been Deadlock, he'd been on most-wanted lists across the planet, he'd spat in the face of death because he enjoyed watching it recoil in disgust. Not that he wanted to be that thing again, he just needed to remember there were better things to be afraid of then a knife down the back of your spinal conduit, a tube down your intake, a hand touching your spark in a place that was bright and white and flatly metallic smelling and he hated being scared.

He wanted to explain how much it fucked with his head so that Ratchet could see what it meant for him to keep coming back to see him anyway.

He didn't say anything. Instead he watched as Ratchet switched the hologram to new one, a strangely generic frame all in white, armor open to expose the fuel line system. He let Ratchet take his hand and guide him through the circulation path of fuel and hoped Ratchet might just somehow figure it out by osmosis.

Later - CH9

"Swerve, you're going to have to slow down," Drift said into his comm. "What's going on?" He was already gathering up his swords and slipping into vehicle mode to race towards the bar.

"It's Cyclonus, he's freaking out." Swerve said in a rush. "I don't think he knows where he is? I evacuated the bar and we've locked him in, but I didn't want to call anyone else on the security team. They're kinda, you know, anti-Cyclonus. And for good reason! But I don't want someone getting shot in my bar."

"I'm on my way," Drift said shortly. "Just keep everybody out of there."

Drift made it in record time and nearly crashed into the assembled crowd. There were bar patrons just milling around in the hallway, drinks still in hand, the party apparently still going in its relocated venue. Swerve pushed through, rubbing his hands together anxiously. "Drift! Oh good, you're here. It went quiet a few minutes ago, so maybe he's calmed down now?"

Drift nodded. "Hopefully." He scooped Swerve up and stomped his foot to catch the crowd's attention. "Everyone, this is a Security operation! I need you to all disperse back to your hab suites or relocate to the rec lounge. I'm locking down this hallway and will issue a memo when you're cleared to return."

The crowd groaned and Swerve wiggled, trying to escape Drift's hold. "We talked about this Drift. I'm not a football!"

"I don't know what a football is," Drift said, walking Swerve over to the elevator at the end of the hallway and pressing the button for the rec room floor. He waved the rest of the crowd over. "If you do not disperse, I will call Ultra Magnus for backup and he will not be happy to see open containers in the hallway," he said to the crowd.

Feet dragging, about half of them squeezed their way into the elevator, while most of the rest of them dispersed down the hallway. Drift rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and waited for the remainder of the thoroughly inebriated lingerers to get the picture and escort themselves out. Then he went to the door of the bar and used his command codes to override the lock. He knocked twice. "Cyclonus? It's Drift. I'm coming in."

He nudged the door open and, hearing no response, slid inside. The bar was a mess, though less bad than Drift had imagined. It was mostly upended chairs and tables, broken glasses, and spilled Engex. Nothing that couldn't be replaced. In the center of the chaos, Cyclonus was standing. On guard, venting unevenly. He was looking out into the distance, optics dim. Drift skirted the outside of the circle of property damage till he was standing in front of Cyclonus. No response.

"Cyclonus?" he asked again. Cyclonus started a bit, and his head turned towards Drift. His optics swung past Drift to rest somewhere over his shoulder and he lifted his fists higher, forearms leveled to use his blasters if necessary.

Drift took a step back and raised his hands placatingly. "It's okay," he said, modulating his voice to keep it soft and soothing. "We'll wait it out."

He retreated over to the bar, which had miraculously escaped damage. At least Swerve had had the right instincts about the situation, getting everybody out of the bar before Cyclonus could do something he regretted. Drift sat down behind the bar, and peaked out over the top. Fairly easily accomplished thanks to the assistive platform Swerve had built into the back. He fiddled with the glasses aimlessly, careful not to make too much noise.

Drift wasn't an expert in mental health. He'd never gone to see Rung for that appointment for himself; there were too many people on the ship who actually needed help for him to bother Rung with all of his neuroses. But he did understand trauma and how much it could fuck a bot up. He'd sat with Nacelle through flashbacks and gotten up nights when the nightmares had torn Gasket from recharge. He'd stood in a room where he knew he was safe and felt hands inside his body, touching his spark even though he knew they couldn't be real because they were dead. He wasn't an expert on the health side of things but he'd been walking hand-in-hand with the opposite for a long time.

His best guess was that this was something about the Dead Universe. He hadn't known anything about it until Rodimus mentioned it, offhand, a few months ago. He still didn't really understand what it was—a world where life just wasn't. But Cyclonus had apparently been there the entirety of the war and a good two million years before that. Which, Drift figured, was probably enough to mess with anyone.

Drift shivered, a bit chilly in the bar. Swerve kept the cooling high in the bar to compensate for the crowds of customers that usually filled it. Dead Universe...I bet a place like that was cold. Drift walked quietly over to the environmental controls and boosted the heat, to something closer to the hot room with the oil baths. Probably quiet, too. If there was nothing alive, there'd be nothing to make noise. Cyclonus favored the sort of traditional music that Swerve didn't have loaded in the bar's stereo system, but there were a few warm-sounding pieces with traditional instrumentation. Drift queued up one of them and turned the volume on low.

Cyclonus stood there, heaving with the force of his ventilations. It pulled at Drift's spark, but he wasn't foolish enough to wander over there and get thrown across the room. Wasn't fair goading someone into hitting you when they weren't really in the room. He'd just have to wait it out.

He found a bucket and some rags and moved back out onto the main floor of the bar to start cleaning up. He kept to the far side of the room, away from Cyclonus. He brushed up bits of glass and moved them into the bucket, a gentle tink of glass against glass. Then he'd wipe at the floor till it didn't feel tacky under his fingers. He resisted the urge to lick off his fingers, reminding himself that he was on duty and that he had no idea whose engex was whose. Could be someone with some untreatable infection. His fuel tank snarled at him and complained piteously as he wrung the cloth out into the bucket. Too fragging bad.

Drift was wiping down one of the walls where engex had splattered when he heard Cyclonus move. He turned to look and Cyclonus had staggered a bit to the side, staring around the room with wide eyes.

