Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ratchet had his work cut out for him assembling full medical histories for the crew aboard the Lost Light. Sure, some of them were easy. Autobots he'd been treating since the beginning; bots whose records hadn't ended up blown to bits or lost in space or 'reformatted' along with all of Cybertron. So, really, fairly few of them.

But that was alright. They were on a spaceship, there was a limit to how far they could run. Only took a few weeks to corral most of the crew into interviews and physicals. It gave him something to do, something that didn't require him to use his hands much. Anyway, it'd be useful for whoever took over as CMO after him.

The trouble was, as always, the problem children. He'd gotten some records off of Whirl when he was first unconscious in the Medibay, but he wasn't in much of a rush dragging the Wrecker back in. Cyclonus had some weird religious issues with medical care that he'd gone off on Ratchet about when he suggested replacing that broken horn. Ratchet had noted that down in the records – if he wanted to spend less time in Ratchet's medibay, that was fine by him. Rodimus was dragged in by Ultra Magnus after Ratchet got the devious notion to send his memo to someone who reads memos.

The top of his medical hitlist at the moment? Well, that was Red Alert, but Rung assured him that cornering Red Alert would have a negative impact on his mental health. The runner-up was Drift. Stupid, cheery, hippy-dippy, third-in-command Drift. After once again leaning on Ultra Magnus, he managed to get Drift in for the briefest and most perfunctory of physicals.

But once Magnus was no longer in the room keeping Drift from bolting, he...well, he bolted. Before he could get to any of the medical history questions. Drift's initial charts had been assembled by the Wreckers and mostly indicated that he wasn't liable to keel over in the heat of battle. They didn't go terribly in-depth. The only additions after that had been Ratchet's notes from the surgery to save him post-impalement at the end of the war. And Drift had skipped out without getting any follow-up back then, too.

Officially, Ratchet didn't care. Well, he cared, insofar as Drift was third-in-command and Rodimus would throw a fit and ruin Ratchet's day if something happened to him. But officially, that was the only reason he cared about collecting data for that flighty hippie's medical file.

"He's not going to talk about it," Rodimus said. It was at one of the innumerable check-ins to patch up some nicks he'd gotten 'sparring' with Drift. Rodimus could never sit around with less than a perfect frame. Incidentally, he was a walking disaster zone. Ratchet was getting to spend a lot of less-than-quality time with the kid fixing variously improbable injuries.

"You know, it's very hard to fix your face when you keep moving your mouth," Ratchet said. But he was curious. "And who's not going to talk about what?"

"Drift. He told me you've been trying to get him in here for a med workup? I'm just putting it out there, he's not going to talk about his past. He doesn't even talk with me about his life before Crystal City. Nope. Zilch. Nada."

"Well, you are the captain. You could order him to report here," Ratchet pointed out.

Rodimus looked up at him with a cartoonishly offended frown. He held up his hands, no way, not me. "I'm Drift's friend. He trusts me, you know? I'm not going to order him to...plus, it's not like he'd do it just cause I said so. So it doesn't really matter."

Rod shut up briefly and let Ratchet work, but then said, "He was basically rebuilt in Crystal City, so why does it matter? None of that old stuff carries over."

"Unless they rebuilt his spark, his brain, his t-cog and the spinal conduit, yes, sometimes it does. And I highly doubt that."

Rodimus's expression softened. "Well, keep an eye on him for me, okay? He's special. And he's my friend."

Ratchet grumbled a bit about how 'keeping an eye out' had never stopped late-stage frame rejection from downing a bot, but after he fixed up Rod's face and sent him on his way, he sat down to consider it. The odds of anything going catastrophically wrong in the imminent future were slim. And a lot of common chronic issues could be indicated from behavioral observations. It was worth a shot.

He brought up a new tab within Drift's records and entitled it "Observational Study".

Chapter Text

"Just the guy I was looking for - Ratchet!"

Ratchet pushed his drink back; to leave some space to beat his head against the bar if need be. "Captain," he said, not breaking eye contact with his drink and aggressively ignoring the hand on his shoulder. "I am off duty. If the locale did not make that obvious and my memos have gone unread, the drink should have been a hint. Unless you or someone else is dead, I don't want to hear it."

"It's not a, look, Ratchet, I'm not bothering you cuz I need a tune-up. I just wanted to know if you've seen Drift? I'm on a Drift hunt."

"Nope. Not seen him," Ratchet said, wondering how aggressively he would need to avoid eye contact before Rod went away. "Need him to fill out your paperwork?"

"I'm just a little worried. He was in a fight and then he up and vanished."

Ratchet looked over. "The kind of fight where I'm going to need to reattach limbs?"

Rodimus fidgeted a bit, not meeting his eyes. "Not so much. Fight might not have been the best word. Apparently Tailgate saw a couple mechs harassing him about Deadlock stuff."

Ratchet sighed. "He doesn't need you playing nursemaid, Rodimus. Drift was a Decepticon for a damned long time, I'm sure he can deal with a bit of verbal harassment."

"Well, yeah. But that was yesterday? And he didn't show up for shift today. I'm starting to regret not taking Red up on his offer to put a tracking transponder in each of the crewmembers. Sure, it'd be unethical, but I could just ask the ship's computer where anyone was, at any time! It'd save a lot of walking about."

"Have you checked the speedway? Maybe he's working off some nervous energy." For an entire day.

"Nah. I mean, I do that. Absolutely. You get mad, go fast, burn some rubber and get over it. Second best thing to destruction of property. But Drift doesn't like racing on the speedway," Rodimus said, scratching at his head, "especially when he's feeling insecure. Makes him feel exposed."

"Well, I'll tell you if I see him," Ratchet said, waving Rodimus off. The captain grabbed a drink from Swerve before heading back out, checking through his datapad one handed.

Ratchet considered his drink, then knocked it back with a grimace. Well, he had been going to relax, but he wasn't going to be able to do that and worry about the kid at the same time. Multi-tasking got a lot harder as he got older. He considered what Rodimus had said and then wandered over to Suite 208 to check in with Rewind.

Rewind had access to all of Red's security footage for purposes of making the travelogue. "Just need help finding Drift before our captain drives me crazy," he explained shortly.

Rewind nodded. "Verbal altercation yesterday...don't suppose Rodimus said where? Doesn't really matter, Drift is regular as clockwork. We can just run through his Blue shift routine."

"Our shifts are color-coded now?"

"Just Drift's internal organizational system. I was interviewing him the other day for the travelogue and he got on the topic. The colors correspond to how the level of emotional tension anticipated throughout the day. Now, if you assume Drift wouldn't leave his post early, we can start in the hall outside the bridge."

Rewind skimmed through some footage of empty hallways, then settled on a video of a hallway Ratchet recognized, right outside the bridge. They watched for a minute, then Drift wandered out, walking briskly. Rewind jumped them through the security cameras as he descended back towards the living decks.

Three bots got on the elevator with Drift. Ratchet frowned. He recognized them – Kindle, Fervor and Powerflash. All bots who'd Magnus had asked to join the security team, but who'd refused when Drift's presence on the security patrols had come up.

"Do we want audio?" Rewind asked. "I can get audio."

Ratchet hesitated. "Don't. It's really none of our business. I just need to find out where he goes next."

Rewind sped up the recording. Powerflash leaned over Drift, clearly shouting something. Drift didn't respond. The rest of them stood back, arms crossed. Then the door opened and they disappeared down the hallway, nearly bowling over Tailgate where he'd been waiting for the elevator. Tailgate took one look at Drift and waved the elevator on.

The moment the doors were closed, Drift went to the controls and activated the emergency lock with his command code. He stood there at the controls for an interminable time. Then he released the lock and sent the elevator down into the basement. The door opened into the basement, but Drift knelt down in the elevator and opened up one of the floor access panels. He dropped down below, out of sight, and pulled the panel closed behind him.

Rewind and Ratchet exchanged a look. "Should I speed forward and make see if he's still there?" Rewind asked.

"He is," Ratchet said. He wasn't certain why he was certain of that fact, but he was. "Don't comm Rodimus, I'll go check on him myself."

He hustled across the ship to the elevator. He couldn't think of any medical reason someone would hide in an elevator shaft. If it was something mental, which it probably was, this was going to be Rung's domain. Not that Rung was likely to have better luck recruiting Drift as a patient than Ratchet was. And unless Drift was a danger to himself or others, they couldn't compel him to go in for counseling.

Elevator A3 was, thankfully, empty. Ratchet keyed in the bottom floor and waited, shifting from foot to foot, hoping nobody would get on and wonder why he was headed down to the basement. When it got there he command locked the elevator. He left a little message about 'medical decontamination' to pacify any busybodies upstairs who wanted in.

He fetched a medical scanner out from one of his hip compartments and lifted up the same access panel Drift had used. The hole was a little small for Ratchet. He sized it out in his head and decided his shoulders could fit if need be. But he'd really rather not.

"Drift?" He called. "You down there, kid?"

No answer, but the medical scanner confirmed that there was one lifesign in the space below the elevator. Typical.

"If you don't tell me you can get out on your own in the next klik, I'm going to climb down there with you. And if I get stuck, that's going to be your fault."

He didn't bother to wait a full klik; it was obvious that Drift was non-responsive. He angled his body to drop through the hatch at the widest point, then lowered down slowly. His pedes hit ground before he was chest deep.

"This is a terrible idea," he said to himself. Just to acknowledge that fact out loud. But he crouched down and wiggled backwards until he'd gotten his head into the cramped space. A little square of light fell in from the open hatch, but not enough to see by. He fetched an emergency floodlight and cracked it open.

Oh. So that was what he'd kicked.

Drift was huddled in the far corner, head ducked down to his knees. Groaning, Ratchet rolled himself onto his front in order to crawl over and investigate his patient. A little cold, but speedsters got that way when they weren't running their engines. Low levels of brain activity and a slightly diminished spark reading; the same readings you'd get for a bot deep in a recharge cycle.

"If you dragged me down here so you could achieve some maximal meditation depth I'm gonna tell Swerve you volunteered to play bouncer at his new bar," Ratchet said. He reached out and shook Drift lightly by the shoulder. No response, but that wasn't surprising. He could whip out a stimulant to shock him into alertness, but that felt like overkill. Plus, he still didn't have a list of averse reactions for Drift.

Instead he reached out and tweaked Drift's closest finial. Instantly, Drift's optics flared on and he lurched out of reach, banging his head on the elevator floor above him. He vented in unsteady heaves, optics flicking wildly around the space.

"Ratchet." He said. "What are you doing here?"

Ratchet snorted. "What do you think I'm doing here? Looking for you, kid. The captain was getting on my case; you go missing and he gets anxious."

"Oh. Right, of course," Drift said, shuttering his optics and deliberately slowing down his venting. "I was just meditating. It's hard to find somewhere on the ship where you won't be disturbed."

"Kid, it's been a full day and I had to search the security camera footage to find you. I'm not going to dignify that load of rust with a response."

Drift frowned, fingers tracing out his finials as he thought. "My chrono readouts weren't functioning. I'm sorry."

"Is that a chronic problem? Because if you're having chrono problems, we could take a look in the medibay; somewhere with a little more operating room."

"It's not the chrono," Drift said. "It's just me. You know how you're always saying that knockoffs have a load of mental problems? 'Trying to run before they can walk.' I just fritz sometimes."

Ratchet winced. He had given Drift that speech a few days ago, though in the context of him being aggravatingly cloying about some new Knights of Cybertron religious reading. "I didn't say knockoffs Drift, and I didn't mean that you were...look, it doesn't matter. What do you mean 'fritz'?"

Drift worried at his lip, hands still wrapped protectively around his finials. "Like my mind disconnects from the rest of my body? I just fritz; usually when I'm stressed. All my readouts turn off, audial and optic reception goes out. All that's left is this." He moved his hand to tap over where his spark was. "There's usually a little warning, so I get somewhere safe."

"And 'safe' is under the elevators? Not, say, in the medibay where you could be under medical observation and I could find the source of the problem?"

"Source?" Drift looked at him, optics boggling. "It's me. This has always been me. Been doing this straight out of the thawing facility."

"Well there's probably a medical reason," Ratchet said. "And you ignored my other point. If this happens again, at any point, I don't want you to curl up in some dark corner and hide. What if we don't find you and you go offline, permanently?"

Drift sighed. "I'm not going to offline. Four million years and it hasn't killed me yet. So I just did what I've always done. It's an instinct - there's never been a time where it was safe to be defective."

"Well, it's not what you're doing any more," Ratchet said. "We're going to get out of here and then we're both going to the medibay. I'm going to check and see if I can find the cause. And then we'll think of a good story to tell Rodimus so he doesn't hassle you about being missing all day."

Drift didn't uncurl, but he did move his arms away from his finials. "You're not going to tell him?"

"Medical confidentiality. I have no obligation to tell him anything about your private medical concerns. Of course, this is assuming we can get out of here without me getting stuck."

He rolled over onto his back, eyeing the small square of light above his pedes. "That's a big if, isn't it?"

 - before -

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 its 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 -

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 could have described 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 -

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 -

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 -

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 -

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.

"I don't see anything on the readouts," Ratchet admitted. "Whatever it is might just not be visible when you're not in the midst of an episode. Or it's possible I'd need to do more exploratory investigation to find the root cause. Or even bring in Chromedome, if it's a neurological quirk."

Drift shook his head and curled in on himself on the berth. Ratchet frowned. Drift had been fine till they got into the medibay itself, but he had closed up again. "I don't want that," Drift said. "I won't consent to anything where you're cutting open my head."

"Woah," Ratchet said, putting down his tools and holding up his empty hands. "I'm not going to do anything to you without your consent. But aren't you worried?"

Drift shrugged. "About what? This just is. I cope."

"I just wish we knew what triggered it," Ratchet said.

"I killed Powerflash's Conjunx Endura," Drift said dully. "On a raid before the Simanzi massacre."

Ratchet wasn't going to touch that one, not on his life. "Did he threaten you?"

"Not specifically," Drift said. "They're just watching to wait and see when I slip up and go Con again."

"Is that a thing you worry about?" Ratchet asked.

Drift smiled, bleakly. "No. Look, Ratch, can I go? I probably have a million messages from the captain to answer and I have bridge duty soon."

"Just a bit. First I need us to work on your plan for the next time this happens, if it happens again on this ship. You don't want to go to your room because of Rodimus?"

"Yeah," Drift said. "He's just...I don't want him to know about this."

"Okay. I think meditation is a great cover story for any short episode. Longer than a few hours and I'm going to take you into the medibay. We'll tell Rodimus you've caught some bug and I've put you under for a bit because you're a damned annoying patient."

Drift nodded. "He'd believe it. Where do you suggest I go to 'meditate'? Since my room is not captain-proof and the elevator shafts are somehow objectionable?"

"My room. The captain is never going to guess you'd go there. Here, I'll write you out the room code. Comm me at any time, just let me know where you are and we'll figure it out."

After Drift had left, Ratchet got out his medical file and tried to figure out what exactly he could put down. Non-specific sensory failures, stress triggered. And while he was at it... Irrational fear of medical interventions.

His hand lost its grip on the datapad and he cursed. Damned hands. Damned form fatigue. He reached over and grabbed his phone, the new one he'd picked up that was big enough to keep his grip on. He slammed in Rod's number, one oversized key at a time.

"Hey kid, found Drift. He'd taken a shuttle out to scout out the space around Delphi. Apparently the memo got lost; he's headed up to the bridge now.”

Chapter Text

Flexing his fingers, Ratchet reached down and pinched the laser scalpel between his thumb and forefinger. Not too much pressure. Don't want it to go flying again. He lifted his hand up. The scalpel slipped and clattered onto the table.

Frustrated, Ratchet slammed his hand against the tabletop, sending the scalpel flying. It landed on the floor somewhere behind him. Well, that solved your problem.