"Hey," Drift said. Cyclonus's head whipped around to stare at him and Drift suddenly felt a bit silly, standing on the back of the booth's seat, a cleaning cloth draped over each shoulder as he worked. Drift smiled anyway, and pushed as soothing a tone as he could into his aura. "You're in Swerve's, everybody's gone home for the night. We're the only ones here."

Cyclonus licked his lips, bringing his hands awkwardly to his sides. His optics skittered over the chaos in the bar. "I don't...I apologize, for my loss of control. I can't explain what happened."

"You don't have to," Drift promised. "We'll fix the place up and then go home. Or you can go back to your hab now and I'll clean up solo—I could call Tailgate if you wanted?"

Cyclonus gaped at him. "I do not need pity."

"Call it understanding," Drift said. "You missed most of it, but there was a war on for a bit there. We're all a little messed up nowadays."

Cyclonus looked down, crossing his arms across his chest. "Do you know what happened?"

"Not all the details. You dissociated, some property got damaged, Swerve evacuated the bar and called me, rather than call security. You've been standing there the whole time I've been here. I imagine you had a flashback."

"I don't..." Cyclonus shook his head. "I don't know what caused all that. I'll clean this up, immediately. Could you forward my apologies to Swerve for disrupting his establishment?"

Drift didn't figure Swerve would much care about an apology as long as everything got put to rights, but he didn't bother to argue. Let him have his pride. He went back to cleaning up, watching out of the corner of his eyes as Cyclonus began to unsteadily set chairs and tables back to rights. Drift deposited one bucket of glass behind the bar and dumped it out into the waste chute. Swerve's cleaning drones would wash up the floor eventually, so it didn't have to be perfect. But their little scrubber attachments would have been torn up on all the glass, so Drift wanted to get things mostly clean before he headed out.

"It's warm in here," Cyclonus commented, dropping a piece of glass into the bucket.

"Is it too warm? I bumped the heat up earlier," Drift said.

"It's fine," Cyclonus said. He frowned. "Thank you."

"Don't," Drift said. "I was the one who went over the line earlier, with Red Alert. I've been meaning to apologize for weeks."

"Perhaps you're not so self-righteous after all," Cyclonus said. "I understand that we even have a few things in common."

"Yeah, I know," Drift said. "You, me and Ambulon."

Cyclonus raised a brow at him. "Is Ambulon religious?"

"What?" Drift's thoughts finally caught up with his mouth and he realized his mistake. "Oh, I thought you meant—"

"That we were all 'evil' once?" Cyclonus said. "There's also that, but I don't subscribe to this faction-based morality the rest of you seem so set on. Is evil not evil if it's done for good reasons? You feel better now because when you murder, it is not for 'evil' reasons. But murder is murder and people die regardless."

"I know that."

"Perhaps," Cyclonus said. "But you felt the same way when you were on the other side, did you not?"

"Did you?" Drift asked. "Nova Prime was espousing Cybertronian supremacy long before Megatron's creation day. Did you believe in the cause?"

Cyclonus ducked his head. "For a time. And then I had lost everything in pursuit of that twisted ideal, so I made it into my righteous cause. Six million years is a very long time to know you lost it all for nothing. I kept my faith and I kept my memories of Cybertron. But in the end, that was all I was able to keep."

"I heard you speaking to Rewind, when we'd found Metrotitan," Drift said. "Did you really worship in their shadows?"

"In my youth," Cyclonus said. "You are a Spectralist, I heard? I'm not familiar with the group—I assume they are some modern invention."

Drift considered the statement, looking for any hint of derision. That most of the crew thought Spectralists were loonies stuck on 'magical thinking' didn't faze him much. Primus didn't give visions to the faint of heart. And some of the ideals of Spectralism were based around magic, they weren't wrong. They were just wrong in that Drift didn't imagine he could do magic. Primus could. He couldn't. But Cyclonus seemed merely curious to learn more.

"Well, it's more like a whole family of beliefs than a formal religion," Drift started. "I also subscribe to a lot of Primalist beliefs, and I've read through the published teachings of Dai Atlas from before he fled to Crystal City."

"I knew him," Cyclonus said. "We did not often agree, but he was a true scholar."

Which was how Swerve found them, several hours later, sitting at the central table of the bar, deep in a discussion on the variations on the nature of Epistemus in different teaching's retellings of the Guiding Hand. Drift wasn't rushing to spend more time with Cyclonus, but it was reassuring to know that there were other bots on the ship who actually cared about the religious import of their mission.

Later - CH9

Three shards within the circle, twelve without. Drift pushed the extra shards to the side, then examined the remaining three. They were pretty close to the standard cascade form, but you could make a case for the inverted starshell. Drift bit his lip and considered the possibility of just reading both interpretations...but that would make it far too tempting to just read off the answer he wanted to hear. He leaned over and picked up the datapad he'd set aside, opened it up to the file with Ibis's diagrams. He flipped back and forth between the options, wavering. It seemed more important to prioritize the orientation of the fragments over their position, so cascade would have to do. Leaving the reading instructions open beside him, Drift contemplated the fragments as they were: primary blue, supporting red, doubt-hand white.

There was a knock at the door. Drift flailed, reaching for his comm—not blinking, no messages. "Yeah?" he asked, rising to his feet.

"It's me," Ratchet said.

Drift looked over his casting shards scattered all over the floor, his reading charts open and his procession of calming crystals lined up along the edge of his desk. Why now? He stepped carefully over his setup as he made his way to the door, leaning to fill the doorway as he cracked it open. "Hey Ratch," he said.

Ratchet was standing awkwardly outside the door, holding a small black case in his hands, fingers drumming against it. He nodded at Drift, moving the case to his side as if to draw attention away from it. "Hey. I had something I wanted to talk to you about, something medical, and I figured I'd drop by rather than drag you down to the medibay. You've been busy lately."

Drift cringed, thinking about the question he'd just cast out. "Yeah, busy. I'd forgotten how much work command was," he gave Ratchet his best tired smile. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Can I come in?" Ratchet asked, tapping the case against his leg.

Drift peeked over his shoulder. "As long as you promise not to start a fight. I was in the middle of my evening rituals."