He left it where it was and checked his messages again. He was working out a duty schedule with the new arrivals, but Ambulon and First Aid still hadn't replied to his proposed calendar. He put the phone back down and contemplated resuming his sensory integration exercises. Integrating Pharma's hands into his neural circuitry was taking longer than he'd expected. Well, frankly, when he'd told First Aid to do the replacement, he hadn't been thinking about neural circuitry at all. He'd been thinking of a pair of working medic's hands that weren't ruined by form fatigue.

He looked at the box on his desk where his old hands were now resting. It was sentimental, which he didn't like.

But, he justified to himself, what if something went wrong with the replacements? Even half-useless medics hands were better than a pair of crafted hands. He flipped the lid of the box open and looked down at the hands nestled in their protective foam padding. They had waited to do the transplant until after the red rust had been flushed from his system, so they weren't actively corroding. But the quick wash they'd given them before the surgery hadn't given them much of a polish. It seemed wrong to store them in anything less than the best possible condition.

He lifted the left hand out and held it gingerly in his outstretched hands. That's not an experience many people get to have. He chuckled and set it on his lap while he rustled through drawers for his cleaning kit. This would be a good integration exercise and at least he knew he wasn't going to throw his hand across the room, frustrating or not.

There was a knock at the door. How archaic. Why doesn't this ship have a buzzer system? Ratchet's optics flicked over to his phone and his primary datapad, but neither of them were blinking an alert. Nothing on his HUD, so he hadn't missed any messages.

"Who is it?" He asked, setting the hand and the cleaning kit on the desk. He pushed himself up out of the chair and started towards the door.

"It's Drift." Drift sounded...well, subdued was probably an appropriate word. Not nearly so happy and irritating as usual. "Could I come in, Ratchet? I wanted to talk to you about something."

Settling himself to lean against the doorway, arms crossed, with a nice big frown on his face, Ratchet keyed the door open. "You couldn't just write me a message? I was doing something," he said.

Drift smiled, then shifted to stand straight so they weren't both posed leaning against the doorway. He dropped his hands to fiddle with the hilts of his ridiculous swords, looking down. "It's not something I wanted to discuss over...it's something personal."

Ratchet rolled his eyes and stepped back. "Well come in and we'll get this over with," he said, waving Drift in over his shoulder. "Do you drink?"

"Not engex, not usually," Drift said, swiveling his head around to examine the room. "It doesn't do anything for me."

Ratchet paused at grabbing the bottle. "FIM chip malfunction?" Turn it off, Ratchet, you're not his doctor right now.

Drift shrugged and lifted one hand to rub at his neck. "Fused FIM chip. It was pretty common among... it was a disciplinary measure during the war."

Ratchet whistled. "Damn. Add that to the list of reasons I'm glad I signed up with the right side, then. I don't know if I could live without ever getting overcharged. I certainly don't think I could have whatever touchy-feely conversation you're planning on us having without this." He shook his bottle of pink triple-distilled and kicked the drawer closed.

Drift made his way over, walking like he expected a pack of turbofoxes to leap out from behind the recharge berth and maul him. Or maybe he was worried about stepping on one of the tools Ratchet had left scattered on the ground. Ratchet waved at the berth with his free hand. "Come in or don't. And sit down. You don't mind if I-"

He didn't bother to wait for an answer, dragging one of his square glasses over and pouring out the engex two knuckles deep.

Drift sat down on the berth, perched on the corner. "It doesn't bother me if you drink," he said. He fussed at his swords, getting them to lay neatly over the edge. The Great Sword he unclipped and laid across his lap.

"Well I wasn't going to not on your account, but thanks, I guess. So, what's bothering you?" A thought occurred to him. "It's not what we talked about before Delphi, right?" He waved his hand to point at Drift's head and, by extension, his brain module.

"No, not that," Drift said. "I wanted to talk to you about Delphi."

"Okay," Ratchet said, taking a sip. "About the red rust? Your recovery looks like it's going well, but you did put a lot of strain on your-"

"Not about me," Drift said. "I want to talk about you. At Delphi."

Ratchet took another sip. He swirled the engex in the bottom of the glass, admiring the turbulence it created when the liquid hit the corners.

"What you said to Pharma at the end there worried me," Drift said.

"I was dying, kid. I wasn't thinking real deep about what I said."

"'I've got nothing else to lose.' And earlier?" Drift asked. "When you chose to transform to save...I can't remember his name."

"Backstreet." Ratchet said. "I'm a medic, Drift. My patients always come first. That's the job."

"That's a rubbish excuse and you know it. You did it after Ambulon told you that transforming would kill you and that he needed you around to save the rest of his patients." Drift said. "Look, you don't have to talk about it with me. I just wanted to tell you that, hands or no, doctor or not-"

"Primus loves me?" Ratchet said. He leaned back and lifted up his glass. Looking through it, he could watch Drift fold in on himself into a small, distorted curl of a bot.

"I know you're trying to make me angry so I'll go away," Drift said into his knees. "I understand. It's a fragged up thing to talk about and I'd hate whoever made me talk about it, if I were in your place."

"Look Drift, I'm just saying, it doesn't matter now. I've got new hands, courtesy of Pharma and so even if I were having whatever feelings you're implying-"

The glass slipped in his hand. He squeezed, trying to catch it before it slid out of his grip. Glass shattered and fell to the floor with a splash of good triple-distilled engex.

"Slag it." He stared at his hand. "Slag. Still figuring out the new hands. Pressure modulation is a gearstripper."

Drift slipped off the berth and onto one knee, bending over to pick up the pieces of glass.

"Don't, Drift, I can do it. I'll clean up later," Ratchet said.

"It's no trouble," Drift said, gathering the shards in his hand. At least the glass had broken into large pieces instead of thousands of tiny shards. "And if you're having trouble with pressure modulation, picking all this up is going to be a real pain."

Ratchet let him do it, searching around on his desk to find a box to throw the pieces in until he could get to the waste disposal. Drift sat back on his heels, holding up his hands full of glass pieces for Ratchet to take. Ratchet held the box out and let Drift drop them in.

Drift considered his hands, now dripping with engex, and lifted one hand to his mouth. Ratchet's eyes widened as Drift proceeded to lick the engex off his fingers.

"What are you doing?" Ratchet said, voice pitched uncomfortably high.

Drift tilted his head a bit in confusion, moving onto his other hand. "What do you mean, what am I doing?"

"That was on the floor!"

"I noticed," Drift said, catching a drip sliding down his forearm with his glossa. "The floor doesn't make it not fuel. What, were you just going to waste it?" He stared at the puddle on the floor at Ratchet's feet, then looked back up at Ratchet, expression wounded.

"Yes! Yes, I was going to clean it up. I'm not going to drink engex off the floor, people walk on that floor. I walk on that floor."

"So you don't want it?" Drift said.

"No, I don't want it—Drift, no. What are you doing?"

Drift looked up. From where he was licking the engex up off the floor. "Cleaning it up for you. Since you were planning on wasting it," he hissed. Then he folded back down to continue lapping at the engex.

Ratchet, panicked, grabbed at Drift's helm and pulled him up. "Stop it. That is unsanitary. You're going to make yourself sick and you're already making me uncomfortable."

Drift batted at his hand and pulled away, sitting back on his heels. "I thought you were a doctor. Have you ever heard of anyone getting sick off contaminated engex? It's engex. The energy content is so high it kills pretty much anything." His glossa darted out to swipe the engex off his lip.

Ratchet sighed. "There's plenty of fuel on this ship. You already said you don't even drink engex. You don't need to do this."

"You're going to waste it," Drift said, as if that was the only fact that mattered and as if by repeating it over and over Ratchet was going to understand.

"You're licking it off the floor! You're getting your glossa all over my floor. That's disgusting," Ratchet said feebly, unable to believe he was fighting over less than a centi-dram of distilled engex, a tiny puddle.

Drift's eyes narrowed. His hands, which he'd had resting loosely on his lap, tightened into fists. "I'm disgusting. That's what you mean. I disgust you."

Not breaking eye contact, he licked a strip of floor clean. Right through the middle of the spill.

Ratchet growled. "That's enough. Get out."

Drift licked his lips and leaned back over the puddle.

Ratchet stood up and grabbed Drift by the shoulder, walking towards the door. "You can do whatever weird frag you want in your own room, but when you're my guest I expect you to respect me." Drift didn't put up a fight, just let Ratchet drag him along the ground in silence. Ratchet didn't want to look back and see whatever look Drift was giving him.

Ratchet keyed the door and pointed. "Out."

Drift stood up and stepped outside, his back to Ratchet. "My sword, please." He'd left the Great Sword on the berth when he'd first moved to clean up the broken glass.

"Just a minute," Ratchet said, closing the door. He vented a few times, staring at the closed door, then walked to the berth and picked up the sword. Heavier than he'd expected. He'd never seen Drift let anyone else hold it before. Probably some religious gobbledygook reasoning against it. He stomped back to the door, opened it, and held out the sword. "Here," he said.

Drift was still facing away from the door. He reached a hand back and took the sword, hand somehow wrapping itself around the handle without even looking. "I'm sorry I make you uncomfortable," Drift said stiffly. "I will do my best to stay out of your way."

He clipped the sword onto his back. Ratchet watched him walk away, an uncomfortable feeling circling his spark. Well, a different uncomfortable feeling.

He turned and went back inside, letting the sound of the door latching behind him reassure him that, whatever social situations he would frag up in the future, they weren't going to happen now. His room. It was safe.

He grabbed a cleaning cloth from the emergency medkit by the door. There was barely any engex left to clean up at this point, but he'd do it right. Kneeling, he swiped it up with the cloth and ran his fingers over the spot to make sure no stickiness remained. The cloth went in the boxes with all the shards. He didn't like them sitting on his desk, so he took them out to the hallway waste disposal right away.

He wasn't exactly sure why he found himself scanning the hallways between him and the disposal for any sign of Drift. There wasn't one.

 - before -

"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 -

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 -

"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 -

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 -

"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 -

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.

"You are looking unreasonably grumpy for a medic who just cut his workload by two-thirds," First Aid said. Ratchet huffed, but it wasn't like he could get away from the bot - they were carrying a desk together. Setting up the medibay with three workstations had taken a bit of finagling. They'd ended up moving some of the recovery berths into a habsuite next door and marked up a spot on the wall to put in a door through to the medibay. It'd work.

"Right there!" Ambulon said, scoping it out from a few feet away. They dropped the desk and Ambulon jogged over to help line it up. "I agree with First Aid, by the way. Not that it's any of our business, but is something bothering you?"

"If it's the work schedule, I'm flexible on the double coverage. I just think it's a good idea," First Aid said. "That's how we always did things at Delphi. Two on, one off, unless there's some sort of emergency."

"Well, I can't say as I'm looking forward to losing my nice solitary medibay," Ratchet said. "Not a slight on either of you, I just like my space."

"I can understand that," Ambulon said, dragging over a box with the console setup. "Nobody minds if I take the front-corner desk?"

"You're good," First Aid said. "And both of you are weird. However, I suspect that's not actually what you're grumpy about. If it was, you'd be complaining about it instead of huffing a lot and slamming boxes around. Struggling with the new hands?"

Ratchet sighed. "A bit. I was up for hours last night working on the pressure sensitivity. Retraining your brain to work with new hands takes a lot of work. But no, I got in an argument." First Aid was a digger, he wasn't going to stop till Ratchet gave him something good.

"Oh?" First Aid said, sitting down on the desk and crossing his arms. "With who?"

"I'd rather not say," Ratchet said.

"And we'd rather not pry," Ambulon said. "Get off my desk, First Aid."

"I admit, maybe I could use a second perspective on the issue," Ratchet said, walking back to the pile of boxes and skimming for the other console kit. "Say, hypothetically, you were drinking and you spilled some fuel. What would you do?"

"Clean it up," First Aid said. "Although, maybe if I just spilled it on my desk, I might try and drink it. I've done that before."

"You'd drink Energon off the table?"

"If it was good, sure. Tastes the same. I'd just have to guide it back into the glass real careful-like and I could save some of it. What about you, Ambulon?"

Ambulon hesitated, absently scraping at a paint flake on his hip. "I'd stop myself from drinking if I were in public. Wouldn't want to feed into the ex-Con stereotypes."

"Is that a stereotype?" Ratchet said.

"What about if you weren't in public? What then?” First Aid asked.

Ambulon shoved First Aid off his desk. "Then I'd drink it. And yes," he said, turning to Ratchet, "it is a stereotype. There was a point during the war where our side ran out of food. Dignity got a lot less precious."

“So bots drank fuel wherever they found it?”

Ambulon scratched at his hip, peeling off a long strip of white paint. "Wasting fuel was a definite 'no' unless it was actually contaminated and you'd tested it as such. Usually someone low on the totem pole would be asked to test it with their glossa. Fastest way to be sure.”

“Slag, I will never stop being grateful I started out on the right side of the war,” Ratchet said.

"This is all making me thirsty. Well, not the stuff about starving and contaminating energon, but you know. Someone told me there was a bar on this ship, Ratchet. A secret bar. Could you show us?"

"That'd be Swerve's. Secret is an overly strong word, but," he looked around the medibay, "why not? I could use a drink."

"We haven't finished unpacking," Ambulon protested.

"We have a very narrow window before some fool saws off their own leg, sets themselves on fire or manages to flood the rec lounge with hallucinogens," Ratchet said. "I say we take the chance. The furniture is moved, the boxes we can unpack piecemeal."

They set off down the hallway, First Aid scouting on ahead and Ratchet and Ambulon hanging behind. Even though First Aid had no idea where they were going. Ratchet had to keep calling out directions whenever they hit an intersection in the hallways.

Ambulon, who had been quiet for most of the walk, put his hand on Ratchet's arm as they neared the bar. "About Drift," he said quietly.

"What?" Ratchet said.

Ambulon smiled. "You are far more transparent than you suspect, and Drift is the only other ex-Con on this ship. So, about Drift: I know fuel on this ship makes me anxious. Do we have enough? What if we ran out and we were stranded?"

"I'm sure we have an emergency plan."

"I'm sure we don't. I went looking for it while we were still aboard the shuttle from Delphi," Ambulon said sharply. "Sorry. Like I said, it makes me anxious. And then worrying about running out of fuel and seeing so many bots acting like it's a limitless resource? That makes it worse. Just a thought."

"Are you guys coming or what?" First Aid said. "I found the bar."

"We're coming," Ambulon said, stepping away from Ratchet. They walked into the dull roar that was Swerve's together. Maybe Ratchet could grow to appreciate having coworkers. As long as they could mind their own business most of the time.

Later that shift cycle, Ratchet sent off his initial proposed emergency fuel management plan to Magnus. The plan did hinge upon them installing a subspace hatch in the medibay, and he wasn't sure when that would be possible. Not unless they made landfall back on Cybertron. Then there were planets in their flight path that they could assess for possible fuel reserves. Other than that it was mainly rationing, accounting and accountability. All stuff that was more Magnus's forte than his, hence sending it off to Magnus.

He hesitated, finger hovering over the send button for the second recipient. It didn't have to mean anything and it wasn't specifically an apology, he reminded himself. Just putting something to rights.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he hit send and turned off the screen. Pushing away from the desk, he stood up and walked over to his berth. The room was really just the right size to seem unpleasantly large when there was only one person in it. Too much empty space, he decided. Maybe he could store some of the supplies they'd brought in from Delphi in his hab—that'd free up some room in the medibay.

Something snapped under his foot. Ratchet lifted his foot and groaned, seeing the lost laser scalpel from the night before.

"I guess it's good we got more of these," he said, reaching down to pick it up between his thumb and forefinger. It only took a bit of concentration this time to get the pressure sensitivity right, and he picked it up on the second try.

When he stood up, there was an alert blinking on his HUD. one new message. He'd disabled full messages on his actual HUD; it was far too distracting while he was at work. He flipped open his arm panel to see the readout.

one new message, from: Drift

Thank you for the apology. I forgive you.

"That was not an apology, you ridiculous fragging-" he snapped the panel shut before he could be tempted to pen a response. "Whatever. He can think whatever he wants."

He was going to sleep this off, go to work the next day and finally get back to polishing up those hands, which he'd left sitting on his desk the night before.

Chapter Text

Ratchet's comm chimed. He froze in the hallway, not even halfway to his habsuite. He flipped the comm open and said, "I just left. What. Now."

"I've got good news and bad news," Ambulon said. Ambulon. A sensible bot. Less likely to be something stupid, more likely to be an actual problem he had to physically go back and fix.

Ratchet turned around and started back to the medibay. "Out with it, then," he said.

"Well, the good news is Rodimus has seen fit to give every member of the crew a Rodimus Star for our "exceptional endurance in the face of adversity". He dropped off yours in the medibay already."

"Excellent. I can add it to my collection of scrap metal to melt down for frame lining," Ratchet said dryly. "I won't even ask how he managed to make all those while investigating both of our recent crises. Well, if that's meant to suffice as our good news, what's the bad?"

"I need you back in the medibay," Ambulon said apologetically.

Called it.

"And why is that?" Ratchet said, nodding to Hoist as he passed him in the hall.

"First Aid is still out with Perceptor and Brainstorm, trying to figure out why Brainstorm didn't unfreeze with the rest of the crew. And I've got a patient here who's refusing treatment from me."

Ratchet sighed and buzzed the door open, snapping the comm closed as he strode into the medibay, "So who's the gearstick who doesn't think my medic's good enough for him?"

The answer was immediately obvious. Ambulon was sequestered at his desk, hunched over his comm. Their earlier patients, Dipstick and Smokescreen, had already been released. That left only Fervor, sitting pretty on the slab in the back. Both of his legs sitting on his lap. Hand grenade tag, I'd bet my left optic. Some bots need to be on-shift every waking moment to keep them from doing something stupid and destroying property. I should talk to Magnus and see if there's any riveting that needs redoing on the outer hull.

"It's not a question of skill," Fervor said, crossing his arms. "I don't want a Decepticon touching me."

Ratchet crossed his arms and gave Fervor his best stare. "It may have escaped your attention, but Ambulon is not a Decepticon. He had his Act of Affiliation ten years ago."

"Okay," Fervor said. "And before that he worked with the Cons that just raided our ship."

"I do not care," Ratchet said. "Now, you have a right to refuse treatment, but there are three medics on this ship. I am off duty. First Aid is busy and won't be back for a couple of hours. Ambulon is the only medic on duty. You can have him treat you or you can wait until I'm back on duty in..." Ratchet considered his chrono, "seven hours. You probably won't leak out in that time."

Ambulon spoke up. "Ratchet, can you please-"

"Start the precedent that one of my two medics isn't trustworthy? No. You are as much a member of the medical staff as First Aid and myself. In a crisis we will not be able to pander to individuals' medic preferences. So, Fervor? I'm going to need you to tough it out until I'm back on duty or I'm going to need you to deal with it."

Fervor glared at Ratchet. Ratchet stared back, unimpressed. You don't walk into my medibay and insult my staff.

"Fine," Fervor said. "He can do it."

"Thank you, Fervor," Ambulon said, standing up. He shared a nervous glance with Ratchet before picking up his medkit and slowly approaching the berth. "Now, first we're going to need to reconnect the main strut. That can be fairly painful, so we'll install a neural blocker before we get started." Ambulon waved the medibot over as he dug through his kit for a neural linkup.

Ratchet nodded and turned to go. He made it exactly as far as the doorway before Fervor hissed something to Ambulon with the air of a threat. Ratchet spun around in time to see Fervor holding one of his enormous arm canons at Ambulon.

"I'm watching you," Fervor said.

Ratchet drew and leveled his blaster then stomped back into the medibay, flicking open his comm as he went. "Put that down and get away from my medic."

Ambulon put his hands up, scalpel falling to the floor. "I'm sorry. I said there would be a sting when the blocker went in."

"Don't worry Doc, I've got this handled," Fervor said. "I'm just encouraging him to be good. Nothing's going to happen as long as he doesn't do any weird Decepticon scrap."

"You've got this handled?" Ratchet repeated, before leaning into his comm. "Security? I need an agent in the medibay, I have a rouge crewmember threatening the staff."

"Acknowledged, Ratchet," Red Alert said. "Someone is on their way."

"Look, Fervor, I'll just stop," Ambulon said, standing very still. "Ratchet can take the case."

"No, no, you can do it," Fervor said. "Just no Con trickery. Keep working."

"Ambulon, stay where you are and don't move," Ratchet said. "And Fervor? This gun isn't for show. I want you to know that one more warrior bot with a big gun is a great deal less useful to me than my medic. If you harm him in any way I will shoot. And good luck getting someone to fix you then."

"Pfft," Fervor whistled. "You doctors all take an oath to be to do no harm. You're not going to shoot me, Doc. We both know that."

"I'm not going to shoot you first," Ratchet said, putting as much emphasis as he could on that word. "So just let Ambulon walk away and we can settle this in the brig."

The door buzzed. "Ratchet?" Drift called.

 - 2 hours ago -

They had been frozen. Some science experiment gone wrong of Brainstorm's, sent a blast through the ship and paralyzed everyone in place. So they'd been frozen, but they'd still been able to see and hear as the Decepticon crew boarded the ship and searched it top-to-bottom, looking for who knows what. Two Cons had come into the medibay. They knew whatever they were looking for wasn't inside, but they saw some bots they recognized and they just couldn't resist.

"Sure is convenient that they're all frozen like this," the red Con had said. "Saves us having to kill them all."

"Saves us having to. But you gotta admit, for some bots? It's pretty tempting." The Con ran his fingers over Ratchet's outstretched hand. "How long do you think the 'bots would have lasted without their CMO? Twenty years, before the Big Guy got a hole punched through his chest and he burned out and died? No ‘miracle hands’ to save him."

"Sounds 'bout right. Nice hands, Doc. They don't really match your color scheme, do they?"

The other Con said. "Do you figure they can hear us?"

"Who knows. Do we have time to-"

"Nah. Lockdown said to be snappy looking for the merchandise. No time to play. Shoot him or don't, but we gotta keep moving."

"Ratchet!" Drift repeated. He'd crept up behind him, two swords drawn.

 - many, many years ago -

Ratchet was elbows deep inside Trunnian, trying to seal as many burst energon lines as he could before the tiny bot leaked dry. The hole in his chest cavity was wide enough to fit both his hands inside. "Don't you dare fade on me," he hissed, fumbling the scalpel, hands sticky with fuel. "Don't you dare."

His security knelt beside the body, guns on the skyline as they waited for their emergency evac. "It was Deadlock," one of them explained. "Trunnian's the only bot left alive. We need him, Doc, he's the only one who can tell us if they still have-"

"Drift, I need you to leave," Ratchet said, keeping his optics on Fervor. "I've got a patient who's very agitated about ex-Decepticons and I need any other member of the security team right now who isn't an ex-Decepticon to handle the situation."

"Ratchet, the rest of the team is coming, they'll just be a minute. I was closest," Drift said. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

"I need you to get out," Ratchet repeated.

 - a few years ago -

"Whose files are these?" Ratchet had asked, flipping through the latest updates from the Wreckers.

Fixit looked up from his files. "Drift. He's Kup's latest stray. Decepticon defector turned neutral. Back when he was a Decepticon he went by-"

"Deadlock," Ratchet said. "I know. I've treated more than enough of his victims. Are they sure his defection is real?"

"At this point, I think they're desperate for whatever help they can get. Even if it comes to them with a bit of energon on his hands."

The rest of the security team ran into the room and surrounded Fervor. Ratchet rounded on Drift. He was still standing there with his swords in his hands, standing frozen. Face confused. "Get out!" Ratchet shouted. "I don't need you here.”

 - before -

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.

 - later -

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 -

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.

- later -

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. Gasket was always the one telling them they had to be quiet and always the first one to forget his own rules.

"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 his head 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 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 -

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. "You've clearly never seen a real guttermech. 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.

 - later -

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 the entire company get replaced by 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 -

"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 impassive 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 -

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."

Drained, Ratchet waited for the elevator to take him to his habsuite. Giving testimony to Ultra Magnus about throwing a crewmember in the brig was not how he'd expected to spend his off time.

"Doesn't it make you uneasy, Rad?" Someone said behind him.

Ratchet checked over his shoulder. Two bots who worked shifts in the shuttle bay, Rad and Rollout. Their names and paintjobs were too similar for him to remember which was which. He didn't know them that well, he was pretty sure Rad had worked at Kimia with Chromedome and the rest.

"I mean, yes, it makes me uneasy," the other bot said. Rad. So the other one was talking earlier had to have been Rollout. "But what exactly would you do about it? He's the third in command, for Primus' sake. Clearly, high command trusts him."

"But an ex-Decepticon, wandering around the ship, armed to the teeth? Throwing himself into fights? Jackpot told me that 'Drift' nearly ran him over right after the raid. Zooming around in alt-mode like he had somewhere to be in a hurry. And then it's not just him. There's also Cyclonus and that's a whole other story. He doesn't even pretend to be reformed."

Ratchet considered walking over. It was bad for morale, that kind of talk. Rodimus would want to know about it. But can you blame them for being scared right now? They'll settle down in a few days. We all will.

"Oh yeah, out of the two," Rad said. "Cyclonus is definitely scarier. Drift is...absurdly pleasant? He offered to help me arrange my habsuite when I mentioned it felt cluttered in there. Offered to do a 'sigil reading' to figure out the energy balance of the space. He's a little kooky, but he's nothing like Cyclonus."

"No, see, he does that deliberately. He knows that we all know that he's personally responsible for killing...I don't know. Lots of Autobots. So he hides in that soft, harmless persona to stop you from thinking about it so much. I mean, do you think it's a coincidence that Decepticons raided-"

"Excuse me." Perceptor cut in. "I'm sorry, I do not make interrupting others a habit."

Ratchet looked over again. Perceptor had wandered out of his lab, face steely. Body posed in a way that promised imminent violence, despite the lack of a weapon in his hand. The two red bots were frozen, Rad staring with especial horror. He's a science bot. They all hang on Perceptor's every word.

"I couldn't help overhearing you slandering the character of some of your crewmates," Perceptor continued. "If you have security concerns, you are free to bring them to Ultra Magnus, or to Red Alert. If you have anything but your personal biases behind this frankly unscientific fear-mongering? You may feel free to go through the proper channels."

Perceptor made eye contact with Ratchet over their heads and Ratchet felt a stir of inexplicable guilt. He looked away, looking back at the elevator controls. It chimed and the doors opened, Ratchet stepped inside.

"Drift has been an Autobot for years. He has personally sacrificed his life for yours and mine in that time. There is nothing he can do to erase the past you want to hold over his head. What would you have him do, for the sake of your comfort?"

The doors shut and left him alone with his thoughts. Drift's face as Ratchet threw him out of the medibay, the confusion blooming across his face as he backed away, hands raised as if Ratchet might have been planning to hit him. He sighed, letting his head rest against the wall of the elevator. What could Drift possibly do to make this feeling go away? I don't even know.

Chapter Text

The observation deck was quiet. Nobody else had retreated there after their brush with death. Ratchet pulled up a chair in the corner. He stared out at the stars, hands shaking a little.

They'd been teleported back onto the ship; the Metrotitan's work, obviously. The ship was teleported away from the incineration bubble the Galactic Council had set on them. The Metrotitan again, Perceptor assured them. Ratchet had looked over the other crewmembers who'd been fighting down on the planet. No serious injuries. He'd passed them over to Ambulon when he showed up to help and made good his escape.

Over the shipwide intercom, Ultra Magnus gave a brief summary of events for the crew, then directed any bots that needed immediate trauma counseling to proceed to the rec lounge. Apparently Magnus was planning on leading a group therapy session himself, which would be...interesting. The transmission ended in an unholy burst of static.

He'd stepped over a line. He didn't need someone to tell him that. What he'd said to Drift...every Autobot you murdered—every Autobot I failed to fix—is crouching on your back! It's not enlightenment you're after—it's absolution. He wasn't even sure if he believed that, it had just slipped out. The way Drift threw his religion in Ratchet's face every chance he got. The way he acted like he'd just stepped out of the body of Deadlock and was born again as Drift, Drift with all the answers and no doubts. Like he could just walk away from all his failures, while Ratchet was stuck wallowing in his mistakes. He'd stepped over the line. The idea that Rodimus of all people had to break them up before things could get out of hand...he had no excuses.

Someone came in. Ratchet ignored them. As long as nobody bothered him, he was content to stay. It hadn't been the sort of day he'd been expecting. He'd gone on-shift planning to play a perfunctory role in Tailgate's ceremony and then have to politic with Dai Atlas and the other diplomats the Circle of Light had chosen to send aboard. He didn't adjust to surprises as well as he used to. He could remember a time when he was young when a near death experience, a few mysteries and a fist-fight would have been preferable to a day of hobnobbing with religious philosophers. When he was much, much younger.

There was a soft clatter of metal from the other side of the room. Ratchet looked over. Drift had settled on the floor by the windows and was spreading a set of colored metallic triangles out on the ground in front of him. His shoulders looked tight. He hadn't let Ambulon fix that cut on his side. Ratchet forced himself to look away.

For a few minutes the room was their kingdom. Drift shuffled the little triangles around on the floor in meaningless patterns. Ratchet ignored him. He wasn't sure if Drift had noticed him, but he wasn't going to be the one to make it awkward by calling attention to himself and leaving.

But then a few more bots trickled in. Hoist brought a datapad with him and settled in the far corner to read. Skater, Flex and Borer came in with a game of fullstasis and set up by Hoist. Presumably they'd been run out of the rec lounge by Magnus's traumatized crewmembers. They chattered in low voices, the clicking of game pieces joining the gentle shuffle of whatever the frag Drift was doing with those little triangles. Ratchet carried on ignoring them all, doing his best to exude a 'grumpy old man, do not bother' attitude to scare of any potential socializers.

"Oh, hey! Drift!" Rodimus pranced into the room, leaning over Drift's shoulder to see what he was doing. "Was wondering where you'd wandered off to. You weren't in your room. What are you working on?"

Drift was already shuffling the metal triangles back into a pile and pushing himself to his feet. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to—I must have turned my comms off. Did you need me?"

"What? No. Sit down, sit down," Rodimus said, flopping onto the floor next to Drift. "Just got bored listening to Percy give me his opinions on the teleport technology used on Galactic cruisers and I went to go find my buddy. What are these?" He asked, picking up a triangle and tilting it to catch the lights.

Drift settled back down and uncurled a little. "It's a casting fragment. You use them to answer questions."

"Spectralism stuff?" Rodimus asked, picking up a second triangle.

"Sorta. Not all Spectralists believe that casting ceremonies have a link to Primus. Some think they're manipulated by ambient energies that surround us, some think they're just a way of centering yourself and intuiting your own answers. I haven't quite made up my mind yet," Drift said. "But I had some questions that have no answers. This felt more productive than just sitting in my room and letting them fester."

Ratchet watched as Rodimus momentarily attempted to find something to say about Drift's feelings and then immediately pivoted to something lighter. "So, how does it work? Could I ask a question, or do you have to be a Spectralist already?"

Drift smiled at him. "I could ask a question for you. Um, you let the shards fall, in a certain order. Then you dismiss the shards that fall outside the circle," he sketched out a circle on the floor with his finger. "The rest you rearrange into the closest of the nine forms. Then you can read them."

"Okay, let me think of something. What were you asking?"