Ratchet frowned. "I can keep my mouth shut."

Drift snorted.

"I can!" Ratchet insisted. "Okay, I promise. One night pass, I won't hassle you about whatever ridiculous junk you've got set up in there. Mouth shut."

"Thank you," Drift said, and opened the door the rest of the way.

Ratchet followed him inside and sidled off to stand by the berth, looking around at Drfit's setup. Drift began picking things up and Ratchet held up a hand to stop him. "Hey, you don't have to put it away, isn't it important?"

"It's just a question casting, I'll do it again later," Drift said, shuffling them into their carrying case and snapping the lid shut. "You know that, Ratch, you were there for my whole lesson with Rodimus."

"What?"

Drift set the case on his desk and brushed his fingers over the calming crystals, warm from the glow of the light within. He looked over at Ratchet with a smile. "I know we were pretending to ignore each other, but I did see you there. I thought you bringing me my lost piece was you acknowledging that you were there?"

Ratchet shook his head. "You saw me?"

Drift flipped a crystal over and blew out the flame. "I sensed your aura, actually. But yeah, when I looked over I saw you. You weren't exactly hiding, Ratchet."

"You didn't seem to notice me, I figured you were busy doing your thing."

"I was trying to not start another fight," Drift said. He picked up the next crystal and flipped it over.

"Those are pretty," Ratchet said. "Are they supposed to be magic?"

"No." Drift offered it to him. "When you burn the wick inside the core it disperses calming ions that feel sort of like a soothing aura. Also, they're pretty. I just like them."

Ratchet looked it over, then passed it back. "Well, that all sounds like pseudoscience, but I'll let it slide just this once. You don't have to blow them all out if you don't want to. They're like little lamps."

Drift took it back and positioned it back along the edge of the table. "So, you wanted to talk? You can take the chair, if you want."

Ratchet grumbled a bit about how, if rooms were intended for two person occupancy, they ought to have build two desk setups into each of them, but he took the chair, balancing his case against his knees. Drift sat down on the berth and folded his legs up under him. "It's about your 'fritzing' issue," Ratchet said, airquotes around the term clearly audible.

"I told you, I'm not going to Chromedome about this," Drift said.

"Not that," Ratchet said. "I thought it over and came up with another plan to manage the issue. Not a cure, mind you, just a workaround." He popped the case open to reveal a set of ten booster injectors.

"Drugs? Ratchet, I'm scandalized."

Ratchet rolled his optics. "Well, when a doctor prescribes it, it's called medicine, actually. These are fast acting mood suppressants. Since your issue is linked to stress spirals, I'm fairly sure that temporarily suppressing the stress activators in your brain module should be able to head it off, even after you begin noticing indicator symptoms."

Drift licked his lips, uncertain. "They're not addictive, are they?"

"Not in this dosage, no. This would last you an hour, maybe two. Long enough to disrupt the spiral and stop the fritz from happening. Long term, chronic usage of mood suppressants in higher dosages can be addictive. I wouldn't recommend you take these on a preventative basis, only as crisis medication. If you're not comfortable with trying them, we can keep with our current treatment plan of 'do nothing'. But please don't dismiss the possibility of medication because it uses the same delivery system as circuit speeders."

"Can I see one?" Drift asked. Ratchet carefully pinched one the injectors between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it out of the case and passed it over to Drift. He cradled it in his hands, looking it over. There was Ratchet's unsteady handwriting along the edge, compound and dosage information along with Ratchet's personally frequency in case of emergencies. The booster itself was lighter than the ones he'd used to use, blue with a white safety cap over the actual injector. "And you think it would work?"

"I'm almost certain," Ratchet said. "I've worked with Rung to prescribe them to patients whose symptoms didn't respond to therapy alone in vaguely similar circumstances—where immediate and total suppression of negative thoughts was necessary to prevent the patient from coming to harm."

"Then okay," Drift said. "I'll try it." He couldn't help the warm feeling bubbling up in his spark, any more than he could have suppressed his initial trepidation at the box of injectors. Ratchet cared. He cared enough that he kept working on Drift's stupid little defect even when Drift told him he couldn't be fixed. What's more, miracle of miracles, Ratchet listened. Ratchet. Ratchet, who First Aid would claim loudly and often had never listened to anyone, who Drift was pretty sure operated in two modes—talking and ignoring your stupidity. Drift said no and Ratchet listened and kept trying to help within the ever narrowing ambit of interventions Drift could live with. He gave Ratchet a smile. "If you say it'll work, I trust you."

Ratchet ducked his head, apparently intent on the careful alignment of the injectors in their case, rotating each of them so they were lined up the same way. "There's just one thing."

"Mm-hmm?"

"There is a small, a small chance you might have a negative reaction to the injections. Some people are allergic. I went this route because it's something you could safely use if I'm not around, but," Ratchet shrugged, "I'd feel a lot better if we did a test run to make sure you don't have some sort of anomalous reaction."

"Okay," Drift said. His thoughts abruptly caught up with him. "Is that why you asked me here? Because you thought I'd say no to testing them in the medibay?"

"Well, you're always telling me the medibay doesn't have enough positive energy. I figured, heck, if you're complaining that much it must be because your room is exceptionally zen." Ratchet looked around. "Seems mostly true, except for the swords. Not really getting a soothing aura off the swords. And—" He broke off, staring at the datapad Drift had hanging by his desk. "Is that my drawing? You have it on display?"

Drift could feel his face heating. "Well, I wasn't expecting you to drop by and complain about it," he tried to explain. But really, Ratchet looked at least as embarrassed as him.

"I told you not to go parading that about," He said sternly. "I am not signing up as the ship's sketch artist."

"People don't really visit me," Drift said. "Except Rodimus and he would see it anyway, because he's a snoop. I told him I had a street artist draw it in Hedonia."

"Did you really?"

"I told him you did it," Drift admitted. "But I also told him that you would murder me if that got out and Roddy likes having me around. He's sworn into secrecy, it was the best I could do."

Ratchet harrumphed, shaking his head. "Well that's the last time I'm ever doing anyone a favor. So what do you think? About testing it?"

Drift looked at the little injector in his hand. "What would happen?"

"You'd take the cap off and hold it to the seam of your inner arm—"

"Ratchet, I know how to do an injection." Drift held up a hand to stop him. "I meant what symptoms would I expect?"

"I met you with an injector sticking out of your helm, forgive me if I walk us through the basics," Ratchet said hotly. He froze, staring at Drift with his mouth gaping open like a fish.

Drift stared back at him. It doesn't hurt that he thinks you did that because you were stupid. It would hurt more if he knew the truth. Drift pulled on all of his so-called zen to paste an incredibly fake smile on his face. "Well, I promise I've learned since then. Okay?"

"Okay," Ratchet said. It took him a moment to regain his train of thought. "The mood suppressor would take effect in fifteen, thirty seconds? It would shut down your ability to form negative emotions, so you might find yourself slightly less restrained than normal. Some patients feel like their limbs grow heavier or that have weird sensory inputs. Suppressors can make patients more...compliant? Suggestible is probably the right word. They had some use in intelligence before command started throwing mnemosurgery at everything."

Drift shivered. That didn't sound good, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. "And you'd stay here, right? The whole time?"

"The whole point is that I'm here to watch and make sure you're okay," Ratchet said. "We don't have to do it right now, if you don't want to. Any time we were both off-shift would work."

Drift smiled at him. "Yeah, any time we're both off-shift. I'm sure that'll happen again soon." He popped the cap off the injector and straightened out his arm, smoothing over the plating with the back of his hand to make sure the sensornet was responsive. "Ready to jump in if I drop dead, Ratch?"

"You're not going to drop dead. But yeah, if you want to go now, I'm ready."

The contact point burned, but the rush of the injection flooding his circuitry was immediately distracting. Drift wiggled his fingers, suddenly gone cold like Rodimus had fallen asleep on his arm. He tried but couldn't detect any sudden change in his mood. He looked over at Ratchet and smiled. Ratchet looked so worried, that was sweet of him. "You should come over here, Ratch," he said. "Hard to observe your patient from all the way over there. And there's plenty of room on the berth."

Drift flopped back onto the berth to demonstrate this. Maybe it was already working after all. Ratchet had said he might feel heavier, but Drift felt unfathomably light instead. "Oh no, I've been meditating all wrong," Drift said. "It was nothing like this."

Ratchet sat down next to him, resting a testing finger against his forehead. "Well, I imagine 'emptying your head' is a lot harder by hand," Ratchet said.

"It is," Drift agreed. "Thanks for this, Ratchet. You're a really good friend." He patted Ratchet's hand where it was resting against his forehead. "I like that you worry about me. It's sweet."

"Hey, I don't worry about you, I worry about everyone," Ratchet protested.

"Yeah, that's sweet too," Drift said. "I forgot to ask before but I'm not on the hook for saying stupid stuff like this, am I?"

"No Drift, I'm going to be very cross with you for being under the influence of the medication I literally just prescribed you," Ratchet said. "You're not feeling dizzy, right? You could get up and walk around if you wanted to?"

"I could, but the berth is nice. You're here. Though we could go out...we could go to the speedway, do a few laps?" Drift suggested. "That'd be fun."

"Maybe not this time," Ratchet said. "You could go back to your casting if you wanted, though. I could just read a book."

"Nah," Drift said. "You're here, we should hang out. I'm not very good at reading the castings anyway. I'm probably reading the answers wrong...what if we were the Knights of Cybertron, Ratchet?"

"Hmm?" Ratchet said.

"Well, what if?" Drift said. "We need to go on this quest to find them, but what if that's because this quest is what's going to make us into the Knights?"

"But then how would there be myths of the Knights leaving Cybertron millions of years ago, if they're supposed to be us?" Ratchet said, aimlessly petting at one of Drift's finials.

Drift pursed his lips, and thought. That was annoying, he knew he'd had an answer to that earlier. "Time travel?"

Ratchet huffed a laugh. "Impossible. If it was possible, someone would have done it by now."

"Nothing is impossible," Drift insisted.

Ratchet began counting off on his fingers. "Faster-than-light travel using conventional engines, you convincing me anything about religion, you shutting up about religion, First Aid ever cleaning up his workstation, Swerve keeping a secret..."

"You're impossible."

"Yep, that can go on the list," Ratchet said. "Do you really want to just sit here and talk about nothing until this thing wears off?"

"We're not talking about nothing," Drift said, scooting his finial back under Ratchet's hand. "We're talking about my theory that we're destined to become the Knights of Cybertron."

"Of course. My mistake." Ratchet's hand began moving again and Drift could feel a purr building up in his throat. It was nice. This was nice. He wasn't sure if it would be a good way of preventing a fritz in a combat situation, but he was pretty sure he could have stood up and handled a sword if he wanted to. And it was obviously a step above collapsing on the floor. "So, all of us, do you think?" Ratchet asked good-naturedly. "Because Whirl as one of the Knights of Cybertron is pretty hard to picture."

"His silhouette is pretty distinctive," Drift said. "I feel like I would have remembered it from some old-temple art. Most renderings of the Knights are pretty generic, you know. Like a whole line-up of technicolor Optimus Primes. Big, blocky, heroic."

"That's probably because nobody knows what they look like, on account of them being fictional," Ratchet said.

Drift stuck his glossa out at him. "You suck at this whole 'respecting religion' thing."

"Woah! When did I promise to respect religion? I just said I wasn't going to start fights or mock you personally for your religion. Drift, I can't give up mocking religion! That's a solid 30% of my personality."

"You should find something better to replace it with."

"Oh, it is on," Ratchet said. He reached down beside the berth and grabbed Drift's thermal blanket, swinging it at Drift's face. Drift rolled away laughing and rolled clear off the edge of the berth.

"You can't hit me! You're supposed to be doctoring me!" Drift said through gasps of laughter as he tried to tug the blanket away from Ratchet. Ratchet was unfortunately very strong. "That means you have to be nice."

"I am being nice," Ratchet protested. "Hence why I didn't throw something heavy."