"If my belief in spark restoration was tainted by the things I've done and if it was selfish to want—"

"Okay, what if I asked where your friends went?"

Drift stuttered, then shook his head. "The Circle of Light? It's not an oracle. That kind of question you can only get answered in dreams. And only if Primus wants you to know."

"Darn. Well, tell me if you have any dreams. We're trying to narrow down a search radius. Okay, can it tell me whether Ultra Magnus secretly respects me?"

Drift chuckled. "Rodimus, that's not what it's for."

"Well, what is it for? Educate me, oh wise master."

 - before -

"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.

 - later -

"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. Always a pity to see a good mech driven back to a life of crime by their circumstances. " 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 -

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 bore 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 -

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 -

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. My friends all 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 -

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."

Ratchet pushed himself to his feet, knee joints creaking. Drift and Rodimus had been run out of the room by some emergency comm from Ultra Magnus, so he was finally free to go. Not a medical emergency, he presumed, since nobody had called him. Or maybe it was and Ambulon and First Aid were simply capable of handling it themselves. He walked along the window, looking out into space. The room had emptied over the course of Drift's elaborate explanations of Spectralist rituals that Rodimus had urged him into. It was quiet again. But he could hardly spend all day hiding on the observation deck. There would be work to be done back in the medibay eventually. If he didn't recharge at some point Ambulon and First Aid were going to catch him skipping and whine about it again.

He turned to go but was stopped by a sparkle of something reflective on the floor. He stooped over and picked it up. One of Drift's 'casting shards' or whatever he'd called them. This one was coated in white enamel. He flipped it over and found notes written on the back in Drift's compact penmanship: White. Color absent of intention. Represents the possibility of change and growth. Not a positive color by nature, it is tinted by the surrounding shards. Secondary meanings: duty, remembrance, guilt.

His feet somehow managed to bring him to Drift's door, unbidden. He looked down at the metal triangle cupped in his hand, then back at the door. Likely, he won't even be there. He knocked.

"One moment," Drift said. Then the door opened.

Drift looked smaller without all the swords he habitually wore. He looked up at Ratchet in confusion, which then colored into shame. "Ratchet. I should have gone to find you. I apologize if I scared you, back on the planet. You have to know I would never really hurt you."

"Kid, you're not the one that needs to apologize," Ratchet said. He held up the triangle. "You left this behind, I just came to give it back to you. And to say that I went too far, earlier, and I know it. We all have to go on with our own guilt, however we can. I shouldn't be begrudging whatever helps you keep existing, even if it's stupid and unscientific."

Drift smiled. Ratchet had never really gone in for describing smiles as 'bright'. However happy you were, your mouth did not emit light. But he thought he might have understood the meaning just then, because he could feel his own spark shining back in response.

Chapter Text

Pulling the curtain closed behind him, Ratchet sat down next to Tripwire's berth. A little privacy for doing maintenance on the unfortunate offlined bot. Still no sign of resurging cerebral activity, he noted mechanically. If they had a CR chamber, maybe he could have attempted surgery. As it was, the bots who'd been swept out of the ship would either recover on their own or they'd wait till the Lost Light made it back to Cybertron. Or maybe the Knights would have a full surgical suite. You never knew.

He topped up Tripwire's fuel store and checked the connections on all the wires methodically. Drained and replaced the circulating lubricants, checked that his position on the slab wasn't putting stress on any of his kibble. Frame rub could crush kibble on an off-lined bot if you didn't keep an eye on it. His vitals looked stable. The fuel lines that had ruptured in vacuum and been replaced were taking well.

Someone walked into the medibay, near silent footsteps that stopped by Rung's berthside. They paused. They didn't call for assistance. Ratchet rattled through his memory banks, looking for a matching bot. Not Ambulon or First Aid, that was for sure. He put down his kit and stepped through the curtain to the main of the darkened medibay. "Hello?" He said. "Do you need something?"

Drift jumped, then looked guiltily at Ratchet. One of Rung's hands was cradled in his. "The lights were out," he observed with great mental acuity.

"It's good for the long term patients to not have the lights at full blast all the time. Simulating a night cycle can help their internal rhythms recalibrate," Ratchet said. "And keeping the lights off discourages visitors. Usually discourages visitors, I should say."

"I can go," Drift said, stepping away from Rung's berthside.

"You can stay, if you want. He's not been getting a lot of visitors. Missing head freaks people out," Ratchet said, pulling over a chair to sit down. "His prognosis is good, just so you know. We've completed repairs on his helm, we'll be refitting it around the brain module after Chromedome checks him out. A lot of brain injury recovery is up to the patient, of course, but there's a chance he'll make a full recovery."

Drift sat down on the other side of the berth, resting his head in his hands. "I should have stopped him."

"Fort Max?"

"Rodimus," Drift said. "I knew it was the wrong call. Rewind already had Fortress Maximus subdued. We could have had the security team come in through the door and take him into custody. When Rodimus said to take the shot...I should have stopped him."

"Mm," Ratchet said, considering his options. "Well, I've never found post mortem dissections of my decisions to be very helpful. If you knew it was the wrong call, you should have said something. Sure. But what are the odds you'd say something in time to stop Rodimus? Full speed ahead Rodimus?"

Drift shrugged. "It's not rational, I know."

"Guilt isn't about logic, most of the time. And by and large? It's pretty damn useless. Maybe it was guilt that fueled that pretty speech Rodimus gave about Rung here, but I doubt that's going to stop him from leaping head-first into the next disaster. Maybe you feel guilty about this now, but are you going to stand up to the captain next time he's making a mistake? Or are you going to trot along after him and bite your tongue?" Ratchet steepled his hands and gave Drift a bitter smile.

Drift laughed. "Thanks, Ratchet. I feel a lot better," he said. He pushed himself to his feet. "I don't think I want to hear your opinions on my friendship with Rodimus. I'll see myself out."

"Kid, wait," Ratchet said. "Stay. If you want. I've got other patients to see to, you can sit with Rung." He stood up and shrugged. "I don't think you feeling guilty serves much use, but if you wanted to help out, listening to the Cybertronian voice is supposed to be good for recovery. Sit with him awhile. Talk. See if you feel better."

Drift softened at the apology Ratchet didn't say, then sat back down. Ratchet walked away to attend to his other patients, tuning out Drift's voice as best he could. That lasted a few minutes. Ratchet could admit it to himself, he was fascinated by Drift. It wasn't just his medical history that was full of gaps. Drift was a long line of blank spaces, centering around that one encounter back in Dead End, all the way back in the day. His fascination wasn't all guilt, even though Ratchet kept continually sticking his foot in his mouth around Drift. He didn't set out to needle him about religion, or the Cons, or Rodimus, or whatever weird thing Drift was doing or going on about. It just slipped out. And Drift would fold and he'd feel like shit. Because he'd seen Deadlock back during the war, he knew Deadlock didn't take slag from anyone. So what did this new Drift mean—the way he apologized and ran away from any argument?

It wasn't any of his business, what Drift and Rodimus did. Even if he thought the way Drift hung on Rod's every word and ran around to do his bidding and bought him an entire spaceship and wrote his speeches seemed a little...much. You've not got much room to criticism them for being bad at normal friendship stuff. Maybe this just works for them. He just worried that they fed into each other, an unending cycle of worse and worse decisions.

At first he thought Drift might be saying some religious slag, voice sotto voce, but then he recognized a long-ago familiar tune. Drift was...singing? It took even longer for him to match that tune to the lyrics long forgotten in his memory banks. It was a song he'd used to hear around his Dead End clinic, a raucous call and response song that the drunks would sing out on the streets. The first singer would sing where had it gone? His money, his friends, his place to sleep. The second singer would crow back that it had been taken by the government, rotten greedy scum. But Drift was only singing the first part. Alone, the song lost its gleeful bitterness and just felt sad.

"Where'd they go? All my friends, ones we said would never part? Ones I'd given half my spark, where'd they go?" Drift crooned. "I had begged of them to stay, but time has taken them away. Where'd they go?"

No second singer, Drift hummed a mournful version of the chorus under his breath.

 - before -

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 -

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 -

"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 built-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 led 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 -

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. "Sometimes it seems command is one long series of mistakes. 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 -

"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."

 - later -

"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 -

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.

The emergency lights flashed and the siren blared. Swerve's bar was awash in red, everyone rising to their feet in panic. Ratchet punched at the digits on his comm and called up Rodimus. "What's the emergency?" He had to shout to be heard over the alarm.

"What emergency?" Rodimus asked.

"Why are the sirens on?"

"We've found Decepticons on Temptoria. We think they're holding the Circle of Light."

Ratchet waited a beat. "Okay. Why is the emergency alert on, then?"

Rodimus paused before answering. "Too much?"

"A little bit," Ratchet said. "Maybe use the intercom and tell people what's happening. I've got to take a patient back to the medibay, let me know if you have an actual emergency that you need help with." The lights switched back to normal and the siren petered out shortly after. Nodding decisively, Ratchet shut his comm and rolled his eyes. "Come on, Skids, let's get Rung back to the medibay. Thanks for trying, Rewind."

Skids popped up from where he was kneeling in front of Rung, huge grin plastered on his face. "No, it worked!" He pushed Rung over to them. "He just spoke to me. A 'lil bit."

"Oh?" Ratchet said. "That's great." He knelt down in front of Rung. "Hey, we're going to take you back to the medibay for now, Rung. When Rodimus gets this 'mission' out of his system we'll run another scan."

"Can he understand you?" Skids asked.

Ratchet shrugged. "Hard to be sure. It's possible he can understand, but he probably won't remember much of this. But you don't just wheel your patients around without telling them what's happening. It's disrespectful."

Skids and Ratchet made their goodbyes and headed off down the hallway. Skids chit-chatted with Rung as they went, leaving Ratchet to run through what preparations he'd need to make in the medibay before Rodimus's 'mission'. Ambulon and First Aid were probably already handling it, but it was reflex at this point. Worrying kept people alive.

When they got to the medibay, First Aid was there and waiting. Looking antsy. "Ratchet!" He said, motioning him off to the side. "Now, don't get upset. Drift told me you were collaborating in an experimental therapy for Rung...I didn't want to interrupt you. But there was a bit of a medical emergency while you were out."

He explained about Red Alert. He looked relieved when Ratchet didn't immediately yell at him for making the call solo. It was the right call. Especially with Rung still in the early stages of his emergence therapy. There really wasn't anyone qualified to help Red Alert right now.

"I'll need to check on him," Ratchet said. "Not a judgment on your quality of work, you understand."

"He's in the cold storage room," First Aid said. "I think Drift is still back there. He seemed a bit shaken up by the decision. I mean, Rodimus was too. But he got a message and zoomed out of here and now apparently we're attacking Temptoria? But Drift looked pretty unsettled after he left."

"I'll talk to him," Ratchet promised, then made his way back to the cold storage room. First Aid could get Rung settled in again.

Sure enough, Drift was there, sitting up against the cold storage lockers. He had an ugly scrape across his cheek. Ratchet walked over without Drift seeming to notice and knelt to get a look at it.

Drift's optics flicked over at him when Ratchet poked at the scrape. "Cyclonus," he said dully. "My fault."

"Doesn't look too bad," Ratchet said. "I can patch it, but it'll probably heal fine on its own. You doing okay?"

"What? Yeah, it's fine," Drift said, waving Ratchet off, staring at some point over Ratchet's shoulder.

"I meant about Red Alert," Ratchet said. "You were on the security team. Knowing you, you're probably blaming yourself for a lot of things right now."

Drift chuckled darkly. "It's possible. I saw signs. Rod saw signs. I...I'm mad at Rodimus and I'm not being fair," Drift said.

"Hey, kid, you're allowed to be mad," Ratchet said. "It's okay."

"It just feels like everything is spiraling out of control," Drift said. "Everything. And I don't know what to do to hold everyone together."

"That's not your job," Ratchet said. Slag it, this was not his specialty. Just don't say anything about Rodimus. Or Decepticons. Or religion. Primus, don't let him bring up Primus. "We've had a run of bad luck lately. But that doesn't mean anything about destiny. It's just bad luck. Things'll even out."

In need of something to do to keep his hands busy, Ratchet climbed back to his feet and opened up the cold chamber. They'd reattached Red Alert's head near seamlessly. It was good work. His hands moved over each of the connections, checking that they were flush.

"Thanks, Ratch," Drift said softly. "Sometimes, you're a good-"

Drift's communicator blared to life with a clatter of static. "Drift!" Rodimus yelled. "Where are you? We're waiting for you to lift off!" In the background Ratchet could pick up a faint chant, a crowd of bots shouting something that sounded suspiciously like 'We kill Cons.'

Drift cringed. "Sorry, Rod. I'll be there in a minute. Sorry."

"Well, hurry it up! Rodimus out!"

Drift stood up, shrugging apologetically at Ratchet. "I should go. Sorry I fell apart like that on you."

Ratchet rolled his eyes. "You didn't fall apart Drift, you had an emotion. It's not a crime." He patted Drift on the shoulder. "Come back safe, okay?"

Drift nodded. "Of course. See you?"

"Hopefully not because you got yourself shot, but sure, I'll see you around," Ratchet said.

Drift waved, a little awkwardly, then jogged out of the room. Ratchet watched him go, worrying. Worrying kept people alive. But Drift's problems weren't something he could fix with a well-stocked medibay and an encyclopedic knowledge of fuel line disorders. He needs a friend. He needs a friend outside of Rodimus.

Not really his department.

Chapter Text

There was a body on his berth. Ratchet blinked, frazzled brain trying to pick up the pieces and reassemble them into some sort of coherent narrative. He'd left the medibay after eight back-to-back emergency surgeries. He could have crashed on a berth in the medibay, but the scent of spilled energon had seeped all the way down to his struts and he'd wanted to shower off and sleep in his own berth. The door had most certainly been locked. There was a body on his berth.

He was already at their side checking vitals before his brain belatedly informed him the body was Drift. Frame cold, low spark reading with a slight flicker...his brain finally reminded him that he'd given Drift the door code for if he ever felt one of his paralysis episodes coming on. He hadn't expected one so soon, but Drift had mentioned they were often stress mediated. Temptoria seemed pretty fraggin stressful from Ratchet's side of things.

This might be his one chance to confirm his theory. Hands flying, Ratched unpacked his emergency kit from under the berth and got a full set of cerebral probes out in a twisted tangle on the bed. He growled at the twisted wiring. His hands were still tacky from undissolved fuel embedded in the seams from surgery and they didn't want to move right but he got the slagging wires straightened out after a few minutes of cursing. That seemed a solid confirmation that Drift was out out and not just in recharge. Annoying peppy little slagger definitely would have woken up and given him some slag about the motivating powers of positive language.

Ratchet smeared each of the probes with contact gel and stuck them onto Drift's helm, giving his chart a quick lookover to make sure the right numbers were going on the right places exactly. Hadn't been much use in this kind of setup since command started throwing mnemosurgeons willy-nilly at every brain-related scenario. Ratchet plugged in the monitor and watched as the flickering readings appeared on the screen.

Exactly as he'd thought.

Pleased with his discovery, Ratchet set the monitor to record and checked over Drift's vitals again. He looked peaceful, slumped on Ratchet's berth, arms curled in towards his chest. Also a little goofy, thirty wires ballooning away from his helm like a human who'd just gotten an electric shock, hair standing all on end. But he wasn't in any danger and the readings looked steady. It'd be safe to take a quick shower and scrub down his hands.

Safe, maybe, but Ratchet felt uneasy with his patient out of sight. After he sonic'ed off any remaining liquid, he returned to the berthroom to detail clean his hands where he could watch over Drift. He nudged Drift's feet over a bit to make room to put his legs up on the berth and set to it. You always gave the hands a good soak after surgery, but the internal attachments never came completely clean that way. If you wanted to keep a good sharp finish on them you had to maintain after each surgery.

Absent-mindedly, Ratchet checked his comm for updates from Ambulon. Spoke and Lockstock had been the worst off, but he was fairly confident they'd resurface soon. Ambulon promised to send word if there was any update on his patients. The rest of them Ratchet wasn't too worried about. Pipes was an easy fix, Dogfight had just needed an optic replaced, Swerve was an idiot but physically doing fine. Rad had been a limb reattachment surgery, easy as breathing. And then Sureshot and Hoist had just been severed fuel lines, no major systems hit. It could have been worse.

Could have been worse, but then again, they could have avoided the debacle entirely. Ratchet had no clue how Rodimus had landed on the idea that the Cons on Temptoria were holding the Circle, but they obviously weren't. He certainly hoped their plan wasn't just to throw themselves at any Cons who wandered across their path until they found the right bunch. Or were all murdered, whichever happened first.

The monitor beeped and Ratchet perked up. Setting aside his kit, he wandered over to Drift. Cerebral activity was picking up, especially in the dead zone. It'd probably be only a few minutes.

That decided, Ratchet carefully crossed his arms and stared down at Drift with his most disapproving stare and waited.

The delay was just long enough that Ratchet had started to consider the possibility he'd misjudged, but then Drift's optics blearily flickered on. He stared up at Ratchet, face perplexed. Then lifted a hand to touch at one of the trailing probe wires coming off his helm

"And what, exactly, did I say to do if you were going to have an episode and needed somewhere to wait it out?" Ratchet said, ignoring Drift's confused stare. "Did I say to sneak into my room and steal my bed? Because I don't remember saying that."

Drift scrunched up his face and tried to say something, a garbled blur sliding out of his mouth. Ratchet raised his brow, unimpressed. Drift stuck his glossa out at him like a newframe. After humming several testing notes, Drift tried again, voice soft. "I tried to comm you? You were in surgery."

"Okay, that's fair," Ratchet said. "But you could have left a memo."

Drift scrunched his face up even farther. "Tried. I was having trouble seeing to write it. Vision blurs sometimes. Are Spoke and Lockstock..."

"They're going to pull through," Ratchet said, sitting down on the berth beside him. "A rough surgery, but none of the many things that could have gone wrong did. They're in the recovery room now. Are you gonna ask?"

"Ask wha—oh. The wires. I was assuming this was some kind of practical joke, in retaliation," Drift said.

"Oh, I am getting you back for the hands. And it will be far sweeter revenge than this." Ratchet said, waving Drift off. "It's actually a cerebral scanner setup, I was measuring your brain module activity during the fritz. Hope that's okay, I figured that when circumstances came up I'd be able to get your consent over comms. But then I didn't want to waste my chance."

Drift shrugged. "I trust you."

And wasn't that an interesting choice of words. It wasn't the premise of surprise medical treatments that seemed to rattle Drift. He'd have sworn it was the medibay itself. Ratchet could make a number of guesses where that might have come from, all of them unpleasant.

He let it slide for now. "Well, I've been doing some research on your case in my spare time. And I found a few pre-war records of cold-created bots with similar symptoms—apparent disassociation and paralysis. In that case it was linked to a low quality mainlining program, it'd fail while they were in a state of maximal cerebral connection building and stunt a region of growth. That was about the extent of the investigation, of course, because there wasn't money in fixing maintenance bots with obscure neurological conditions."

"Of course," Drift said, fingertips picking at the edge of one of the probes.

"So, does that ring any bells? Can you remember back to your thawing protocol?"

Drift looked over at him and frowned. "I'm cold," he said.

Ratchet rolled his optics. "You're a few degrees below normal, your sensornet is just oversensitive because your brain got accustomed to not receiving input." It was nothing dangerous, racing frames just chilled easily. Ratchet swung his legs up onto the berth to sit beside Drift, pressing his leg against cold plating. The berth was really too small for two bots. "Anyway, are you going to answer my question?"

Drift shook his head. "Can we skip to the part where you say what's wrong with me and we take these things off my helm? They itch."

"What's wrong? Well, best I can tell, your brain has associated a feeling of intense stress with a sudden loss of sensory and motor control. Basically, you fall into the same protocols that we engage when we enter recharge in order to prevent our bodies from acting out dreams, only you fall into it while you're awake."

"That's not really news," Drift grumbled. "Is it a thing that could be fixed?"

Ratchet shrugged. "Probably. It'd take a couple mnemosurgery sessions, at least. Rebuilding circuitry that never took as a newframe is tricky, sometimes it doesn't want to take. Why? I thought you didn't want it fixed?"

Drift powered his optics back off and rolled over, hiding his face against Ratchet's side. "It's been getting worse. Three times since we took off? I hadn't had one in centuries."

"Well, maybe the command position is overstressing you. Or maybe stabbing yourself in the spark is bad for your health. It'd be experimental surgery, but if things continue like this and you want us to try, just let me know."

"Not with mnemosurgery," Drift said. "If you think of anything else...I might try it. But mnemosurgeons die in surgery. This is just scaring me. It wouldn't be right to ask Chromedome to do that for me."

"You could remind Rodimus of that sometime," Ratchet said. "But I understand. I'll keep looking and let you know if I find anything else that could help."

"Okay," Drift said in a small, sleepy sounding voice.

Ratchet could have explained what the scans had revealed and how they'd matched up to his hypotheses, but doubtless Drift had never taken a medcourse in cerebral monitoring. It wouldn't mean much to him and Ratchet honestly had more important things to talk to him about.

"By the way, I've been meaning to ask: did you ever actually make use of the relinquishment clinics? It'd come up at Rewind's storytelling session last night and that really should be in my records. Those hack and slash surgeries they were performing back then could cause permanent spark damage."

"That's one way of putting it. I don't know, Ratchet, why do you get to know all my secrets when I don't get to know any of yours?”

Ratchet chuckled. "I don't have secrets. I've been in the public eye my whole life, attending as CMO during the war and before it."

Drift opened one eye to glare balefully at him. "That's not true. Chromedome didn't know about the clinic. And he worked with Prowl."

"Okay, that might be true, but the clinic's just about the only thing that near any Autobot couldn't look up in a database—"

"Ratch, I wasn't an Autobot. And nobody was itching to invite me onto the databanks to start reading up on vulnerable medics when I defected. What I know about you begins and ends with the time we've spent together. Seems unfair."

"Well, there's not much to say. I moved around a lot, patched bots up. Tried to avoid getting killed," Ratchet said. "But I do need to know the answer to my question, for my records. If you were to get really hurt, that might impact surgical approaches that we could risk. How about a trade? I get a question, you get a question?"

Drift hummed. "Me first. Did you realize I was me? Back at the start of the war?"

Ratchet frowned. Drift seemed mostly not on-edge, but Ratchet had tried to steer clear of Deadlock talk as much as possible. It just wasn't worth it. He hadn't specified what kind of question, though, so fair was fair. "Not at first. I was reading intelligence reports but I didn't recognize your new frame till I saw it in the field. Actually, days later, when I woke up."

"I'd wondered if you'd recognized me," Drift said, worrying at his bottom lip. "Back then. I'd wondered if you'd even remembered me. You must have fixed hundreds of empties."

"Thousands, actually," Ratchet said. "But you were memorable."

"Why?" Drift asked. "I was a sullen and self-destructive junkie. There were hundreds of them in Dead End. I didn't say or do anything worth remembering. What could possibly have been memorable about me?"

Ratchet's hands stilled, and he paused to consider it. Truthfully, he'd said slag like that to any young bot who'd ended up on his table. He'd said it to hundreds of bots. Back then he'd still been naive enough to think that if someone worked hard enough they could force the system to work for them, no matter their circumstances. But when he'd said it to Drift, it'd felt more true than any of those other times. He'd remembered the spark of doubt and confusion in Drift's eyes when Ratchet had tried to tell him he had potential. Like nobody had ever said that before. And maybe some of the vividness of that memory was linked to it getting bundled up in the maelstrom of excitement that had come next. But it had just felt different. And when he'd woken up from Deadlock's massacre at Training Post Ignis, he'd remembered that flash of doubt and confusion and he'd known Deadlock was Drift, memory flashing back to him clear as day.

"You know I don't hold with superstition," Ratchet said slowly. "But intuition? Sometimes you know a thing you don't understand. I just knew. Now, I think that's more than two questions, actually. So did you ever use the relinquishment clinics?"

"Yeah," Drift said. "Thirteen times."

Ratchet stared at him, trying to repress his instinctive response to shout something about what a fragging terrible idea that had been. Drift obviously knew that, hence why he didn't want tell Ratchet about it. "Did you ever notice any side effects? Lingering pain around the surgical sites?"

Drift shrugged. "Nothing that wasn't worth the money."

"Okay," Ratchet said. "I believe you." It was hard to say it, but his youthful naiveté about the system that had failed bots like Drift had long since died. A paint and polish were clearly not the things that had been holding Drift back from a better life—even if he'd been able to afford something like that. If Drift said that it'd been the only way to survive, he'd just have to live with knowing that. And try not to imagine how things might have been different if he had instead offered Drift a place in his clinic, somewhere to work off the streets.

"Only once after you helped me, though," Drift said.

"Did I convince you to stop?” Ratchet couldn't help but ask.

Drift laughed, shaking his head. "Not exactly. You actually helped me start up again. You weren't allowed to use the clinics if you had traceable amounts of syk in your system. The transfusion you gave me diluted it enough that I was able to go back."

Ratchet couldn't help but frown at that. Drift caught his expression and patted his knee with an uncoordinated hand. "It's okay, Ratch. Like I said at Rewind's thing; I was dealing with a lot of self-hatred back then. I made a lot of bad decisions and then I paid for them. Can you get these things off me? I'm feeling really tired."

Ratchet wasn't sure if that was a symptom of the fritz or a symptom of going out on the frontlines for the first time in awhile, but Drift did look pretty exhausted. If he didn't get him out of Ratchet's berth before that happened Ratchet was going to end up on the floor. "Don't you dare fall asleep on me," he said. "I just got out of eight surgeries. I'll get you disconnected from these things and then you can go to your room."

"Mm, okay," Drift said. "You're warm, Ratch."

Ratchet snorted. "No, I'm not cold. There's a difference." He reached down under the berth to fetch out a box and some solvent wipes. Balancing them on his lap, he pulled the first probe off with a pop of suction and dropped it in the box. He swiped over the area with the wipe, cleaning off the contact gel. Drift made a sleepy humming noise in response. Taking that as permission to continue, Ratchet methodically began detaching the probes in reverse order.

Ratchet made short work of detaching the rest of the probes. "You're good to go," he said.

Drift didn't respond. Ratchet looked over him expectantly, then groaned. Drift had done exactly what he'd said not to do had fallen asleep. "That took me two minutes, how the slag are you already asleep?” He grumbled, setting his equipment beside the berth and then tapping at Drift's shoulder impatiently. "This is my berth, you've got your own."

Drift mumbled something and rolled away from Ratchet. Seizing the opportunity, Ratchet squeezed into the vacated open space, now lying awkwardly in the space between Drift and the edge of the berth. His berth. Ratchet was not about to sleep on the floor because Drift had all the manners of a guttermech.

Ratchet cringed. Poor choice of words.

But still. They didn't build berths for two people so trying to recharge was bound to be an adventure. Ratchet hadn't...well, he certainly hadn't tried to share a berth since medical school. Though now that he tried to think it over, he wasn't sure he'd ever actually successfully recharged with another person there. He valued his personal space.

And there Drift was, venting with distracting little snuffling noises, distracting him from settling his thoughts. Ratchet was never going to be able to fall asleep like—

 - before -

"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 -

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 -

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 -

"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 -

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.

Ratchet was being squished. He rose out of recharge slowly, trying to make sense of this highly irregular set of circumstances. The culprit became obvious once he'd onlined his optics, memories of the night before finally loading into place. Drift had moved at some point while they were recharging. He'd rolled over and onto Ratchet, arms pillowing his head against Ratchet's chest.

It wasn't a bad sort of squished. The kid didn't weigh much, not compared to Ratchet. And he was nice and warm, his frame rumbling low in sleep in what turned out to be a fairly soothing vibrational frequency. His face was slack, little fangs poking out over his bottom lip in a way that a softer mech than Ratchet might have found endearing. Plus, no backtalk. That was always a plus.

Ratchet didn't especially want to get up. If he just stayed there, eventually Drift would rouse himself. He could tease him about being clingy, which would be good fun. But then he'd probably say something depressing about learning to conserve bodyheat while living on the streets in Dead End and Ratchet would feel bad. Or he wouldn't say it, but he'd broadcast it in high definition on his stupidly overly expressive face. See, this was good. Ratchet had field-tested that comment against his imagination and decided it was probably for the best that he avoid Drift as much as possible before he could ask any more overly personal questions or tread on any more unexpected landmines. They probably needed him at the medibay anyway.

Ratchet laid a testing hand against Drift's elbow. He didn't suddenly startle out of sleep and try to stab Ratchet. Emboldened, Ratchet freed his other arm slowly and then shifted Drift off of him. Drift grumbled a bit and burrowed his face into his arms, but didn't wake. Ratchet would have pegged him for a light sleeper, honestly. He frowned, sitting up with a creak of uncooperative hip joints. Maybe he's tired because he had a major brain module meltdown yesterday. Ratchet would have to follow up at some point and see if fatigue was a comorbid symptom.

He rose from the berth and headed towards the doorway, checking his comm for any late-night updates from the medibay staff. Rewind had pulled through, thank Primus. Though he was not convinced by First Aid's scientific explanation of the mechanism of his giant jumper-cable treatment route. They'd have to sit down and talk about it sometime, just as soon as he finished crowing about his latest medical victory against common sense. And with Whirl as the donor, well that was certainly out of the left field.

There really wasn't any emergency to rush off to, he admitted as he waited for the elevator. He could go back and talk to Drift, he had the time. He just didn't know what he'd say.

I'm disappointed you don't want me to try and fix you because when you're a patient and I'm the doctor that gives us tidy little roles that I like. They're simple.

I don't want to know if you blamed me for not doing more, back then.

I thought you needed another friend, because you and Rodimus just seem so codependent sometimes that it seems unhealthy. But then, I hadn't—I can't remember the last time I'd socialized outside a bar or a medibay before last night and last night was mostly a disaster. I think you might not be the one who's lonely.

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Ratchet stepped inside and keyed in the floor for the medibay. "You're a mess," Ratchet muttered. He'd go in, clean up the medibay and see what needed doing. Surely something would need doing. Something always needed doing, that's why evading his personal life through work was so easy. If Drift wanted to see him, he'd swing by.

Chapter Text

"Why, exactly, are you following me?" Ratchet said to his shadow. It had been a short walk from the shuttle to the Hedonian market district and up till now Ratchet hadn't been sure if Drift was following him or just also heading to the same part of Hedonia. But lingering beside a booth of roasted organic flesh bits while Ratchet browsed at a nearby booth had given away the game. Ratchet crossed his arms.

Drift crossed his arms and stared back, unrepentant. "Rodimus said to travel in groups. You needed a—"

"If you say 'buddy', I am going to do something violent and deeply unpleasant," Ratchet warned.

Drift snorted. "I was thinking bodyguard, actually. Like Rod said, Hedonia isn't a very mech-friendly planet."

"One, I don't need a bodyguard. Two, don't you have something you wanted to do on Hedonia other than following me around?"

Drift smiled and started walking, waving for Ratchet to follow him. "I promised Rung I'd grab some confections from one of the booths, since he's been roped into some all-night itinerary with Swerve. That's pretty much it."