"Well, in that case, thank you for your graciousness," Drift said. He let go of the blanket abruptly and Ratchet, no longer pulling against a great deal of force, tipped over the opposite side of the berth onto the floor. The blanket fluttered down after him. Their optics met under the bed and set Drift off laughing again. And then, in what Drift could only take as proof of the divine, Ratchet joined in.

Later - CH9

"Drift, come in!" Rewind said, waving Drift inside. "I was worried you wouldn't make it."

"Sorry about that, Ultra Magnus looped me in for another patrol," Drift said, looking around Rewind's hab. It was cluttered, in a way that felt distinctly homey. Two berths, but the one of them was piled high with boxes of datapads, presumably from some research project of Rewind's. Knick-knacks lined the shelves above the berths and there was a thermal blanket in shimmering gold metallic fabric draped over the back of the chair. The lamps integrated into the berths were set to produce a warm golden light. "You said you wanted to follow up on our interview?"

Rewind had been given full access by Rodimus, who was convinced Rewind was going to make a travelogue that showed all his best angles. Ultra Magnus, perennially suspicious, figured Rewind was going to make them all look silly. Drift privately sided with Ultra Magnus, but suspected the end result would make them look more sad then silly. There were a lot of lonely bots for a ship where most everyone berthed with a roommate.

But Rodimus had said 'full access', so when Rewind requested the crew come in for interviews that week, Drift had complied. And when Rewind had drawn himself up at the end of their interview and asked Drift to come around after his shift to follow up...well, he was here. Even if he wasn't happy about it.

"Well, that was kind of a lie," Rewind admitted. "Fifty percent?"

Drift crossed his arms. "Why did you invite me, then?"

"I have some footage that I wanted to show you," Rewind said. "Come on in, sit down wherever, I'll put it up on the screen." He cast Drift a sidelong look as he moved to the big monitor and opened up the I/O panel.

Drift moved over to the berth, but that didn't feel right, so he sat down on the floor using the berth as a backrest. "So how can something be fifty percent a lie?" he asked.

He watched as Rewind scrolled through the menus to select memory stick input and then popped a memory stick out of his wrist. Rewind plugged the datastick in and then looked back over his shoulder. "One of my set questions was 'are you happy?'" Rewind said carefully, "and I got a lot of distressing answers from a lot of people. I was trying to be professional, but I'm a fixer, you know? I don't like it when I can't do anything to fix something. And I remembered what we were talking about in Swerve's the other day, with Ratchet—and I had a thought. I can't fix any of the things that make you not happy, but I can show you a little bit of fun."

"That's really not necessary," Drift protested. "I'm fine."

"I dare you to tell that to Rung, given that I have you on camera absolutely falling apart at the concept of happiness," Rewind said. "Shush, I'm trying to cheer you up." Rewind wandered back over to the berth and narrowed his optic in concentration. He bent his knees and jumped, dragging himself onto the berth and flopping over so he could see the screen.

"You need a ladder," Drift said.

"I have one, I'm just too lazy to use it," Rewind said. "Okay, so finding this footage was a bit of a scavenger hunt. My first hint was in a Thunderclash biopic where he mentioned living off-campus when he was attending medical school."

Rewind snapped his fingers and Thunderclash's face appeared on the screen, sitting in some library with an awkward smile on his face. "I was teaching classes at the time, but I was also attending classes in the medical sciences. You can never cultivate too many intellectual interests. I was living off campus with six fellow medical students, because Iacon's rents were so high back then...six fellow students and one cyberlynx."

Rewind snapped his fingers and the screen went blank again. "That was hint number one. I found a rent agreement in the Iaconian Archive project and got the names of Thunderclash's roommates." A document flashed on the screen, and there was Ratchet's name, scribbled at the bottom of a rental agreement. His handwriting had been terrible even before he was a doctor. "But where I struck gold wasn't there, it was with one of their fellow roommates. A fellow named Galenus. He died while running a nonprofit clinic in Nyon, but back in medical school he'd been part of a life-journaling club and he'd uploaded several autobiographical videos to the club. The club broke up eventually, but Galenus had given a copy of his videos to Thunderclash for safekeeping when he went to start his clinic. And Thunderclash, as it turns out, is far too nice for his own good. I asked if he still had a copy of Galenus's videos—that my records of student life were really sparse during that time period. And he just handed it over."

Drift nodded, barely following. "Why were you looking for the videos, then?"

"Ratchet," Rewind said. "There was a bit of a betting pool going on about Ratchet's reputation as a partier back in medical school."

"No," Drift said, grinning.

"That's what I said. I was betting it was a rumor Pharma had started, to get under Ratchet's plating. But then I had to find proof to back up my theory. I won seventy-five shanix over this footage," Rewind said.

"So no party Ratchet?" Drift asked, disappointed. "Who was this bet even with?"

"Mm, that's confidential. Interested parties," Rewind said. "And there was no party Ratchet. But I promise, what I found was even better. Watch and enjoy."

Rewind snapped his fingers and grainy footage appeared on the screen. A smiling red and white flier waved at the camera and said, "So, we're got a bit of an incident." Offscreen, someone shrieked. The flier huffed with laughter. "Thunderclash found a skitterer in the washracks while he was doing his polish. Trouble is, we're on the second floor. And Thunders is such a slagging softy, he won't let Chrondite smash it. But with a little teamwork, we're going to do our best to solve the problem—I'm filming this for the future generations, because you're not going to see a set of geniuses like this again."

The camera panned to show two bots guarding the closed door to the washracks. One was standing on an empty shipping crate and holding a broom, the other was balancing on a chair and holding a mop. The camerabot turned the camera to point down the long staircase, the front door propped open at the base of it. Harsh lights illuminated the pedestrian walkway outside. The camerabot retreated behind the bot on the chair and shouted "Are you ready, Thunders?"

"Get it out!" Thunders shouted in a surprisingly pitchy voice.

"Okay team, ready, set, go!" The bot on the chair grabbed the doorknob and flung it open. Inside, Thunderclash was crouching on top of the central bench, fending off the skitterer with the hose. It darted away from the stream of solvent and, seeing the open door, made a beeline for it with all twelve legs. The moment it crossed the threshold, the bot on the chair smacked it with the mop, passing it towards the bot on the crate with a shriek. The bot on the crate took a mighty swing and punted the skitterer down the staircase. For a single moment the skitterer flew through the air, tail lashing, all twelve legs wiggling in the air. Then it hit the staircase and began to bounce its way downwards.

"There it goes!" The chair bot screamed.

"Oh Primus, it's going!" The camerabot screamed into the microphone as the skitterer hit the bottom of the staircase and tried to dart off to the side. One more bot appeared, like a miracle, wielding a broom. He whacked the skitterer out the open doorway.

And then, like whatever the opposite of a miracle was, Ratchet stepped into the doorway, arms laden with boxes. His optics widened when he saw the skitterer flying towards him and he dropped the boxes. He tried to jerk away from it and must have slipped on something, because Ratchet was suddenly on the ground, shrieking and flailing his arms, trying to beat the panicking skitterer off of him as it nipped at his plating and squealed.

"Oh Primus," the camerabot whispered. "He's going to murder us."

"Don't just stand there!" Thunderclash said, grabbing the mop out of the chair bot's hand and hurrying down the stairs. He seemed much emboldened by the appearance of a friend in need. "I'm coming, Ratchet!" The camerabot followed him down the stairs, edging off to the side to try and get a clear shot beyond Thunderclash's huge shoulders.

There was a yowling sound and then a quick high pitched shriek and Thunderclash came to an abrupt stop. "Wow," he said.

The camerabot ducked under his arm and Ratchet came into view again, looking dumbfounded. A small cyberlynx was perched atop his chest, holding the body of the skitterer in it's mouth. Ratchet reached out a hand and petted over the cyberlynx's ruff. "Good kitty," Ratchet said tonelessly.

The screen abruptly went blank and Drift looked over to Rewind in shock. "Tell me there's more."

"Not from then, but it picks up a few days later," Rewind assured him.

The screen blinked back to life on a picture of the same camerabot, Galenus. "Well, life has been wild around the old homestead this week. Ratchet and Thunders have been doing their practical exams and so they've been studying non-stop...and we've picked up a new member of the household!" The camera panned over to where Ratchet was lying upside down on the couch, feet up above his head, holding a datapad with one hand as he petted the cyberlynx that was napping on his chest. Thunderclash was sitting normally beside Ratchet, lap piled high with datapads, but he gave the camerabot a quick smile as he approached.

"He really only likes Ratchet, so Ratchet got to name him. His name's Hero," the camerabot said.

"Shut up, Galenus, I'm trying to study," Ratchet said.

"Mm, okay," Galenus said, backing off.

The footage cut to Ratchet lying on his stomach, reading a different datapad, Hero now sleeping in the small of his back. The camera approached and they could see that Hero was vibrating, a soft trilling noise issuing forth with each exhale. The camerabot's hand entered the frame as he reached for Hero.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Ratchet deadpanned, not looking over.

Hero lifted his head and stared at the offending fingers. When Galenus tried to pet him, Hero bared a set of needlelike fangs and squawked his displeasure. Galenus jerked his fingers away.

"Told you," Ratchet said, nodding sagely.

The footage cut again to Ratchet sitting at his desk, working at something on the console, Hero curled around his neck like a scarf. "Seriously, Galenus, I'm trying to study," Ratchet said. Absently he rubbed his cheek into Hero's ruff.

"I'm just trying to get some good footage of our hab's most popular mechanimal, Ratchet, sheesh," Galenus complained.

"He looks like a normal cyberlynx, there's nothing to see," Ratchet said, picking up something off his desk and offering it to Hero. Hero plucked it from his fingers delicately with those needle fangs and tilted its head back to swallow, trilling happily. "Good boy," Ratchet said, scratching the mechanimal behind the ear.

Galenus snorted. "Nothing to see, sure," he muttered. He backed out of the room and turned the camera back on himself. "And that was today's episode of the thrilling series, The Taming of the Feral Medical Student! Tomorrow I'll see if I can find footage of him literally sharing his energon cubes with Hero because I swear he does it."

"Get a life, Gal!" Ratchet shouted from inside the room. "Preferably one outside where I can't hear you!"

Galenus skipped down the stairs and wheeled into the living space where everyone else was sitting and reading. "On the upside, Hero has done what no amount of student-services pest control could do—I haven't seen a skitterer in the hab since he got here."

"Are we talking about Hero?" One of the bots looked up, beaming. "Did you know Ratchet's been teaching him to play fetch? It's so sweet."

"Exercise is important for mechanimals and there's not a lot of space to run around inside the hab," Thunderclash commented, not looking up from his datapad. "Though I heard the tubeways conductor wasn't very happy that Ratchet tried to bring him on board."

"He won't wear a leash, of course," another roommate commented.

"He's a cyberlynx, they don't wear leashes," Galenus said. "Not that you'd need one anyway, Hero is infatuated with Ratchet."

"Yeah, but patrolbots get kinda antsy about unleashed mechanimals."

"Please, Galenus, I enjoy chatting as much as the next bot, but I have an exam this evening. Can we do this some other time?" Thunderclash asked.

"Oh, yeah, sorry. Sorry Thunders," Galenus said, and the footage stopped again.

Rewind snapped his fingers to pause. "That's most of the good stuff. Ratchet wasn't an especially photogenic subject. But Hero apparently survived the remaining five years of medical school, because Galenus brings him up from time to time. It's hard to imagine Ratchet with a pet—I've never pictured him the sentimental sort."

"He absolutely is," Drift said. "Did you know he kept his old hands? When he replaced them with Pharma's he didn't melt them down for the sentio metallicio or anything. He has them polished up in a nice case he keeps on his desk."

"Huh," Rewind said. "Wouldn't have figured it."

"I think it's mostly people he doesn't like."

"Well some people, anyway. Oh, if you wanted to get started tonight on that project we were talking about, you could." Rewind said. "I got the equipment all together. Just...that video I showed you? Facts are nice, but they're never the whole story. See if you can't think of something happy to share—you don't have to be happy overall to have moments of happiness."

"It's all ready?" Drift asked, rubbing his hands on his knees.