"You completely ignored my other point," Ratchet said, stepping sideways to fit between two organics on the crowded pathway. The whole of the market district was midnight blue, strings of overhead lights casting just barely enough light to keep to the path. Mostly, it was illuminated by the glow of the stalls, spilling out candy-colored washes of light onto the crowds of shoppers. This section by the entrance was thick with organics, but a little further back there was a section for mechanical-oriented goods. That was probably where Drift was leading him and, fine, they probably would have been going to the same part of the district anyway. It was the principle of the thing. "I do not need a minder."

Drift stopped and turned to look at him, splitting the foot traffic around them in waves. Drift held his hands up helplessly, shrugging a bit. "Ratchet, I don't doubt that you're capable of looking after yourself. I'll just feel better knowing someone's watching your back. Also, I'm not really into shopping. Hanging out with you sounds like more fun."

Ratchet reached out and put his hands on Drift's shoulders, then gave him a little shove. "Come on, you're disturbing the flow of traffic. Geez, my game must be slipping if I'm more fun than shopping. Why'd you bother to come planetside at all, if you were just going to go shopping and you don't even like shopping?"

"Didn't especially want to do anything, I was just feeling kinda cooped up on the ship. I figured I'd do some sightseeing, but then we got in at midnight and all the sites sounded kinda chintzy."

"Ah. See, I'd have rather joined one of the bar crawling crews. But I never programmed a new holomatter disguise and I find the idea of intuitive avatars trying to project some distorted reflection of my inner self...unsettling? I suppose you just didn't want to sit around and watch other people get drunk when you can't. Though I've seen you and Rodimus in Swerve's, so I guess you don't mind all that much...kid?" Ratchet looked around. In the time his optics had been distracted by a technicolor vidscreen, Drift had disappeared from the walkway. Ratchet turned around slowly, scanning the crowd. There weren't that many mechs or organics of their size, how could he possibly have lost...ah. There he was.

Ratchet pushed his way over to the booth where Drift was watching in rapt attention. It was an organic's tattooing booth, the artist with the needle inking a starmap onto her customer's back as the audience  watched. Ratchet wondered if Drift had ever heard of tattoos in his time on Earth. He certainly hadn't been there as long and he'd never mingled much with humans. Ratchet wasn't used to the idea of tattooing as public entertainment, but when in Hedonia, probably.

"I guess you decided I didn't need a bodyguard after all." Ratchet said. Drift startled, a subtle little twitch of his finials. Ratchet sat down next to him, watching the artist's needle conjure up stars. "Thinking of getting one?"

"Are they permanent?" Drift asked. "This organic, is he going to have that forever?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Ratchet said. "You can get rid of them with lasers, but I don't think many people do. Usually if they don't like it they just cover it up with another, bigger tattoo."

"What are they for?" Drift asked.

Ratchet shrugged. "Same thing as kibble reframing and getting a new paintjob, mostly. It's to express yourself. You know, aesthetics."

Drift looked at him blankly.

Ratchet rolled his optics. "Come on, if anyone knows unnecessary frame changes for aesthetics, it's you. Managed to fit in an overhaul between me fixing you up and the Lost Light launching. Which has got to be your, what, fourth complete overhaul? You burn through looks like a pre-War senator burning through Shanix."

Drift grimaced. "Ratchet, I've only ever designed one overhaul and it's the frame I've got right now. It wasn't for aesthetic reasons—it's an initiation ritual in Spectralism to change your—you probably don't care. Just don't," he ran his hand over his finial awkwardly, "I'd prefer if you didn't compare me to members of the Senate."

"I wasn't trying to, I was trying to make a simile—which clearly didn't work. I know you're nothing like them. Of course." Ratchet looked from the tattoo artist to Drift and back again. Drift was once again engrossed, watching every movement of her needle. "So, what's so interesting about it? You enjoy watching people get stabbed a bunch of times with tiny needles?"

Drift chuckled. "I've never seen an artist work before."

"No way."

"They weren't exactly common in Dead End, Ratchet. We didn't have the tools to make art. And it wasn't an encouraged pursuit during the war. I mean, I've seen art. And I've seen vids of artists. But I've never seen one in person before."

"What about Rodimus? He's always doodling on stuff."

Drift shrugged. "Yeah, but he's doodling, he's not actually drawing anything. What about you? I suppose you probably got to go to all the old museums and back in the day, this is probably boring by comparison," he said.

Ratchet shrugged. "No, this is interesting. I've never really worked on such an irregular canvas. You should have told me you were interested, I could have sketched something for you."

Drift's optics widened and he finally tore his gaze away from the demo. "You can draw?"

Ratchet wiggled his hand. Kinda sorta. "I can sketch, let's not go overboard. You have to be a decent draftsman to mock up replacement parts and I did illustrations for some Iacon medical texts. During the war I dabbled. Needed a hobby to keep me steady during those long gaps between the fighting. I wouldn't say I was any good."

He really wasn't. He had a handle on proportions and he could capture a fair likeness, but he didn't have the patience to actually become an artist. And the way his hands had been going, he hadn't picked up a stylus in longer than he could remember. Of course, now he had new hands. But they'd been hopping from crisis to crisis and it hadn't occurred to him to try practicing again.

Drift twisted his hands together anxiously, sneaking a half-smile at Ratchet. "Could you show me?"

Ratchet waved him off. "Don't get your hopes up, I'm not good at it or anything." But he had opened his hip compartment and fished out a small blank pad and a stylus. Powering it on, he swiped a few testing strokes across the surface, checking the pressure sensitivity. Then he cleared the pad again. "What do you want to see?" he asked.

Drift opened his mouth and said nothing, body poised on the brink of either saying what he actually wanted or making up some smaller request. He's going to ask for a self-portrait. Everyone asks for a fragging self-portrait, every single time. "You can ask for a self-portrait, if that's what you want," his traitorous mouth said, "everybody does."

Drift sank, biting his lip. "Um, do you remember, would you remember well enough to sketch what I looked like before? When we first met?"

Well that was a unique request. Ratchet carefully considered the question. His memory wasn't perfect, he lost the details on some faces that far back, but he could remember Drift's quite clearly. "Yeah, I remember you. Feeling nostalgic?"

"I never got to see what I looked like, back then," Drift said with a shrug. "I was curious."

"Okay, but mirrors exist," Ratchet said, putting down a light wireframe to guide his drawing.

"We didn't have any."

"And you never saw yourself on a vid?"

Ratchet realized what a stupid question that was a few spare seconds after the words left his mouth, before Drift busted up laughing. Not everyone was attending medic to the Primes, Ratchet, why would Drift have ever ended up on video? He had no clue what Drift's life had been like before he'd ended up in Dead End. Maybe he'd been left there newly forged. There most certainly wasn't anyone making vids of the bots in Dead End back before the war, and even if there was there wouldn't have been a vidscreen to watch them on.

"I saw bits and pieces," Drift said. "You'd catch a glimpse in the storefront glass or your reflection on a bot who used too much gloss in their polish. But that's all I've got of that body. Snatches and pieces and fragments and I don't know how they fit together."

That body. That was an odd and awkward thing to say. Ratchet had always assumed...Deadlock hadn't looked so different from the Drift he'd met, he'd assumed he'd had his frame overhauled, painted a darker color scheme to match his affiliation. He'd never considered the possibility that Drift might have bodyswapped wholesale. The thought made him shudder. Ratchet had rational, reasonable reasons to hate the relinquishment clinics and the body-hopping they'd made commonplace. But there was also a visceral disgust reaction he couldn't quite justify. Ratchet's body wasn't just some shell that dragged around his spark. It was him. He'd had repairs and new parts over the years, but besides Pharma's hands he was built on that same sentio metallico he'd been forged with.

Ratchet kept his mouth shut and schooled his face to stillness, trying not to let Drift know he'd let something slip. Drift was perennially secretive. If Ratchet didn't know it that was because Drift didn't want him to. Instead, Ratchet focused on trying to get the curve of Drift's optics right in his sketch. Drift was leaning over his shoulder, watching intently as Ratchet put in rough lines. "Don't get your hopes up too much," Ratchet warned him. "I'm mostly good at technical drawings. Faces always trip me up, I can never get the expression right."

"No, no, it's great," Drift said.

"I can send you a copy once it's done," Ratchet said. "If you want it."

"Of course," Drift said, apparently content to waste their entire shore leave sitting on a bench in Hedonia watching Ratchet draw and erase the same fragging line over and over. He sighed and gave up. He'd accidentally given Drift a bit of an anxious look, face pinched and hungry, eyes wider than he'd intended. But swapping the mouth out for something happier just made the picture look manic. He hadn't promised perfection and Drift still needed to go buy those sweets for Rung. He'd sketch the rest of the body in quick so they could get going.

In front of them, the client stood up and twirled about, showing off the holographic effect of their new tattoo. Ratchet paused to admire the artistry before moving back to his sketch. Drift had taken form standing, half-turned to leave, the way Ratchet always remembered him. He was tempted to rough in a doorframe for Drift to be standing in; but if figures were a challenge backgrounds were absolutely his nemesis. Not happening.

At last Ratchet managed to get it passable. Not good. But passable. He lifted it up to show Drift. "I don't want to hear any critiques, alright," he said. "And do not go telling people on the Lost Light I can draw. Last thing I need is Swerve knocking down the door to make him a thousand drawings of Blurr."

Drift reached out his hand, brushing his fingers against the surface of the sketch. He took a minute to collect himself. "That's what I looked like to you?" he asked.

Ratchet wasn't sure if that was a good response or a bad response, but he shrugged. Regardless, the truth was, "Yeah. Best I can remember. Want me to send you a copy?"

Drift jerked his fingers away from the datapad, squeezing them tight into fists as if to stop himself from snatching it out of Ratchet's hands. "Yes," he said. "Sure. I'd love a copy."

"Oh, okay," Ratchet said. "That's no problem. You're not on direct upload are you?" Drift shook his head.

"Didn't think so. I'm a little leery of it myself, but you need to accept downloads of patient records sometimes...I'll send it up to the console in your hab instead." Ratchet shifted the console in his hands, tapping out Drift's address.

A hand snapped in from his peripheral vision and grabbed the datapad.

Ratchet spun to see a small organic, maybe a quarter of his height, darting away with the datapad. Orange scales, long legs, cutting through the crowd at speed. Ratchet turned back to Drift, shocked. "What just happened?"

Drift was already on his feet, reaching out his hand for Ratchet to take. "Come on Ratchet, we've got to follow them."

"Eh, there wasn't anything sensitive on the datapad. They looked right quick, I doubt we've got a chance of catching up with them. Why waste the energy of chasing—Drift!"

Drift had already taken off at a run, vaulting over a pair of shoppers and sliding into an egregiously showy roll. Ratchet snarled. That fragging idiot. He was going to crush someone and they were both going to get arrested over a stupid fifteen-minute sketch. Ratchet started after him. The crowds tended to open up a space in Drift's wake, moving to avoid the giant stompy robot, which gave Ratchet a clear path to try and catch up. Drift was, of course, faster. But Ratchet wasn't so slow. He got Drift in his sights and kept him there, even as the overly-athletic gearstick vaulted over stands and slid under railings and otherwise completely failed to catch up with their thief.

Drift skidded to a halt and Ratchet nearly crashed into him. He was confused for half a second, then realized they'd reached the edge of the mercantile district. The golden lit streets in front of them were the temple district, which didn't allow for mechanical species. Drift looked at him and shrugged, awkward smile plastered on his face. "Watch my frame, okay?"

"Drift, what are you—"

Drift's optics shuttered and a figure shimmered to life in front of him. A human woman, Ratchet would have guessed, hair shorn so close to the skull you could barely tell that the holomatter projections always messed up the hair. Terra-cotta skin, arms exposed to reveal a patchwork of vibrant botanical tattoos. Drift's holoform turned away from Ratchet and blinked out existence, sliding forward in space as Drift projected himself forwards. Ratchet heaved a sigh. That is not a thing they were supposed to be doing with their holoforms, teleporting themselves via rapidfire forwards projection. The whole point was to be undercover. With a shake of his head, Ratchet activated his holoform as well, scaling down to approximately human sized.

He looked down and snorted a laugh. Apparently he felt old. But the boots he was wearing did make satisfying clomping sounds as he ran after Drift. Unencumbered by his body, he picked up speed. The wind flowed through him, semi-solid, a truly indescribable experience. He took a corner at a dash, pinwheeling his arms a bit to keep his balance as he turned.

And there was Drift, walking back towards him. A knife clenched between his teeth, the datapad tied across his back. Drift looked up at him, eyes widening in shock and then crinkling in childish glee. He spat out the knife, tucking it under the straps of his top. "Ratchet!" He said. "You're so cozy looking!"

"I will end you if you say another word," Ratchet said. "You didn't kill him, right?"

Drift shook his head. "Nah. He was easy to intimidate. Apparently figured two Cybertronians poring over a datapad had to be designing weapons, figured he could sell the designs. Gave him a few shanix for food and he went on his way."

"That was ridiculous, Drift," Ratchet said. "That was utterly irresponsible and risky. It's just a sketch, I could have made you another one. What if people saw you porting about and realized we had hologram projectors?"

"Teleportation isn't that uncommon. And it all worked out," Drift said, hefting the datapad a little higher on his back. From closer up, Ratchet could see Drift's face was heavily scarred, a chunk of one of his ears missing. Drift looked Ratchet over again, in amusement, zeroing in on the bright red sweater Ratchet had materialized wearing. "Now, either you are overdressed for the weather or I'm underdressed."

"I think a little bit of both," Ratchet said. "Maybe next time work on adding some clothes."

Drift shrugged and picked at the black fabric wrapped around his chest. “These are clothes, right? They look like fabric. I cannot believe you left our bodies alone on the street, what if someone robbed you all over again?"

"I was thinking clothes that covered a bit more skin," Ratchet said. "You're pretty eye-catching like that." He nodded at Drift's multicolored mélange of intertwining tattoos. "Do you think you'd still have had those if you'd materialized before you'd learned about tattoos?"

"Let's hurry back to our bodies and change back," Drift said, ducking his head self-consciously. His cast a sidelong look at Ratchet and said, "You look good, by the way."

"Good?" Ratchet said, crossing his arms and finally noticing the fact the absurd knitted handwarmers his projection was wearing said Frag Off across the back of the hands. "If you say I look like a kindly old woman I am going straight to Brainstorm and asking for the old projection tech back."

Drift grinned, canines still somehow poking out over his bottom lip. "No, no, I meant that you look like you. Your projection really matches your aura."

"Okay, I top out at one aura mention. I'm going to cut the projection and watch the bodies," Ratchet said. "Hurry back, bodyguard." As he cut power, he saw Drift staring at him, amused smirk still stuck on his face. He opened his eyes in his own body. Standing at the edge of the temple district with Drift's vacant frame. The crowd was avoiding them, steering clear like they were a pair of statues. No Hedonian magistrates had wandered by, so at least he didn't have to explain that. And Drift wouldn't be able to port about while carrying the datapad, so Ratchet would finally get a few moments to himself. He put his back to Drift's empty frame and crossed his arms across his chest, glaring at the shoppers as they walked by.

Why the frag did I follow him? It had been the one thing he was trying not to do, showing anyone that hologram projection. And then, of all the people to see it, why Drift? Ratchet was going to have to try it again sometime, back on the Lost Light. Just to try and see what it was Drift was talking about. He'd be sure to swear him to secrecy once he got back. In exchange for the sketch. A fair trade all around.

 - before -

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.

When he'd walked out of Ratchet's clinic he'd been sure of his plan. The doctor 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 frame.

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 crouched down over him, clasping his hands 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 -

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 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 slightly 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 with Megatron at his side...

"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 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 sacred 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. Will 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 Deadlock'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 Deadlock'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 Deadlock'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 Deadlock's plating, branding it onto his frame.

It burned. Oh, it certainly burned. But it paled in comparison to the pain from before and Deadlock 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 -

"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. Deadlock barely kept himself from snarling at the mech. Turmoil had never led a squad the way Deadlock 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 Deadlock to make some reply and, when he didn't, said, "Millions of people have died in this war. It was only thirty soldiers."

Deadlock 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," Deadlock 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, Deadlock 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?" Deadlock 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. Deadlock 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."

Deadlock 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 Deadlock'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."

Deadlock 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—

Deadlock 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.

 - later -

"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 -

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 need 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.

"Your comm is buzzing," Ratchet said. Again, he didn't bother to add.

Drift looked over at him, cheeks bulging around the inordinate number of energon jellies he'd shoved into his mouth. Slagging kid tried one free sample at the booth and walked out with a crate of the things. Apparently he'd never bothered trying them before now, which made Ratchet want roll his optics but also gave him a cold feeling inside his spark that might have been sadness. The same sort of feeling he got when Drift did things like ask to see that stupid sketch he'd done over and over, holding it up to the light and smiling like Ratchet wasn't there watching him. Anyway, having tried all the flavors separately Drift was now trying various combinations. In excess.

Drift swallowed, with difficulty. "Rodimus again. Wants to know when we'll be back."

"You didn't even check," Ratchet said.

Drift shrugged. "Same as the last five times, probably." But he pulled out his comm and took the call. "Yeah, we're back at the Leading Light already. No, we can't leave early. Swerve and Ultra Magnus and all of them aren't back yet. Yeah, I'll comm you the minute we're in the air. See you then." He looked over at Ratchet. "Told you."

"It could have been something important," Ratchet argued half-heartedly. The sky was beginning to lighten, just around the edges of the horizon. It was pretty, he guessed. Quiet sitting outside the shuttle, waiting for the last stragglers to arrive. Ratchet snagged a jelly and popped it in his mouth, not bothering to check the flavor. They weren't especially good energon treats, but they were alright. Chewing was better than talking.

They'd danced around each other before swearing each other into silence about the holoforms. Or, at least, Ratchet hoped that was what they'd decided. He didn't really want to bring it up again. Drift kept making stupid faces whenever his brain got on the topic of Ratchet's holomatter avatar and it was embarrassing. He'd changed back as quick as possible and was doing his absolute best not to read into things.

Other than that small misadventure, and the wild turbofox chase Rodimus had sent them on to acquire illegal explosives for clearing future meteor fields, some half-garbled calls from Skids about Whirl setting off an inter-galactic incident and the bit with the sweets stall...it had been a nice night. Drift had been surprisingly good company. Well, he had spouted a lot of mystical gobbledygook whilst negotiating prices for the missiles. But Ratchet was 60% sure that was mostly to get on Ratchet's nerves and he wasn't going to give Drift the satisfaction. Other than that, it'd been quiet. Almost no emergencies. Nobody asking him for help. He could get used to that.

...that was a lie. But when he passed the title on to First Aid, maybe things would get quieter. It was hard to imagine. He wasn't sure he liked the idea. Ratchet didn't much care for change.

Ratchet looked over at Drift, now attempting to balance three jellies on his nose, optics squinting as he concentrated. Ratchet huffed a laugh and nudged Drift's shoulder, sending his perfect little jelly tower tumbling. Drift snatched them out of the air with one hand and popped them in his mouth. "Fun party trick, huh?" Drift said around the food in his mouth.

Well, Ratchet didn't usually care for change. "Sure. Because you see me at so many parties."

"Nothing stopping you," Drift said.

"I hate people, I hate crowds, I hate noise, I can't dance and I don't enjoy watching people get drunk and then do stupid slag that lands them in the medibay," Ratchet counted off his fingers on one hand.

"Well, you're sounding grumpy as usual," Drift said. "Looking forward to getting back on the ship?"

Ratchet almost replied straight-away, grumbled something about avoiding whatever disaster Rodimus had gotten into in their absence for as long as possible. Then he stopped and considered it. "Yeah, actually. This was okay. It was good to leave for a bit. But I like my routines and I've got work to get through. What about you? Ready to get back to the ship?"

Drift sighed. "Ready or not, I see Magnus driving up." He stood and offered Ratchet a hand up. "Thanks for keeping me company, Ratchet. I had a great night." Then he bent over to scoop up his crate of treats and walked off into the shuttle. Ratchet watched him go. Well, that was Drift. Flighty at the best of times, incomprehensibly aggravating at the worst of times. He dusted himself off, watching Magnus roll in.

It had been nice to see Drift uncoil for a bit, he decided. The kid had been decidedly wired lately, however zen he pretended to be with his various affectations about 'negative energies' and 'auras'. You could just ask him what's wrong.

Like he'd tell you. Just going to have to wait and see.

Hopefully nothing serious.

Chapter Text

Some things that didn't matter anymore. The length of time between now and imminent death narrowed to an imperceptible sliver. Fear—that was right out. Tactics were down the fucking drain because there was nothing he was going to do that could stop Overlord. A fragging Phase Sixer standing in front of him, and it just had to be the Phase Sixer coated in ununtrium, making him invulnerable on top of unstoppable. So none of that mattered anymore. The only things left were slowing him down, weakening him any way he could. Because every minute he spent killing Ratchet was going to give the rest of the crew more time to take this monster down.

But, of course, Drift had to show up. Flip into place in front of him, throwing taunts at Overlord like daggers. Drift's hand went to the hilt of his Great Sword and he threw out his arm to hold Ratchet back. "The medibay—go lock yourself in. My faith will protect me."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Ratchet said, watching the monster slowly turn around to face them. Overlord was taking his time, savoring the moment—he enjoyed this.

Drift drew his sword. Energy crackled around the gem on the hilt and rolled up the blade in waves of light. "My faith and my sword."

Ratchet stepped up beside him. "Your faith, your sword and your friend." He met Drift's optics for a moment, then nodded. "We do this together." There was no trace of the gentle hippy Ratchet had been growing to tolerate in those optics. Drift was all steel, his face flat, his optics focused. We both know this is probably it.

Ratchet slammed his elbow into the door controls, activating the emergency lockdown protocols. He lifted his comm to his face, faint voices on the other side panicked. He interrupted them with a snarl. "Rodimus? Tool up and get down to the medibay. Bring everyone. And if," when, "anything happens to me, tell First Aid he's ready. Tell Whirl he can have my hands. And tell all my patients that they'll have to make new appointments."

Ratchet snapped the comm closed and then dove out of the way as Overlord threw a punch straight at the blastdoors behind him. Fist hit reinforced door with a deafening clang. Ratchet rolled onto his back, and scrambled backwards. On the other side of Overlord's arm he could see Drift lunging into a swing. "Drift!" he shouted. “The ununtrium!”

Which wouldn't have made a difference anyway, because Overlord backhanded Drift out of midair and across the room. Drift hit the opposite wall with a sickening crunch and fell to the ground. Was he...apparently no, because Drift was already pulling himself onto his knees and yelling at Ratchet across the hall. "I know! Please don't warn him of my every move, Ratchet! I was aiming for his fragging wrist cabling!"

"Noted," Ratchet said and fired a second shot at Overlord, this time aiming for his optic. Overlord tipped his head out of the way so the blow hit him on the temple.

"I didn't realize you two were close," Overlord said. "Making friends, Deadlock?"

He stomped at Ratchet and Ratchet threw himself into his alt mode to dodge. He wasn't fast on two feet, but on four wheels he had a little more maneuverability. He darted around Overlord's ankles, forcing him to shuffle away from the Medibay doors as he attempted to stomp on Ratchet. Drift was behind them, both hands on his sword, optics reflecting white from its crackling glow.

"You'll be great as a," Overlord stomped at him again and Ratchet squealed to a stop and reversed, "pile of scrap metal. Just like your little friend. He was very polite, you know. Little blue guy, had the decency to apologize for getting in my way."

Pipes or Tailgate? It didn't matter because unless they survived this, nothing mattered. Ratchet lurched back into his root mode and flung himself onto Overlord's boot, jamming his gun into the seam of his knee joint and firing. The blast threw Ratchet's arm back and he tumbled off of Overlord and onto the ground.

Overlord fell to one knee, snarling in anger. Behind him, Drift raised his Great Sword above his head. He took two steps and launched himself, defying gravity and all common sense to land on Overlord's back and plunge his sword into the back of his neck cabling. Overlord roared in anger and shook Drift off of him. Drift rolled and landed by Ratchet, reaching out a hand to pull Ratchet to his feet.

Overlord reached behind him and grasped Drift's sword, pulling it from his neck with a dribble of energon. "Nice shot, Deadlock. But you couldn't have killed me in your prime."

Ratchet leaned in close to Drift. "We can't beat him. The priority has to be getting him away from the patients. Buy time for Rodimus to get here."

"I know," Drift said. He looked up at Overlord holding his sword with his first expression that resembled fear. "I can't leave it—"

"You can and you will! It's a fragging sword. Come on!" Ratchet grabbed him by the hand and pulled, dragging him towards the nearest stairwell. Drift looked back over his shoulder once, then started running.

Behind them, Overlord chuckled. "Sensible, but disappointing," he said. "I see you've lost your nerve after all, Deadlock."

Ratchet sheared off to the side, bolting for the stairwell. Feet tumbling over steps so fast Ratchet was certain he was about to lose his balance and tumble. Behind them, the floor shook as Overlord took one booming step and then another, picking up speed into a barreling run.

At the bottom of the stairwell Drift said, "This way," and transformed, leading them off to the right. Ratchet followed suit as, behind them, Overlord broke through the bottom of the stairwell with a crash of broken wall paneling. Drift led them around a tight corner that had Overlord smashing his shoulder through another section of wall. Drift kept pace with Ratchet, forcing himself slow as the monster loomed up behind them.

"Just go!" Ratchet yelled.

"No," Drift said.

They took another turn and Drift had led them to the fucking lower deck mezzanine. The space opened up huge above them, wide open panels of the ceiling letting light in from the floor above. The space was large enough to fit three Overlords end-to-end in any direction. Wide open space, not the final battleground Ratchet would have chosen. There was a hatch open in the floor and Ratchet veered away from it, transforming back into a firing stance and knocking three quick shots at Overlord's face—right optic, left optic, stupid slagging lips.

Overlord turned his head and the shots hit the side of his face, knocking him back a half step. Then Overlord turned back to face them and planted Drift's Great Sword in the ground. "I am running out of patience," he said. "Stay still and let me gut you."

Overlord knocked Ratchet to the ground, the gun skittering away from him. His hand clamped over Ratchet's chest and began to press, the pressure pinning him to the floor and rapidly turning into pain. He scrabbled at the hand, warnings flashing across his HUD in a wash of red. Something crumpled in Ratchet's chassis and Drift roared.

He leapt at Overlord, twin swords in hand, twin strikes aimed at Overlord's optics. Overlord released Ratchet and batted Drift out of the air, arm snaking out to grab him by the legs and lift him into the air. "You are very insistent, Deadlock," Overlord mused. "Clearly you have a vested interest in dying before the nice doctor." He leered at Ratchet, who panted, trying to muster the strength to reach for the gun where it had fallen. Just out of reach of the fingertips of his right hand.

Drift, upside down, swiped at Overlord with his swords. Overlord gave him a little shake, tutting at him. "Now, now, Deadlock, none of that. You're not so stupid that you can't tell when you've lost. Drop the swords."

"Die." Drift spat.

Overlord placed his other hand over Ratchet's chest again and pushed, just a little. Drift froze, optics wide. Overlord repeated his request and Drift let the swords fall to the ground in a clatter. The sound echoed around the wide room as Overlord smiled. The he tossed Drift aside and picked up the swords. He stomped over to Drift, where he was already pulling himself back onto his knees. A trickle of energon was leaking out of the corner of his mouth. A vicious kick threw Drift back to the ground and Overlord placed a foot over the small of Drift's back, holding him in place. Overlord raised his swords and Ratchet turned away.

There was a sickening schlict sound and Drift cried out. Ratchet threw himself to his side, trying to regain control over his limbs. The gun was only five feet away. Moving his arms jarred something in his chassis that felt viscerally wrong but Ratchet ruthlessly compartmentalized, shoving possible diagnoses out of his head. Not enough time for that. He crawled towards the gun, not letting himself look as Overlord laughed and metal squealed and Drift made a near inaudible moaning sound, the only thing that told him Drift was still alive. His fingers clawed at the ground, trying to bring the gun closer to himself. His legs flopped uselessly against the floor and he wiggled his way forward.

His hand closed over the grip of the gun and he pulled it close, rolling onto his back to take aim.

Overlord had Drift pinioned. His swords skewered him to the ground through his hip sockets, a puddle spreading under him in bubbling dribbles of fuel from the major lines Overlord must have severed. Overlord was crouching over him like some carrion bird, boot pinning his back to the ground as he pulled at Drift's legs.

He could have ripped them off in a single motion, but he was enjoying himself, pulling inexorably as cables snapped one by one and Drift writhed under him.

Ratchet hadn't realized he could feel more detached than he already had but reality seemed to splinter and shake itself from his body, leaving only cold behind.

Ratchet braced his elbow against the ground. He squeezed off three shots at the base of Overlord's neural cluster. He savored the way Overlord jerked in pain at the impact.

Ratchet braced himself as the monster turned on him. He watched Drift tear himself free from the swords with a cry of pain and pull himself towards Ratchet arm over arm, slipping against the puddles of his own fuel. Their optics met as Ratchet felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. He felt a moment of disappointment.

I wasn't done yet.

 - before -

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 -

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 -

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 -

"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 -

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 -

"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 peeked 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 -

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 -

"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."

There were people yelling and Ratchet felt like someone had possibly thrown him off a building and had Roller run over him a few times and he was not in the mood to be woken up by a crowd of yelling people and beeping machines and...someone tapping him urgently on the back of the hand? Ratchet groaned and forced his optics online, his short-term memory still loading up.

When he blinked his optics on, Ambulon was staring down at him, face pinched with worry. There was energon splattered over his face, bright pink against grey plating. He gave Ratchet what was probably supposed to be a reassuring smile, but ended up looking welmish and queasy instead. "Oh good, thank Primus," Ambulon said. "You're awake." He smeared the energon across his face with the back of his hand, looking around the room with wide optics.

It hit him like a truck. Like a tank was probably more apt. Overlord. Ratchet pulled himself up to look around the room. Every berth was full, that droning sound was absolutely the life support machines running at full blast. There were patients lined up on the floor carrying triage cards and Ambulon and Hound were both elbow deep in patients. "Is he gone?" Ratchet asked.

"Yes," Ambulon said. "That's the good news. And I've gotten you fixed up—your lifecord had gotten pinched by your crushed chassis, that's why you blacked out. I pushed you to the top of the triage line because we need more than two sets of trained hands in here."

Ratchet nodded. "Sensible." He swung his legs over the side of the berth and vented, letting his gyros recalibrate as he looked around the room. "Is there anyone you can recruit into acting as nurses? Could use a few pairs of hands to fetch and carry while we work."

"We did. Swerve and Tailgate are on their way."

He wanted to ask who hadn't made it, but that was going to have to wait. He pushed himself to his feet. "Most critical patients—where do you need me?"

"Ultra Magnus," Ambulon replied instantly. "He was stabbed through the spark. I've got the leaking stopped and he's on life-support, but I was waiting for you to come online before we started surgery."

Ratchet sighted a medibay drone and waved it over, holding his hands out for UV decontamination. "Lead the way."

Swaying on his feet, Ratchet stomped down the row of patients and stopped at Drift. Drift was sitting there holding a 'least concern' card, head slumped against the wall with his eyes closed. Ratchet kneeled down and shook him by the shoulder.

Drift's optics flickered on and he looked around wildly for a moment, stilling when his optics alighted on Ratchet. "Hey, Ratch," he said. Someone must have cauterized the fuel lines, but the ragged metal and severed cables of his hips looked painful.

"Sorry this is taking so long," Ratchet said. "I can get you a berth now, at least get you on a neural blocker."

Drift looked around. There were a few other bots waiting on the ground, but only a few. The place was still bustling, but quieter than it had been, Ambulon and First Aid still hard at work, the medibay drones scooting about after them. Hound was taking a break with Swerve while Tailgate patrolled the berth-bound patients, checking that they didn't need anything. Some of the lights must have failed, Ratchet hadn't noticed how dark it was till just then. They'd have to call someone in and fix that, but who knew when ship repair would get to the medibay. Ratchet had ducked out for a minute to talk to Rodimus about Ultra Magnus's prognosis and seen the state of the hallway outside. The whole ship was a mess.

"I can wait," Drift said, crossing his arms.

"We're down to your color," Ratchet said, tapping the card.

"Take someone else first," Drift said.

He didn't have time to argue about it, so he turned to the next bot and picked them up. Atomizer didn't complain, apparently still out cold. "As you wish," Ratchet said.

As he walked away, it hit him what was waiting for Drift outside the medibay. He was command. Him and Rodimus were going to have to sort this out, without Ultra Magnus. The kid was clearly exhausted, maybe he needed the time to recharge. Ratchet didn't approve, but he could understand.

Ratchet crouched down and lifted Drift in his arms. "You're up," he said. Drift blinked his optics at him sleepily. With no legs, Drift was light as a minibot. He stepped them over to the berth next to Ultra Magnus and eased Drift onto the berth.

Drift looked around blearily. "Where's everyone?"

"You're the last triage patient. I sent Ambulon, First Aid and Hound home for the night. Just lay there for a few minutes, I've got to get your legs. And hopefully send Tailgate and Swerve home." He glared over at Swerve, still blasting the Empyrean Suite while Tailgate...rubbed Magnus's legs with one of Ratchet's cleaning rags? A silent vigil was one thing but the keyword was generally silent.

"I can wait a little longer," Drift said breezily.

"You want to tell me what's up with you?" Ratchet asked.

Drift cringed and looked away. "I don't want to talk about it."

Drift seemed even more disturbed by Rodimus's announcement over the intercom. He didn't talk except to answer Ratchet's brusque medical questions, no normal playful banter and odes to Ratchet's Primus-given skills. Ratchet hadn't realized he'd grown to expect that. It would have been inappropriate, given the events of the day. But it felt out of place to be together and not engaging in theological repartee.

Ratchet finished up reattaching his legs, an easy surgery compared to most that day, and Drift got up to leave. He made it as far as the end of the berth before he turned back. "Ratchet, in case we don't get to talk again soon, I wanted to say thank you for saving my life. Again." Drift ducked his head down. And what was this scrap about? Worried about the investigation? Worried about his imminent promotion to second-in-command?

"Way I see it, you saved me and I saved you and all the rest of them saved both of us and then Rewind and Fort Max saved us all," Ratchet said. Drift cringed at the mention of Rewind's name. Ratchet checked his internal chrono—they still had a few hours before the ceremony.

"Yeah," Drift said quietly. "But you saved me first. I always wanted to know, but was too scared to ask—did you regret it? The first time? Because of all the awful things I did after?"

"No." Ratchet shook his head. "You can't think like that as a medic. You save whoever's put in front of you. You can't try and judge what they might do in the future and portion out your care accordingly. You'd drown. I saved a good kid. What happened next, happened. I don't connect them like that."

"Okay," Drift said. "Okay. I have to go now. Rodimus is waiting for me, but I just wanted to make sure I didn't go without saying thank you. For everything."

He walked out the door and Ratchet felt with a sinking absolute certainty that he had missed something important.

Ratchet wasn't sure what to think when Rodimus declared that the results of the inquiry would be made public the very next day. He arrived at the shuttle bay still mystified—Rodimus couldn't even have had time to interview all of the crew. Ratchet hadn't even convinced Chromedome to come into the medibay to replace his arm. Rung was swamped with patients and some of the witnesses weren't even conscious yet. A pall had fallen over the crew; Overlord seemed to lurk around every corner. People had stopped talking, everyone waiting for something to break. But this was too soon.

When he got to the shuttle bay to find the solemn crowd already assembled, he wasn't surprised to see Rodimus up on one of the high platforms, Drift at his side. Rodimus, grandstanding as always. But he did note in passing that one of their scout shuttles was docked by the main airlock, ready for departure. Ratchet settled himself in at the back of the crowd, hand on his comm in case someone called with an emergency. Ambulon and First Aid were both in the crowd somewhere, but he wasn't expecting this to take more than a few minutes. He'd left his frequency posted on the door in case someone needed him.

Rodimus lifted the mic in his hand and started talking but it wasn't until the words "Drift admitted full responsibility for what happened" passed his lips that the thought Drift might have been up on that platform for any reason other than moral support occurred to Ratchet.

Ratchet's first thought was that it was absolute slag. There was no fragging way that Drift had thought that plan up all by himself—the entire explanation reeked of an unsaid 'Prowl' throughout. Drift barely knew the Duobots and the idea that the three of them had somehow spirited Overlord away from Prowl and the rest of high command with everyone none the wiser was absurd. His second thought was that he should have known something was up from Drift's posture, the way his head was ducked and his hands stiff at his sides in a pose that screamed 'impending doom'.

He watched in disbelief as Drift claimed to have nothing to say, nothing to dispute the charges or to offer mitigating circumstances. Order you to leave the ship? His brain latched onto that phrase and started repeating it in bewilderment. Rodimus ripped Drift's badge from his chest and Drift stood perfectly still, accepting. Ratchet crossed his arms. He wasn't making excuses because he liked Drift. He wasn't. This just felt...excessive. Cruel.

Seven bots are dead and there's one more on the way. But Drift didn't kill them. To strip him of command was just. To bring him before a trial for sentencing was fair. To humiliate him in front of the entire crew was cruel.

The crowd around him began to roar and jeer as Drift walked to the edge of the platform and began to descend the ladder. There was a feeling of only half-leashed violence about their anger and Ratchet watched Drift anxiously as he touched off onto the ground. Everyone had been waiting for something to break. Up on that high platform, Rodimus said something into the mic about people moving to make way. Everyone ignored him, pressing close as Drift moved through the gauntlet of the angry crowd.

Drift was almost to Ratchet when the first bot threw something. Drift carried on, eyes locked on the shuttle in front of him. Ratchet would have bet money it was Atomizer that made the first throw. Several others in the crowd followed suit and what looked like a section of piping hit Drift in the back of the helm, shattering the medial section of his upper finial. Drift stumbled and fell to his knees.

Ratchet stepped between him and the crowd and stared them down, arms crossed across his chest and his face twisted with rage. This wasn't the Dark times and they did not stone people. If they wanted to throw something, they were going to throw it at Ratchet.

There was a moment of tension and then the crowd seemed to still, the moment passed. Ratchet turned away from them and held out a hand to Drift, pulling him to his feet. The shattered finial didn't look to be leaking. It would just need cosmetic patching. With a steadying hand on his shoulder, Ratchet escorted Drift to his shuttle across the broad expanse of the open shuttle bay floor.

When they reached the entrance, Drift lifted Ratchet's hand from his shoulder and moved it so that Ratchet's hands were encircling his. "I have to go now," Drift said.

"Let me fix you," Ratchet said.

Drift shook his head. "He said immediately." He looked down at their clasped hands. "My life is in your hands, Ratchet. I'm sorry if you never wanted it." He opened the door of his shuttle and hopped up, giving Ratchet a parting nod before closing the door in his face.

"What the frag was that?" Ratchet shouted at the closed door.

Ratchet didn't let himself collapse until they'd lifted off from Luna I. Tailgate was on the mend, though it would take a long time before he was back on his feet. Ultra Magnus was fine. Ambulon was dead. Drift was gone.

He'd already done the morbid work of moving Ambulon's body into the morgue—him alone, because First Aid had collapsed utterly in the aftermath. He didn't blame the kid, it was just...exhausting. It was all exhausting.

He should have sent himself straight to his hab to sleep, but the thought of Pharma coming to him in dreams drove him to pace the hallways until he came to a familiar door. Drift's hab, apparently undisturbed since his departure. Ratchet didn't know the keycode, but he had a medical override.

The room still smelled of him. Ratchet hadn't realized Drift had a scent, but he must have. The faint air of the little crystal lanterns, the warm scent of metal polish...Ratchet couldn't have described it. But it lingered in the air. He stepped inside and looked around. Drift had taken most of his effects with him—his swords, the datapad with the sketch Ratchet had drawn for him. When he checked the top drawer of the desk, Drift's casting fragments were gone. Further inspection failed to turn up the case of mood suppressants Ratchet had left with him, so hopefully he'd packed it into the shuttle.

Ratchet sank down onto the berth. Packed it into the shuttle. Because Drift had known what sentence Rodimus was going to levy before he did. Ratchet just couldn't understand.

He reached down beside the berth and found soft fabric. He lifted it onto his lap and looked at it; the silver-colored warming blanket they'd fought over. Drift must have forgotten it. His fingers traced over the stitched hexagons of its surface and over the silky-smooth metallo-fabric between them. He hoped Drift wasn't too cold without it. Which was stupid, fragging stupid. Drift had money, Ratchet knew that. He wasn't helpless. He could buy himself twenty blankets if he wanted.

Nobody cared if Ratchet took this one back with him to his habsuite. Underneath it, he was almost too hot to recharge, but he never dreamed of Pharma.

Ratchet paced the floor of the medibay, datapad in hand. He was right. He was fragging right. Rodimus was in on it. Drift was following orders. Prowl had been the mastermind. Only, knowing it didn't bring him any satisfaction. And while the urge to ask Rodimus if, in light of his confession, he was planning on stripping himself of his Autobrand and exiling himself from the ship would be satisfying, it would also be pointless. Punishing Rodimus would do no more to bring Drift back than returning Pharma's hands would bring Ambulon back to life. Ratchet looked over at Ambulon's desk. Still how he'd left it. First Aid barely let him sweep the floor around it.

Punishing Rodimus wasn't going to bring anyone back. But still. Ratchet stalked over to his desk to cast his ballot.

It was tempting to strike out on his own. Ratchet wasn't rich, despite what many bots sometimes claimed. Medics weren't paid more than the standard soldier's yearly allotment. He'd spent a lot of it, throughout the war, buying medical supplies that command wouldn't let him expense. He had enough to keep himself in good engex and that was usually enough. There wasn't really stuff that he wanted.

But if he asked, Ratchet was pretty sure he could guilt someone into giving him a small personal spacecraft. Rodimus even. He could go out, find Drift, ask him what the hell he'd meant. My life is in your hands, whatever the frag that was supposed to mean. Ratchet had tried hailing him once or twice, but either Drift had lost signal or he'd changed his personal frequency. But yeah, find Drift, yell at him, get some answers. Tell him to scoot on home, Roddy was helpless without him. Maybe find a nice remote colony in need of a consulting doctor. He could sit down and finally write up some texts explaining his personal techniques and how he'd recommend teaching new medical students. Someone was going to need to start training new doctors and therapists; there were far too few of them left to serve their remaining population. Non-combatants were always such easy targets.

Yeah. Nobody needed Ratchet here to finish the trial, whatever they said. He wouldn't even have to stay to see it through. It was exhausting. Day after day sitting there and having everyone explain that Megatron was evil. They knew that. Everyone knew that. He just wanted it to be over. Seeing the verdict from deep space wouldn't be so bad.

The problem was, as always, obligation. First Aid wasn't ready to take the position of chief medical officer. None of the new recruits Ratchet had heard about were doctors. He couldn't just leave them all to die; which was probably what would happen within a week of his departure. And he'd seen the way Optimus was looking at him. The mech was obviously itching to ask him a favor and it was almost certainly to keep 'watching over' Rodimus and the rest. And if Ratchet were any good at turning down Orion Pax, well, life would have turned out different.

Ratchet checked his chrono again. Four hours till Brainstorm's trial and nothing to do. He could have gone off for souvenirs but there was absolutely nothing he wanted. First Aid had finally chased him out of the medibay, claimed his incessant fussing was going to drive him to another nervous breakdown. Possibly Ratchet was being a little overly attentive. He worried. It was his thing.

But maybe it was time to turn that energy towards something else. Tidying his room, for instance. There was probably loads of stuff that could be tossed and getting rid of possessions was always a viscerally satisfying experience. Ratchet found a box to start gathering junk in and started clearing off his desk. Broken laser scalpels, some empty bottles, packing slips from old deliveries. And, oh. There was the box with his hands in it. They were probably in need of a polish, Ratchet hadn't cracked that box open since before Luna I. Too close to thinking about Pharma.

Ratchet eased himself into his chair and cracked the lid open. He frowned. Someone had rearranged his hands so they were palm to palm, hands cupped as if hiding something inside. Looking closer, he could see that there was something inside. Ratchet wiggled his fingers between them and fished it out.

A datastick fell to his lap, slipping out of the piece of paper that had been wrapped around it. Ratchet unfolded the paper, instantly recognizing the handwriting.

Ratchet—I had made this as a gift for you before I realized you would know about Overlord. I'm sorry. For everything but mostly for keeping you in the dark. I was a bad friend and I made bad choices so I understand if you no longer care about the information on this datastick. But it felt more wrong to keep it than to give it away.

May your plating never tarnish and your spark last forever, undying, undying, blessed by Primus

-Drift

Ratchet picked up the datastick, then nearly dropped it again. My life is in your hands. That fragging cryptic pile of scrap. What kind of clue was that supposed to be? And what on Cybertron was that supposed to mean? Ratchet flicked his arm console open and uncapped the dataport, plugging the datastick in. His systems regarded it for a few seconds, searching it for viruses before announcing via the HUD that it was cerebrostream formatted data, a single file, and would he like to load the file? Ratchet opened it up.

His HUD flashed and then came up with a password prompt: Please verify that you are Ratchet by entering the name of this Cyberlynx...

A picture of Hero appeared on his HUD, sleeping curled up in a patch of sunlight back in Ratchet's old academy apartment. Ratchet shook his head. Well, that was a blast from the past. And how had Drift found that picture? Even more curious, he keyed it in and sat back.

His vision darkened and then blurred into what was almost Drift's habsuite. It was like a dream of Drift's habsuite, wobbly around the edges, only a few details tightly in focus. When he turned his head, the view didn't change at all.

A voice spoke, but not exactly spoke. A voice thought and Ratchet heard those thoughts. Cerebrostream. Ratchet had heard of folks making direct recordings of their mind's eye before; though mnemosurgery had put that mostly out of business except in the fringe case of dream cinema. Ratchet tried to focus on the voice, which, while it wasn't quite Drift's voice as he heard it, must have been how Drift imagined his voice.

"Ratchet," Drift said. "I noticed that you seem very invested in my life. Which is to say, I found that datapad out on your desk a few weeks ago. 'Drift of Rodion—Observational Study.' I was very flattered. And then, a few days ago, I realized I wanted you to know. Not just the medical stuff, I wanted you to understand what made me this way."

Drift's mind's eye focused in on the portrait Ratchet had drawn of him. "Rewind told me about this. Cerebrostreaming. If I think about my memories, I can send an impression of them into this memory stick. I understand if you don't want to see all that. But I wanted to give it to you. I mostly focused on moments that explained things you'd taken notes on, but Rewind reminded me recently that joy is also important. So there's a little bit of that in there too. I didn't want you to take this as a cry for pity—it's not. I don't regret my life, even if I regret a great many of my decisions. I've had so many friends and I've loved so many people, even if they didn't last. And then I got to meet you. So yeah, this is my life. Or, the highlights reel anyway."

The scene shuttered and faded, Drift's voice fading too. Inside the stream, distinct from his body, he was hit with the memory of cold.

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.