"Yeah, Domey and I tested it last night. He's out today, doing something with Brainstorm? I don't even ask anymore, he's always running off. You wouldn't be intruding if you stayed," Rewind said, shrugging. "It gets lonely on nights when he's out. Not that I blame him! I'm glad Domey has a friend and Primus knows Brainstorm needs one, I just wish he'd warn me sometimes before making plans so I could put something together with Tailgate and the rest."

"No, that's fair," Drift said, guilt eating at his frame. "You should tell him that."

"I don't want to be needy," Rewind said with a sigh.

"He wants to be with you," Drift said, putting a hand on Rewind's shoulder. "He wants to spend time with you. That's why he's your conjunx. Communication is the most important thing."

"Uh-huh," Rewind said. "Well that sucks, because everyone on this ship is terrible at it."

[roguescarlett]

sometime, when things gets tough, just needed a hug and cry from sad things and grief. this is more of a sad vent screencap edit of Roxie and her Sire: Deadlock (in holomatter avatar) to project my grief and emotions than expressing words...

[roguescarlett]

idk what prompted me to do this for Drift taking Percy and Windblade's hands prior rekindling their relationship post-prologue that I sorta imagined the scenario. sorry that I used their holomatter forms than robot hands. idk, just hands and i can't draw to save my life.

[roguescarlett]

Holomatter Avatar for TF: valiant keepers’ Drift | Deadlock. This is just to give some visualisation since his holomatter avatar appeared in Roxie’s life and beginning of prologue arc.

[roguescarlett]

a bit of a self-indulgent edit of Drift’s holoform (and manbun hair)

[transformers-valiant-keepers]

After I mentioned about the parallel between Drift and Roxie in TF: Nexus – the noticeable genetic trait shared between a Sire and their techno-organic Cognatio Endura (latin for offspring) was their optic colour, which meant that Roxie has gold optic colours from Drift’s, which is an uncommon optic colour for Cybertronians, but also an unusual eye colour that stood her out amongst Earth’s cyborg-humans.

But anyways! I wanted to edit these panels of Drift from MTMTE in post-Empire of Stone design (which I’m very fond for) and change the blue into gold optics to match with Roxie’s for headcanon lore reason. I like how gold optics looks on him. <3

(I added edits of Roxie into this)

[roguescarlett]

Drift had kept this photo saved in his memory--a photo his mentor took of a special moment between a Sire and his Progeniei Endurae from a couple of years ago--that showed him carrying a tired child, Roxana, on his avatar's back.

He fondly recalled her nuzzled into his avatar's face, as her fingers clinged tightly for a dear life and murmured tiredly within an earshot, "You are the best, Daddy." which brought a smile on his avatar's face.

[transformers-valiant-keepers]

I put so much investment into Roxie and Dadlock lately (I’m sorry) and it's all I ever think about them bc who doesn't love found family tropes. For TFTN, I took in key elements of characters, backstory and lores from IDW and incorporated the ideas into my own for TFTN.

I’ve been listening to Lasting Impression by Silent Descent when writing up Dadlock’s life (which probably fitting).

Trigger warnings for mentions of discrimination, drug use, implied dubcon, medic, shadowplay / mnemosurgery(?), child abuse, depression, implied suicide, ptsd trauma(?). 

I’ll put all of this under readmore

I've been thinking about how much similarities between Roxie and Drift in having to hide certain things about themselves from the society--with Roxie being deaf who has to constantly cover her hearing aids with her long hair, and Drift was a forged triple changer. 

Triple changers cybertronians bear the brunt of discriminations for being so different and the Functionalist Council saw them as a threat to Cybertron's future and the caste systems. Techno-organics also shared the similar reaction for being much different from others and were turned away by Functionalist medics.

It was pretty telling what Drift had gone through in his life… Before Roxie was constructed with his spark, before the Greatsword connected to his spark while unaware of the intentional true purpose in store for him and Roxie later on, and before Dai Atlas took him in to the Samurai clan. 

He did not start off as a good life living on the streets and homeless on Rodion. He was an independent, mostly kept to himself, barely opening up to anyone. He endured survival instincts living on the streets, and learnt self-defence battle protocols to defend himself when necessarily. 

Obtaining Energon for refuel wasn’t easy. He went through a dark place of sleeping rough, hooked on circuit boosters to spare the pain and selling himself for Energon through sexual activities. It wasn’t his choice nor how many times had he lost count when he came close to almost-deactivation from certain outcomes.

He never forgot the time he visited the medibay clinic to be patched up and to feel safe. That was the first time he saw Ratchet.

It was not the vivid life Drift wanted to remember for discussion. He spared the dark details of his early life and post-Shadowplay-to-Autobot’s assassin era from Roxie, because it’s not something he wanted to subject her to that exposure, even for one so young and carefree who was not exposed to the Functionalist era. He only shared his life after Dai Atlas approached and took him in, which changed his life completely, to his life amongst the Samurai clans. Dai Atlas was the closest thing he would call to a Sire. He became familiar with the likes of Cyclonus and Axe.

Axe and Cyclonus became his best friends who later became his Amica Endurae. Axe does not understand the life Drift went through--he had experienced living rough--but he was the only person he could trust enough to vent to. Cyclonus, on the other hand, understood what he went through and offered her shoulder for him to vent.

Crystal City was the safest place it had been in so long for Drift, not counting the fact a particular medical clinic had been relatively safe away from the backend alleys. Everything was good afterwards, he became a trained swordmech. It takes some adjustment for him to get used to sleeping in an actual berth provided for his own amongst other things--including Energon for refuel and to live. He did meet Ratchet, despite them having met long before when Drift lived on the rough streets.

Drift received upgrades to his frame, putting the past behind him to start anew under Dai Atlas’ mentorship, and touching the Greatsword had given him a second chance to move on from his past (obvious to the fact that the Greatsword had chosen him for a reason, or what fate had in store for him).

Becoming a Samurai was the best life-changer for him.

The Functionalists Council had arranged for Drift to be taken and captured (all the while, Pharma had secretly played a part in it) and was taken straight to the Institute where he was subjected to Shadowplay against his will.

Many years later, he eventually discovered Roxie’s existence… and somehow learnt she is his Kindred. And that instinct promptly activated his paternal Sire Coding within both his and Deadlock alter-ego’s programming. 

Life for Drift was royalty fucked up after Shadowplay had changed him into a deadly, fearless assassin with Emperor Nemesis as his handler (this was revealed in Prologue Part One). He was not known as Drift, he became Deadlock--likely a case of an alter-ego formed as the result from his traumas. Before all that discovery, he met Windblade and Perceptor who became two important figures in his life and opened up his spark. As a reminisce of his early days forcing to hide the fact he’s a triple changer, Windblade had to hide her cityspeaker ability whereas Perceptor had to hide his outlier ability and refrained himself from reading others’ thoughts. They hid this from the Functionalists and found themselves form a connetion with Drift after he saved them from unforseen situations. Drift knows what it’s like to hide and pretend, and sworn to sercery to keep both Windblade and Perceptor safe. He fell in love with Windblade and Perceptor--with an emotional deep connection with the young cityspeaker and scientist--but he never got to tell them both after they got separated apart from each others.

Roxie was constructed cold with her spark being a donor from Drift’s, thus forming a strong bond between the two--such bond between a Sire and a Kindred are considered rare in some cases. This is known as Cognatio Endurae.

Though, Roxie… didn’t have a good start after being subconsciously locked away in a stasis pod by the Emperor’s doings. The sad thing is? Drift does not know whether she was physically abused constantly through the bond whenever he was resistant against being controlled, or forced to obey commands, or goes against authority orders--and the thought alone had really broken him.

He tried to save her the first time but was caught out and forced to watch in horror as The Emperor abused Roxie in front of his optics--which played into the triggers whenever he saw Roxie was harmed and he shifted into his Deadlock persona way later on. Yes, Drift and Deadlock alter ego both genuinely care for Roxie. 

Techno-organics were not well-known to Cybertronians until the 22nd or 23rd Century, but one with an organic human DNA is considered rare. Now for Roxie, being a techno-organic and all… it wasn't easy to bring her up. Drift is new to parenting and can be a worrywart over her. His past actually helped him to adapt and care for her--he eventually grows into a better person than he used to be. 

Though, what Drift never prepared for… was Roxie diagnosed with severe hearing loss, aka Deaf / Hearing Impaired, in both audial receptors. He went as far to start his research and how to help her. He is patient and relied on the bond to communicate with her, he taught her to lipread--because he had little knowledge of sign languages. Once they get their servos on functioning Hearing Aids for her, she can hear their voices. It wasn't the best or helpful to her, Drift was relieved she was responsive to his voice like a sense of familiarity to her.

Due to the immense strong bond and prioritising Roxie first before himself, Drift turned off his pain sensors to take in the burdens and sensed her emotions and pains.

But her upbringing had its moments. Roxie hated hearing tests. It made her extremely stressed over the noise levels and the lowest ringing noises were the worst of all. She was a victim to disability discrimination by society, which she was completely shunned out and struggled to make any friends. It did hurt her and her hearing wasn't perfect that the kids relentlessly teased her for her difficulties--the aftermath forced her to cover ears and hearing aids with her long hair to hide her disability. 

She was dejected and left out, unsure whether to question where she would fit in in this universe. Drift sensed this coming through the bond and tried his best to comfort her as a father wanting to understand her. Roxie’s struggles with deafness had impacted on her mental health and she went through a dark place succumbing to negative voices and far too anxious to socialise with anyone.

She would cry herself to sleep with a wish how badly she wanted to hear, and bottled all of her emotions and issues to herself. She found it completely hard to talk or open up about her feelings--even to Drift and Axe. Such intrusive thoughts prone her despair into an emotional crying mess leading to Drift exposed his spark chamber to guide and soothed Roxie out of an anxiety attack keeping her focus onto his calming, pulsing spark and enfolded within his EM field filled with nothing more than a comforting familial love.

Suffice to say, Drift had coaxed gently, without pressuring her, got her to open up to him and listened to her confide in him. One time, she accidentally slammed Drift’s doorwing, which was very sensitive, when her emotions got the best of her during an outburst and of course, Roxie felt completely bad afterwards.

Meeting new people was difficult for her, much less making new friends without the unnecessary attention from adolescent organic males. Due to the society looking down on disabled people, Roxie doesn’t want to let anyone in, something that was passed on from her Sire, without putting her guarded wall down and succumbing to heartaches. She stayed--remained--close to Drift and Wing. She trusts them and they’re the only ones she relied heavily on for their support and speak on her behalf.

Beyond that, there were complications on their welfare over the years hiding on Earth, especially when Roxie’s health was concerned. Her height growth was stunted and slowed throughout her activated age. (At eighteen activated age as example, she stood at 5ft 4in). However, there’s major issues Drift and Axe had to deal with rationalizing Energon usage after the first time they watched Roxie overcome with extreme fatigue from low Energon. They were alerted by this despite the three of them living pretty rough to hide out on Hedonia without detecting the Autobots--they moved from one hideout to another, erasing their presence from their previous accommodations. Moving to a new place made Roxie unsettled the first few nights.

Drift’s early life resurfaced given the living arrangements on Hedonia, he was willingly to sacrifice his Energon for Roxie and replenish her energy and to avoid her body going into stasis shock. He had considered an Energon transfer reserved for emergencies only just for Roxie alone, and the process was risky that Axe had berated him for it on a dangerously low Energon withdrawal. Axe could understand due to Energon being scarce and trying to save as much credits that he had gone further to search and provide fuels for the three of them to survive.

Had they lived on Cybertron, specifically in the roughest places, Drift would’ve given away a full Energon to Roxie and spared little usage for himself to live through another day.

"A good Sire would do anything for their Kindred" Drift told Axe. And the truth is, Roxie was a beacon of light to Drift through the darker aspects of his life, even with being there for her through her low days.

That's as far I've written from my head about these two and I'm having many feelings over these two.

[roguescarlett]

Roxana: You know, not every problem can be solved with a sword.

Drift: That's why I carry two swords.

[transformers-valiant-keepers]

Accurate representation of TFTN Dadlock and Roxie: