Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."

-Jean Rostand (1939)

"If they are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free."

-Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"Isn't it fascinating how one's survival is inherently at odds with society? The individual pursuit of one's dreams clashes with societal order as it is naturally disruptive, making it punishable; however life is not complete without both good and bad experiences, and without continued existence other goals such as maximizing wellbeing cannot be accomplished, so bearing the consequences is a risk worth taking. Society and self-actualization are incompatible to the core  - which is why society places restrictions on the latter. The clash is inevitable, a societal dynamic that overthrows corrupt rulers who leech on their people in the name of order.

In Functionism, the role of the government is to be an entity solely devoted to self-preservation; It is separate from the people, devoid of requiring legitimacy nor accountability. The consequence is a perpetual repressed conflict between the state and the people. For the people, there is no resolution without the right to self-determine. This notion lies at the heart of the Decepticon movement."  

- Megatron, "Towards Peace" 

"There exists no purpose nor meaning, but only information waiting to be understood."

- former Senator Shockwave, addressing Jhiaxus post-Empurata 

Do you love an indigo sky and icy air? Vast empty plains of silica sands, spaceports, industrial zones, and two moons to ogle at after drunken nights at Maccadam's Old Oil House?

Well you are in luck. You'll love this land - and especially this city! But it's fragging terrible in so many ways because of the Functionists.  

They call me Starscream. I live on Cybertron, the kingdom of heaven, the utopia where we conquered death, where no one dies of old age, and every ghost is literally in a machine. Every soul possessing the hull of a titan. The organic races envy us. They fear us. Some worship us. Some want to be us. Others want to destroy us. 

I have come from Vos to the great capital of Iacon. I am but a humble student of Cognitive Architecture at the University of Iacon. Sadly, I was not "special" enough to qualify for Senator Shockwave's Academy of Outliers. The Functionists hate that place so it must be worth attending, though! 

Couple of my not-so-dear friends migrated with me. We're all skyborne fliers, making us so super high-end, even in the optics of Functionists!

So yeah, on paper everything in Iacon is polished, shiny, and absolutely stainless perfection. That's what the Functionists want you to think! Underneath the glitter and gold, you'll find maddening corruption, lots of basic things breaking apart because of an apparent energon crisis, and a repressed people losing their jobs.

How do I know about these things?

Recently Thundercracker (my stupid but useful roommate) introduced me to the writings of a guy called Megatronus. He used to work in the mines, can you imagine? But he beat someone up in there and got sent to Kaon to fight in gladiatorial combat. He turned out to be so good at it, he became a global megastar (ohh I just saw a very dirty amalgam here and I don't know if I vouch for it haha.)

Anyways, we're planning to go see one of his gladiatorial fights and maybe get an autograph (us and Skywarp, my other roommate. Very dumb too but for some reason can teleport which is kinda half-cool and might give him access to the Academy because what fragging jet naturally just teleports around??)

There's a big red police officer whose name has been making the rounds lately. They say he's rough on anybody suspected of activities against the state.

It's said Megatron wants a word with him, whatever that means. 

The neon lights of Iacon cast red and purple hues on ambling, rolling, and flying citizens of countless designations and modes, each unit heading to and back from work, or seeking thrills in the city's various nightlife establishments.

There was diversity, at least in the optics of policemech Orion Pax as he strolled vigorously towards the precinct with Prowl and Ultra Magnus accompanying him.

Prowl and Orion picked up their datapads immediately after closing the doors behind them.

"So, we are ordered to finally arrest that agitator miner, but on what charges?" Ultra Magnus asked his colleagues with concern. 

"Former miner. Gladiator," Prowl corrected him. "Technically he is accused of either misdemeanor or treason, depending on which side of the Senate we're talking about."

Ultra Magnus turned to Orion. "Aren't you familiar with his pamphlets?"

"I have seen you keep a copy of his publications in your locker," Prowl pointed out with a suspicious tone in his vocal harmonizer.  

"Indeed I am familiar with them," the big red mech acknowledged, his gaze still scraping the datapad. "Do not get me wrong; while he has made some thought-provoking arguments, I prioritize my duties towards the city and the state, and the best interest of the public. I wish to maintain order as much as you do."

"Of course," Prowl accepted dryly. "After all, it would be rather peculiar if the best student in the academy excelling in Law Enforcement wouldn't be destined to serve the state with the highest integrity. Impressive for a former data clerk."  

"Archivist," Orion corrected his colleague with a guttural voice, side-eyeing him. "You make it sound like it is an easy job, but one has to be highly educated to become one."

"I know that, Orion," Prowl replied between his denta, not looking at him, "Archivist or cop, you kneel before the city and its need for order. As do I."

Chapter Text

People of Cybertron

Strong, brave, resilient

Your sparks beat in the rhythm of the stars

Your spirits burn bright

Long may you reign over the galaxy

For you are power incarnate

- Cybertron Eternal by Megatron, from Poetry Collection Volume 1 

"Authoritarianism and the erosion of democracy plague our society, as the scaremongering Functionists gain influence over the conservatives by attacking marginalized groups such as outliers, monoformers, and an increasing amount of citizens wishing to change careers to something that has nothing to do with their forms of transformation. And where is Nominus Prime? He has done nothing to either approve nor resist their preposterous propositions regarding restrictions on self-determination; civil rights, as you would call them."

It was that livestreamed speech by Megatronus that caught my attention.

My name is Orion Pax, street officer and recently promoted Chief of Iacon's First Precinct.  

Do I ever feel a little guilty over watching his gladiatorial livestreams? The real question is: How can anyone NOT watch him? No one else fights like him. No one else has that showmanship and charisma that makes the audience eat from his servo.   

And his publications! Who knew a former miner could come up with thoughts that upset the Senate as to declare him an enemy of the state? 

How I wish I could share some of these ideas in the precinct, but my colleagues don't think much of his work and his style. There is, however, the increasing tendency that we don't always agree on certain political topics. However, my colleagues have earned my respect in the time spent in Iacon's Police Academy, and now in my command in the First Precinct, and we've been through a lot together. That is why I'm convinced that the dissidents are the true threat to our peace and security in Cybertron today - this is the position I support.

Because order and justice in Iacon depends on me.

It is more than an opinion, or a job; It is an inner calling I must heed.

In the beginning, there was a bench.

A fairly harmless-looking but creaky bench, which Orion liked to spend his breaks sitting on - regardless of the potential hazard of the seat crushing under his fifty-ton weight. To him, it was a safe space to ponder the contradictions of life and his ideals. 

And right now, there was a pause in his shift, enabling him to process the words of his colleagues. He knew they were warnings.

The livestreams of gladiatorial combats from Kaon had reached peak popularity ever since Megatronus joined the ranks of the fighters, and a few decacycles ago, Ariel, Orion's girlfriend, had surprised her sweetspark by taking him on a trip to Kaon to attend the games. There, in that dreadfully rundown city, Orion and Ariel had watched the grey mech who, despite his massive hull and sixty-ton weight, moved effortlessly across the sands of the battleground, dodging and blocking his opponents with a grin on his handsome face, possessing an incredible speed for someone his size. Megatronus danced around his opponents, even took to the air despite not being a flier, and not only was he fast with his weapons, his kicks and strikes worked like rapid-fire artillery, and he was particularly good at tripping his opponents by sliding across the sand and producing an unexpected kick in the opponent's leg such that they lost balance. 

Cybertron had never seen a mech like that before; Megatronus was absolutely phenomenal as a fighter, there was no doubt about it, as well as a showman, thinker, and writer. 

I would like to be able to fight like he does. I would like to be able to speak to people like he does. And above all, I agree with everything he writes. 

"Orion? Is it alright if I sit here?"

Ultra Magnus had been worried about his colleague for some time now. He didn't share Prowl's critical attitude towards Orion's questionable political leaning nor taste for sports. They both knew well Orion was a superb police officer, if somewhat overtly enthusiastic about carrying out his job at times as occasionally the suspects never made it alive to be prosecuted. However in Orion's defense, the suspects were usually trying to kill him anyway.

"It's fine," Orion mumbled, waking up from his thoughts. He glanced at his blue colleague. They quickly scanned each other's EM fields and ,oddly enough, they both registered something mournful and plaintive about each other's fields. 

"I wanted to ask if you're... alright," Magnus admitted awkwardly. "I hope you don't think we disapprove of you at the precinct just because you enjoy watching Megatron's battle livestreams, or because you read his works. It doesn't make you a bad cop. I think we can all acknowledge that Megatron is one of a kind."

"Really?" Orion's EM field radiated some surprise.

"Well, yes. Everybody watches his battles because you simply cannot look away from him," Magnus said, his EM field now embarrassed.

Orion stared at his colleague. "What, you watch his battles too?"

"Please don't tell Prowl. I would hear about it from him infinitely."      

Magnus turned on a livestream from Kaon where destitute-looking crowds had gathered to listen to Megatronus after yet another victory over a seemingly impossible opponent.  

"Have you read his pamphlets The Warning of the Past, Dissolution of Social Inequalities, Principles of Functionism and Its Relationship to Axiological Liberty, or the just-released book Why Does Our Hierarchical Society Overtime Destroy Itself in Infinite and Mutual Contempt?"

Orion nodded. "I am a firm believer in a flat society where everyone can freely achieve their goals. These are controversial propositions and they deserve fair discussion."

A concept he liked to discuss, although no one outside the lowlife really wanted to listen to such ideas in this perfect society. It's almost as if they didn't have a choice and that the state would decide the limit of their well-being...

"I suppose you can tell Prowl has been rather unhappy that you were promoted instead of him," Ultra Magnus pointed out, his EM field radiating caution, as if he felt such a question was potentially inappropriate.

"I do know," Orion acknowledged. "He's been snappy ever since I received the promotion. But our disagreements go way back: During our time at the Academy, I understood I and Prowl had different ideas on law enforcement itself, even if his scores on both the theory and implementation of Cybertronian law were always excellent."

"Yes, his academic record was almost as good as yours. But Prowl lacked your skill in communication, crew management, hostage negotiation, and ---"

Orion's EM field implied amusement. "Prowl refuses to understand that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to peacefully negotiate an end to a dispute rather than use force executed with precision regardless of collateral damage." 

"Some would disagree."
Orion's expression stiffened. "Well, then I'm glad there are other types of officers like the ones you and I. I, for instance, am an Enthusiast of law enforcement, while others like yourself are enthusiasts of rules and protocol."
"I cannot confirm the accuracy of that," Ultra Magnus frowned.

"Greetings, officers," a cheerful voice interrupted them. Orion and Magnus turned their heads and saw Senator Shockwave walking by in all his glistening splendor of a gold-and-green paintjob, his EM buzzing with his vivacious spirit and lightning-fast mood swings. 

While Orion and the Senator had often said hello to each other as casual acquaintances, Orion realized he was suddenly annoyed by the presence of Ultra Magnus, as if the blue mech was somehow disturbing his intention of enjoýing a conversation with the flashy Senator.

"Good evening, Sir!" Orion acknowledged. His engines hummed with an enthusiastic purr as he waved his enormous, red and blue servo. "W-what brings you to the First Precinct at this time?" His EM field radiated an odd embarrassment, regretting the slightly too high pitch in his voice. He was hoping it was only him who noticed. He did not succeed.
Ultra Magnus cleared his vocal harmonizer. "Good evening, Sir," he echoed after Orion with his usual military drone, standing up like he was summoned by a drill sergeant.
Senator Shockwave's optical scanner examined his company, as his horns began flickering, producing an odd purr. "OH."
His attention focused on the big, red and blue officer; the charming young cop with a beautiful blue and red chequered paintjob.

"It's none other than Iacon's darling street officer Orion Pax. Come now, must you be that formal?"
"As you command, Sir."

Both Orion and Magnus were deeply aware how higher up the Senator was compared to them in the social hierarchy of the State.
"Ah, don't call me 'Sir,' either. I've told you many a time."
"B-"
Shockwave crossed the small distance and raised a digit under Orion's chin, his optics shifting hue from amber to royal blue. "Now tell me, have you been watching me on your datapad again?"

Orion felt like he was about to melt from embarrassment with the Senator's shameless flirting with him in the presence of his colleague.

"Senator, I assume you mean those ads you did for the Academy of Outliers?" he asked awkwardly.

"Ummm.... pardon my intrusion, but I actually have seen him watch those ads quite often," Ultra Magnus said as if accusing Orion of a crime.
"And this one right here." Senator Shockwave pointed a digit at the datapad Orion held loosely. "Don't let that co-worker of yours - oh what was his name, Prowl! Yes! Don't let him boss you around. One has a right to consume anything in moderation as long as it does not harm someone's rights."
"Understood, S-"
Orion turned his head and glared at Ultra Magnus. Ultra Magnus gazed back. Orion and Magnus both realized their EM fields were broadcasting their feelings at a noticeably high level of aggravation that neither could read or interpret in the slightest.
Orion could not remember the last time he had fought with a colleague of his over anything.

The bench under him felt unusually uncomfortable now; it was as if it tried to push his aft off of it or risk collapsing.

But Senator Shockwave gave him an encouraging smile before leaving, and Orion realized afterwards that he couldn't stop thinking about him.

Despite his huge, bulky form, the grey mech appeared much leaner. Much to the consternation of those in power, Megatronus had gained followers from across the country, though his stances seemed to grow increasingly radical and inflammatory the more vocal he became. While there was a vocal faction advocating his detention, most of the populace were too fascinated, intrigued, or afraid of him, with mixed feelings over his sharp criticism of the Senate. But no one could deny the whole nation was obsessed with him, the gladiator who never lost a fight.

In the audience, government spy Soundwave observed the fight. He was there on a fact-finding mission for the Senate. The Senate wanted to know what Megatron really stood for, how he got such a following, and if his violent, destructive antics could be stopped before it was too late.
Soundwave could tell that the Senate was genuinely concerned. They had reason to be, since this was not the first time they had encountered rebellion, but it had been decades, maybe even centuries since the last time such a movement had taken place.

"He's amazing, isn't he?" said compressed Ravage inside his chest. 

"Affirmative." Watching Megatron was spectacular. His natural showmanship combined with his fighting style which resembled fast-paced, violent dancing that involved well-timed punches and kicks with surgical precision, left even the normally laconic Soundwave impressed.

Megatron defeated his opponent by knocking him out cold with a blow to the head, earning cheers and applause from the crowd.
As much as Soundwave appreciated the spectacle, his purpose was to find out everything he could about the mech, his organization, and the possible danger he posed. From the corner of his eye, he spotted two Autobot guards coming towards him, and tensed in anticipation of being kicked out, given that the Senate had given standing orders to confiscate any recording or report pertaining to Megatron. However, instead, the two guards passed by, ignored him, and conversed among themselves:

Soundwave then overheard a white-and-red young flier talking to two other fliers who looked exactly like him but with different paintjobs. 

"These gladiator fights sure do bring in the crowd," a blue-and-red flier said. "Are you seeing the creds they are paying to get to the front row?"
"No fair! Those lower-class slaggers from Tarn and Praxus have way too much money to throw around," remarked the white-and-red flier.
"Wish I had a fraction of that to buy a nice set of custom made thrusters for my next upgrades," commented a purple-and-black flier.

"Ugh! Why are you wasting your hard-earned credits on an old glitch like that, Skywarp? Split the cost, and we can both get something nice for ourselves. Wouldn't you like something like this instead?" The white-and-red pulled out a holovid which he pointed at. "I heard from a friend that these are a best-selling new set. Gotta admit, it would feel good to see Megatron in it."

"Can't imagine Megatron appearing in one until his career is over, Starscream," said the blue one, chuckling. "I had no idea you liked him in that way."

Starscream snorted. "Don't be a moron, Thundercracker. Only an idiot with half a CPU wouldn't enjoy a ride on his frame."
"That does sound fun, and I could give him the best time of his life, if you know what I'm saying." Skywarp's glossa hung out of his mouth now.

"In your dreams!" Starscream screeched.

Soundwave was mildly amused by the obscene banter of these youths.

It appeared Starscream's pede had found a large piece of junk and crushed it loudly underneath his thruster. All three mechs froze momentarily before regaining their composure, then Starscream's voice became softer, almost to a whisper.
"Listen carefully, both of you: I have something you'd want to hear. Senator Shockwave plans to get rid of the pesky Senate soon. It's not a rumor; I heard from..."

Soundwave's audials sharpened. This was new data. Everyone in the Senate knew this Senator as a wildly visionary scientific genius but overtly idealistic in his stance on politics. However, the idea of Senator Shockwave plotting against his colleagues was unheard of.

Given his idealism, though, it didn't seem like an impossible thought.

The only problem, and the true question for Soundwave, was how this potentially threatening young mech felt about the gladiator Megatron.
Just then, he observed an unfamiliar dark, black-blue-and-purple bot taking Starscream's arm.

"Thundercracker, Skywarp, this is our old pal, Barricade. He was the one who first invited us to the Underground fighting arena."
Soundwave immediately saw through this blatantly clumsy attempt to misdirect and nodded inside. As someone in the business of intelligence, he wasn't deceived by the attempt to shut Starscream up.

It could very well be an ingenuous misdirection that led to what he was after: this individual, Starscream, had a good relationship with whoever this 'Shockwave' was.

Soundwave's attempt at recording the voices of those three youths resulted in a muddled cacophony of the crowd chanting Megatron's name which buried all relevant data, however.

"Why don't we go talk to Megatron after the show?" Ravage suggested inside his chest.

Soundwave was skeptical about the possibility of speaking to Megatron. Though not a politician himself, he knew well enough the inner workings of their world and could see well enough that those of Megatron's rank and standing did not make pleasant company to most of those who lived below the surface, the poor people, whom Megatron considered allies. However, recording the grey gladiator's speech and thoughts would likely produce some useful leads, and even if the most interesting bits were lost through processing, the speech of a leader might encourage those of similarly subversive opinion.

***

That tiny dot in the sky is our central star.

The far distant binary system that forms a small hazy dot, appearing red in the thick smog, does not provide any warmth, and we are stuck with it. There is no “day” on this planet as you organics know it. I go to school in near permanent twilight that is illuminated by the stars, northern lights, and the cold halo of our dim central star. The smog that covers the city would make flying dangerous without our sensors and public aerial traffic control, as I found out this morning when I almost crashed into a dickhead called Air Raid from the Police Academy. I didn’t even know they had fliers!

Oh well, Iacon is old and less well designed to accommodate fliers than Vos. Still doesn't mean I'm going back there anytime soon!  

Oh frag.
The big red cop is standing in the corner of the campus with some black-and-white cop and a huge blue one. Hmm, are they gonna arrest Skywarp for selling illegal mem recordings? 
I’m casually trying to slip by, it’s not like I have something to hide, do I? 

“Greetings, fellow traveler. May you have a pleasant day.”

Oh. I’m actually kinda bummed that they don’t seem to find me any bit suspicious! Am I not even worth a disapproving glare from those cop mofos?

That tall white guy in the hallway is Teaching Assistant Jetfire. I'm just flipping through my schedule on my datapad, pretending to ignore him so he doesn't read the blush in my EM field. But knowing him, he would have no fragging idea what I'm blushing about. 

“Starscream,” he acknowledges politely.

Yeah, I’ve sort of grown to like this tall flier during the semester because he’s one of the few people that don’t make fun of me. 
“Hi Jetfire, we have a boring history lecture today.”
“But it’s a guest lecturer - Jhiaxus from the Academy of Outliers.”
“Him? Oh wow, then I don’t have to spend class looking at holovids.”
“Eh…” Weak, awkward smile. 

Lecture. Skywarp is deep in recharge in the back row, Thundercracker trying to flirt with Slipstream. Well, it's not like he has a chance with Megatron, haha. 

“Fifty Solar Cycles ago, the Quintessons retreated from Cybertron following the Confederation of Organic Races bombarding their home planet Quintessa with all their nuclear arsenal to finally stop an invasion that was consuming the whole galaxy. At the time, Cybertron was ruled by Liege Maximo, the second last of the original Thirteen Primes, whose failure to defend Cybertron instilled rebellion. Right before the Quintesson exodus, Liege Maximo was deposed by the conjoined forces of Alpha Trion and four generals: Dai Atlas, Straxus, Thunderclash, and Star Saber. After the Quintessons had left Cybertron, they appointed Nominus Prime to reign over Cybertron in exchange for government positions which they hold to this day.”

“They gave up their power to Nominus just like that?” I asked him.

Curious look on Jhiaxus’ face. “Perhaps they understood there would be a civil war that would destroy our civilization, or that not having a unified leadership would make us seem weak to other races, thus inviting colonialists. But the most likely reason is that Nominus was backed up by a coalition that wanted to ensure the Confederation of Organic Races would keep their nukes away from us by emphasizing how we were victims of the Quintessons and through modernization.”

"What coalition?" I continued.

"It later became known as the Functionist Party. And now that I mentioned it, remember to vote in the upcoming elections."

Ha! As if voting would change anything around here!

Unless... unless I were leader.

***

The tall red-and-white mech stepping into the Precinct made everyone's heads turn.

Orion and his colleagues couldn't believe their optics whom Officers Chromia and Ironhide had escorted into the premises.  

"Star Saber?" Ultra Magnus gasped. The legendary general who had fought against the Quintessons and helped overthrow the dictator Liege Maximo graced the crude facilities with his noble presence, eyeing the staff approvingly, but his optics lingering on Orion longer than on others. Evaluating.  

"Indeed. Ministry of Defense." Star Saber looked around solemnly. "I bring grave news. Alpha Trion recommended me to speak to you about the matter, Orion Pax."

Star Saber took a moment to stare every bot in the room in the optic. 

"Nominus Prime and three Senators were found offline in their apartments. Permanently, it seems; the Senate has called for a new meeting for a premature Primacy election. We believe Zeta will win the election because he's supported by the Functionists." 

"But why would anyone in their right mind vote for the Functionists?" Orion blurted out. "They want to take away people's freedom to choose their own careers!"

Star Saber gave Orion a surprisingly understanding nod. "I see what you mean, Orion, but they are populists and as such, feeding off of fear. In this case, it would be that allowing anyone to change vocations at will increases government spending in education that doesn't pay itself back. They argue that anyone changing jobs is a parasite because of the costs of re-training, in addition to threatening the jobs of those established in their fields by lowering wages when there are more people competing for the same jobs."

"But we all know the real reason," Orion grunted. "That by restricting education, the Functionists can ensure no one from the lower ranks can lift themselves to their level in the hierarchy and thus compete for power and influence. No wonder they are afraid of someone like Megatron who defies the odds."

"That's dangerous talk, Orion," Prowl suggested. "You might want to check your bluntness when higher-ups are around."

Star Saber tilted his head. "No, I appreciate honesty. Orion has spoken the truth as it is. But the situation at hand calls for your investigative skills, Orion. They say you are the best cop in town, and many of the Senators now live in fear over the unfortunate circumstances."

Prowl's EM field went noticeably sour over his comment. "So basically we are out to arrest Megatron," he remarked, observing Orion's reaction.

"Well, of course if he's responsible," Star Saber admitted. "The Functionist Party does blame him and would be happy if you find evidence against him. Megatron's upcoming shows have been cancelled and he's nowhere to be found, but keeps spreading his anti-government propaganda from the underground. He is certainly a suspect." 

"Orion Pax sympathizes with Megatron," Prowl hissed, enjoying the shocked, enraged emission from Orion's EM field. "He's compromised. I can take charge of the investigation, if you will allow it, Defense Minister."

"How dare you make such a claim about your superior officer!" Ultra Magnus warned, but Prowl replied with arrogant indifference.

Star Saber turned to look at Orion who could barely contain his rage as he eyed Prowl with murderous intent. 

"Our collective job is the restoration and maintenance of law and order to preserve civilization on Cybertron," the Defense Minister reminded them all, "and I have no doubt Orion Pax has the spirit to serve and protect the people and the State alike. I have seen his records, they are the reason he was appointed in charge of the Precinct; there is no reason to question him based on agreeing with The Decepticon Manifesto. "

"There isn't?" Prowl asked curiously.

"Of course not. Everyone in the government has read that pamphlet. Everyone knows Megatron is right. Which is why the Senators fear him and want him gone."

"Do we arrest him or not?" Prowl asked laconically. "It seems like having him arrested would solve the problem."

"If he's guilty of arranging Nominus' and the Senators' murders, or caught committing an actual crime, then yes, go ahead and arrest him by all means."

Orion and Prowl exchanged glances and EM emissions of self-righteous rage meeting cruel, ice cold contempt.

Methane clouds shimmered over Iacon as Cybertron's binary central star vanished in the darkening indigo sky to be replaced by the brightness of Sirius and aurora borealis, allowing Iacon's neon skyline to descend into the embrace of twilight, as the first solar cycle students of the University of Iacon were holding a street race on one of the lower deck streets near the campus grounds. While non-official races were theoretically illegal, and the State had established a sophisticated traffic management system to regulate the speed of any willful delinquent not adhering to speed limits, some citizens had found ways to counter these traffic policies by hacking themselves using black market upgrades.   

Three such youngsters designated Hot Rod, Mirage, and Bumblebee raced their alt modes before the First Precinct, capturing the mildly annoyed attention of both Prowl and Ultra Magnus; howéver the attention of these officers had turned to other concerns after the latest news.

"Sorry kids, you gotta get off the streets. There's a clampdown," Officer Jazz instructed the young racers as he arrived with Officers Arcee and Ironhide to clear the street.

"Head to your student barracks," Officer Arcee ordered, watching dismissively as Mirage and Hot Rod drifted side by side to impress a bunch of cheering students. 

"A clampdown? Why?" Hot Rod complained, stopping provocatively in front of Ironhide.

Jazz looked at his colleagues, carefully pondering whether to tell the truth. "The Prime's gone offline. The case is under investigation."

"Nominus died?!" Bumblebee squealed. "We really don't have a Prime anymore?"

"That's unfortunately the situation right now," Arcee admitted. "The last thing this city needs right now is anarchism, so everybody go home."

Their EM fields signaling frustation, the young bots drove off to the campus, leaving the police to shepherd the bystanders off the streets. 

***

Chapter Text

University of Iacon, Department of Cognitive Architecture. Laboratory.

I'm watching graphs appear on the screen before me as Jetfire and Senator Shockwave complete data analysis on what we call the "Lattice Spore", the foundation or building blocks of a Cybertronian spark. The big deal here is that the 4D qubital model of the Lattice Spore came from me!

"See, my spark is special! Why wasn't I accepted into the Academy of Outliers?" I finally ask the Senator. 

"Ah, you see, young Starscream, having a mutated spark like this is not a special ability," the Senator helpfully explains. 

"It's not a bug either, it's a feature!" I protest. "Anyway, I'm gonna write my thesis about my own spark!"

"But of course," the Senator smiles, "We can't know what your spark can do until you, well..."

"Die?"

"That seems to be the case," Jetfire remarks awkwardly, "But yours is a unique case; we usually conduct research on the Lattice Spore models of Point One Percenters to see the technical side of what makes them different. But the Senator has proposed a hypothesis regarding the Lattice Spore in general that is, uh, interesting."

"I know you are skeptical about it, Jetfire," the Senator acknowledged, "but rest assured, if I am correct, my discovery changes everything we think we know about our own species, our place in the multiverse, and what we are capable of. One day this information may save us all."

"What are you talking about, Senator?" I ask him, puzzled by his words that remind me of a cryptical prophecy rather than anything truly scientific.

Senator Shockwave turns and produces a beaming smile.

"That the Lattice Spores, the source code of our sparks, are not only connected to the Matrix, but form the Matrix itself as a collective library of sparks - a quantum cloud service - even though we cannot access it directly in our lifetime."

"The Primes can," I point out.

"Yes, and I've yet to find out how they can do that. But Primes are usually Point One Percenters, and only Point One Percenters can use the Leadership artefact." 

"Usually?"   

"Primes are sometimes selected by a committee based on their political inclinations rather than proven abilities or qualities."

"Oh." I stare at the graphs again. "What does it mean that the Lattice Spore 'forms' the Matrix?"

"It sounds astounding," the Senator replies, "but it means that not only does the Matrix have a qubital nature, it has measurable physical properties that also make it indestructible in space where it uses radiation to sustain itself as a system and can spread itself like seeds, all while retaining all accumulated sentience of Cybertronians as a hive mind."

"That's insane!" I cry out. "You're basically not just saying the afterlife exists, but it has physically measurable properties?!" 

"And a Point One Percenter who has the Leadership artefact can interact with the Matrix, or the collective Lattice Spores as if it were a person. But there's a catch: Because the collective Lattice Spores behave like a person, they can choose whether to accept the Point One Percenter or not." 

I glance at Jetfire who looks extremely awkward by now. It's not like either of us expected to be having spiritual discussions with the best scientist on the planet alive, but here he is, boldly making statements that were they coming from anyone else would be crazy talk. 

"How do we know if a Prime is a Point One Percenter and whether the Spores accept them?" I ask.

Senator Shockwave's EM field flickers. "Only time will tell. A new Prime will be elected soon, and it's not who it should be."

"How can you know that? Did the Senate already decide?"

"Yes, they decided. But you wouldn't believe how I know the new Prime is... Zeta." The Senator's thrill in his EM field suddenly turns somber.

"Ugh, him?" I express my disdain for the Functionist Party candidate, "So, you attended a summit on the Primacy issue or what?"

"No, I did not. After I expressed my grievances on being denied funding to build a Dyson Sphere around our binary system, I received a warning and stopped getting invitations to cabinet meetings where the most actual decision making in the Senate takes place. But instead, one cycle I received a message on my private comms, informing me that Zeta would get elected and that would be the beginning of a civil war unlike this planet has ever seen, resulting in a catastrophe that will doom our civilization. The message was from me. That's right: Myself." 

I turn to look at Jetfire's reaction to the Senator's words which have become emotional by now; he only shrugs.  

"I wouldn't know what to make of that," the tall white Teaching Assistant mumbles.

Senator Shockwave lifts a digit. "Oh, I don't expect you youngsters to understand. I only know that if I sent a message to myself without having any backlog information on when and why I did that, it's from the future, and it's meant to incite me to act upon the knowledge and change course."

"How the frag can you do that?!" I quip. The Senator keeps getting crazier!

"Sending information to the past is technically possible, but it creates a new timeline," Jetfire remarks incuriously. "Otherwise the entire multiverse would unravel and that's not something anyone with a functioning processor wants."

The Senator brightens up. "Now, how would I send data to myself if I existed in the future? I would use particles with negative mass, the net negative electric charge of hydrogen anions, negative ions of hydrogen with an extra electron. These ions can be artificially generated by mirroring extra electrons into a given destination location to calculate the exact moment when to produce an output. Together with quantum tunneling these particles can be used to alter the electrons in the target to match data which is mathematically mirrored from the source which locates data, takes a mirror copy, converts the data into images and channels them with tunneling into the hydrogen electrons of the target. The significance of hydrogen anions is based on baryogenesis or baryon asymmetry in the universe which affects the behavior of negative energy."

"Do we absolutely need a lecture on quantum gravity right now?" I groan. 

"Dear Starscream, you wanted an answer to your question, didn't you? And we are at the threshold of something great, something that will change our very understanding of the multiverse!" the Senator declares. "The critical data here is that our very sparks are 4-dimensional constructs of Lattice Spores that can be used to transmit information between mathematical points in space by utilizing the value of negative energy derived from hydrogen anions via the value of negative energy density, that is, vacuum energy and kinematic pressure."

Jetfire looks pensive. "The hypothesis is that Lattice Spores originated when cosmic microwaves bombarded ions until they rearranged themselves in thermic imbalance in which they have inivisible connections to each other."

The Senator nods excitedly. "This is called multi-object localization which enables particles to act as qubits to perform calculations by altering the direction of a particle’s magnetic field, the spin, in frequent intervals: Rhythmically, hence their 4-dimensional nature."

"How exactly does this make a Cybertronian spark in the wild?" I entail.

"Our sparks are based on the reallocation of entangled diamond particles which act as qubits by changing the direction of the electron spin, a particle’s magnetic field, in frequent intervals," the Senator explains, "and apparently this happens at the site of hotspots when a burst of cosmic radiation ignites diamond ions emerging from the planet's core. Electron spins are preserved in the dark spots of diamond, or dots lacking a carbon atom, and when exposed to photons, the electron spins begin to act like clockwork, performing calculations. Behold: a Lattice Spore. Depending on the available mass as storage and energy, and potential and kinetic energy of the Lattice Spore, it evolves into a spark. It's like the difference between a gas giant and a star: You need enough mass and pressure to ignite the thermal fusion."  

I watch the Senator cautiously. "Are you saying you sent the message to yourself from the future using your own spark?"

"Oh, I do believe I did," he replies happily. "Somehow my spark is entangled with my spark in another timeline, like the branches of a tree communicating with each other."

I'm not sure if Senator Shockwave has gone mad or being the visionary genius savant he's known to be, but seeing Jetfire's EM field makes me realize talk like this is exactly what he's used to hearing from him, whether he takes it seriously or not.

"But how are you gonna stop Zeta Prime and the civil war, if you're so sure it's really happening?"

"The civil war isn't the most important part of the message I received from myself," the Senator suddenly dismisses. "The message in fact told me that building a Dyson Sphere should have been my life mission to solve Cybertron's energy problems, so it confirms I have already failed, but still am capable of undoing some of the damage for the sake of Cybertron's future and that of our civilization if I resort to Plan B: Project Regenesis."

"Regenesis?"

Before I could ask him to elaborate, the Senator turns on his heels and exits the lab with his trademark extravagant strides (I gotta admit I kinda envy his poise, looks, and walk! )

Several chords later, Election Day. 

Maccadams Old Oil House at midnight, a throng of cops shoal in the neon-lit premises in between shifts staring at a screen where votes are being counted. Electronic beats thumping in the background, Orion Pax and his crew are enjoying containers of low-grade engex before a deserved rest.  

"The Functionists won. It don't look too good," Ironhide admits, disappointed.

There is a general unhappy murmur among the patrons.

"That's democracy for you," Trailbreaker comments. 

"Hopefully it was democracy," Orion grumbles. "Though we are not in the position to assume fraud, given we represent the machinery of the government responsible for ensuring no one actively challenges the legality of those elected into power nor the processes that lead to it."  

"But the Functionists have never won majority before," Sunstreaker points out, "Their disinformation campaign must have worked."  

"Protest votes? People are increasingly restless these days," Arcee replies.

"Orion, are we really gonna arrest Megatron?" Jazz asks with slight concern in his EM field. "I heard Zeta got elected Prime by the Senate this morning, with only Senator Shockwave and a couple of others being against it. Is that going to affect our case?"  

"Not necessarily arrested, but Megatron must be... interrogated." Orion brings his engex cup down, grunting. "Zeta is a member of the Functionist Party, and if it were up to them, a change of vocation like the one I did from Archivist to cop wouldn't be possible anymore. That is a dreadful interruption to our rights and freedom." 

"What if Megatron isn't guilty, but the Functionists want him arrested anyway?" Ironhide asks. "It sure seems like it, I mean."

Orion looks contemplative. "We cannot know for sure he isn't guilty, Ironhide. His street gang is known to be responsible for the increasing crime rates in Kaon and Nyon, and Ultra Magnus reported that he's somehow acquired government grade weaponry without raiding actual official armory and arms storages. I find that highly suspicious and unsual."

"You mean...?"

"Someone within the government is funding and supplying Megatron." Orion empties his engex container, the savory flavors of bismuth and strontium filling his tank with welcoming warmth; it would help him stay comfortable in the chill of the Cybertronian night.

"Obviously someone who doesn't like Functionists," Jazz suggests.

Senator Shockwave? It cannot be... Orion thinks about the Senator's flamboyant paintjob, his jolly demeanor and inviting smile.

"Orion, Star Saber wants to see you at the Praesidium," Officer Windcharger informs. "It's something about Nominus Prime's hull." 

"All right, I shall see to it."

The streets of Iacon aren't as busy anymore due to the clampdown, all deceptively innocuous. As the city's perpetual smog reflects the hues of the neon lights, Orion's Cybertronian truck alt mode rolls to the ancient magistrate in the old part of the town, near Acroplex.

Only I stand between the Law and lawlessness.

But sometimes he cannot tell if he's the Law - or above it, fueled by his inner paradigm.

<Defense Ministry? This is Officer Orion Pax. I shall be there in a breem.>

At the Praesidium.

Star Saber awaits him there by the building with two tall, bulky bots wearing an insignia Orion has often wondered about. 

"Good evening, Officer," the legendary commander greets Orion, offering his servo for a traditional palm-to-palm handshake which is an old formality rarely used by bots in modern times, such that it almost surprises Orion.

"I wish we could have met under more fortunate circumstances," the young officer utters, suddenly feeling captivated by the commander's friendly but powerful demeanor.

"Officer Pax, tell me... Why did you quit your Archivist job to pursue a career in law enforcement?" Star Saber inquires. "Were you bad at it? You can be honest with me."

"No, I was a decent Archivist. But I realized one cycle that instead of preserving history, I wanted to participate in making it."

"Ah, so you wanted to get out from behind the dusty piles of data, and apply your knowledge to correct the errors in our history, our society, and to serve and protect the people and bring justice. That is a good attitude to have, Officer Pax." 

Orion waves his servo at the two bodyguards behind Star Saber. "Why are they accompanying us? They are..."

"...Autobots, that's correct. People believe they protect the Senate, but the Senate has its own Praetorians; the Autobot organization goes back fifty Solar cycles ago when Dai Atlas and I joined forces with Alpha Trion, Thunderclash, and...Straxus to defeat the treacherous Prime, Liege Maximo."

"Wait, do I understand correctly that... you founded the Autobots?" Orion gasps. His respect for the ancient leader skyrockets immediately, which is evident in Orion's EM field as Star Saber nods regally. 

"I did. They still serve under my leadership to this day." Star Saber leads Orion to the great, glimmering halls of the Praesidium where the hues of gold and copper illuminate a dance of lights and shadows that produce a wavelike pattern on the walls. 

There is an open casket made of marble and glowing white limestone that hosts a familiar looking lifeless hull. 

"The Senate did not want to allow this, but I used a very special privilege to have an autopsy performed on Nominus. See for yourself: Isn't something off?"

Orion scans the dead frame of the former ruler. "He doesn't have the Matrix of Leadership, but I assume it went to Zeta by now?"

Star Saber shakes his helm. "See the hole in Nominus' chest? It's too small for the Matrix of Leadership. He never had it, at least not the real artefact."

Orion looks shocked. "So... Zeta doesn't have the Matrix of Leadership either? Then where is it? Who has it?"

Star Saber stares into his optics very sternly. "You are closer to it than anyone, but no one must ever know."

"You...?! But why...?" Orion groans. 

Suddenly Star Saber grabs his servo and places it on his own chest. Orion feels a surge of energy unlike ever before, like an undercurrent that traverses via his own servo into his very spark, before Star Saber lets him go. Orion looks at his own servo, still feeling that odd, tingling sensation of esoteric information flowing into his neural network.

"Now you know." Star Saber signals him to leave the ancient hall with him. As they step outside into the crisp of the night air, Star Saber prepares to part ways, for the time being.

"Nominus was a... compromise," Orion understands, still in disbelief over what he has learned. 

"Indeed. I belonged to the wrong party, and I could not let the Matrix fall into the servos of the Functionist Party. They were led to believe the artefact was stolen and hidden by Liege Maximo. If they knew the truth, they would not hesitate to destroy me."

Despite remaining terrified by Star Saber's words, Orion has an inkling that the legendary general wants to equip him with the truth for a good reason that goes beyond solving the murders of Nominus and the three Senators.

It was as if Star Saber sees potential in him, but for what purpose? After all, Orion is just an ordinary cop serving Iacon... 

***

You are being deceived.

Regarding what I am, and the truth hidden by the State, as the Senate binds the thoughts of the people with lies and disinformation.
You know my name, but you do not know me. But you will learn to know me. The Senate will learn to know me.

The secret of steel is the mind that wields the servo.

People ask me what it's like to be me. To put it simply: It's pure and utter slag, even after crawling my way up from the mines through the combat arena, with the motor oil, energon and antifreeze of a thousand dead opponents trickling through my digits, the sand of the arena seeping its way into my tank and the seams of my plating.

Because I still remember every lash of the neutron whip the mines' guards gave me, every mass beating when a colleague or friend tried standing up for themselves! 

If only you knew what it was like, knowing no one would save me! No one! How I hoped and wished for the chance for a better life, and to have someone to fight by my side! 

I stayed true to myself no matter how hard I was punished, letting anger and courage lead my way, until one day I would make it out of slavery.

But what makes me endure it all, is to hear the audience chanting my name, adoring, worshiping me!

Because when they do that, they really mean: 'You are worth something!'

You question my methods? The results speak for themselves: I utilize the methods that yield them, whatever it takes.
It was made clear to me that unless I use my full potential, I would never make it out of the mines alive, nor through the arena.

At first, being lashed and slathered by the energon of my opponents as I crushed them with my bare servos did not exactly please me; it was merely a method of survival, then of advancing my career.

When the Senate thought they could contain my power by making me a slave, I only learned to harness it to serve my purpose.

The Senate is an enemy that coats their blades of venom with saccharine words of deception, with the end goal to leave people no options regardless of our mental and physical soundness, our potential, our talents, our sparks' desire, but to adhere to a predestined trajectory from our activation day to the end of the line, with no prospects of ever advancing. 

Aye, some might argue that me being a miner was just the gods or the universe being unjust, that I was constructed under unlucky stars. But as if the powers-that-be were not aware of my cerebral capacities, just deeming me a miner based on my physical qualities alone.
Alas, it was a great conspiracy, the more I have been thinking about it.
What was I guilty of as to deserve the mines as my State-ordained fate?
That I was not born into wealth and connections.  
But I know what I am, what I am capable of, and soon will the entire world.

The Senate thought sending those born into poverty into mines and prisons would curb our hopes, dreams, ambitions and potential, and thus prevent us from ever challenging the status quo:
They might want to consider changing tracks with that train of thought.

I deserve respect.
I will not be silenced.
I will forge my own destiny.

I will teach you what it's like to be treated like a worthless piece of excrement.

And now, feasting on the energon of my enemies is something I take pleasure in, and all I will say to you now is: 

I am the whip that scourges society
I am the lightning that perturbs the sky
I am the chill of the frostbitten night
I am extermination personified
I am... Megatron.

Excuse me for the disturbance I am about to cause... and may Primus help you all.

Megatron stood atop a rocky outcrop in Kaon, red gladiatorial war paint decorating his face and armor as the last rays of the sunset illuminated every angle and dent of his impressive physique with a blood-orange glow. Full of pride and elation, his golden optics watched crowds gather below him.

"People of Kaon, fellow citizens," he began, his voice booming, "We will no longer kneel before the Senate! It thinks we can be controlled, but we are more than just cogs in the machine! We were born to fight for our freedom! We are the storm that will shatter the Senate and the reign of Zeta Prime!"

Megatron raised his fist. The audience's engex-fueled roar grew louder, echoing his call; their admiration for the ex-gladiator instilling grand jubilation deep within him. With optics blazing, the passion of his words reached far and wide.

"Together, we will rise against their oppression and reclaim our rightful place in society! Stand with me today, and join me to forge our destiny!" 

Then, like the calm before the storm, he gave the audience a satisfied smile, clearing his vocal harmonizer:

"Our sparks ignited

Full of rebellion

Against the chains that tear us apart

Before we lose our dreams into the outer darkness

Do not give in without a fight

Shackle the chains that tore us apart

For freedom is the right of all sentient beings."

As the sunset cast a red hue over him and his supporters, his speech was broadcast by Soundwave all over Cybertron.

***

Orion showed Ariel a holographic catalogue of goods while they were out shopping at Iacon’s Grand Paradox Mall.
“Sixteen wheels? You really need to replace all of them?” Ariel gave him a surprised stare. 
“And rims.” 
“Even rims? That’s a lot for your salary, isn’t it?”
“Government credit card.” Orion flipped out a holographic card from his subspace. “Expenses like a new paintjob and polish are also covered ever since my promotion; before that I had to buy my wheels with my own shanix.”
“I remember you were so broke during your Police Academy cycles that you had to beg for energon from your mentors and friends,” Ariel smiled, shaking her antennae. 
“Indeed, I have come a long way.” 
“At least you had Alpha Trion and Codexa sponsoring you,” Ariel reminded him, “Not everyone has such privilege.”
“Well, you know what this society is like, it’s all about connections and who you know. Alpha Trion and Codexa mentored and supported me through my cycles in the Archives of Iacon, even though I had a fairly good salary back then, to ensure I could live in an affluent district like themselves,” Orion explained, slight embarrassment in his EM field.
Ariel tilted her head. “It was a nice apartment. Why did you ever move into the barracks? I think Alpha Trion and Codexa would have paid for your housing even after you switched careers.”
“I wanted to… belong. To be part of the crew.”
“Well, my handsome sixteen-wheeler, maybe you should pay your old folks a visit too? It seems like you spend all your time with your coworkers. You barely seem to have time for me, either,” Ariel snapped.  
Orion looked flummoxed. “I talk to Codexa on my private comms very frequently, but I do not want to burden her with the dangers that come with my job. Whereas Alpha Trion is often just as busy as I am, so our communication is sparser. I fear that my line of work makes them a target for criminals, and fortunately they live in a building with tight security.” 
Ariel nodded. Then both turned around when someone with an extravagant white-and-green paintjob showed up, his haughty demeanor making a dramatic entrance in front of Orion whose EM field blushed immediately.

"S-Senator! Greetings!"

"Wait an astrosecond, you know Senator Shockwave?" Ariel turned to stare at her boyfriend who suddenly didn't seem to know which way to look or where to go, as if his internal gyroscope had broken.

A vendor drone snatched the Senator's attention, however. "Vehicle cover sheets? Indoor or outdoor use? Two-layered for insulation and element protection?"

"The best you've got! Can't have my paintjob scratched, can I?" the Senator laughed. As the vendor drone was bringing in products for him to sample, he quickly turned to Orion again. "There's something I'd like to discuss with you, Officer. Maybe we'll meet at the usual place?"

"Usual? You mean that broken bench?" Orion's EM field was so flustered now that Ariel couldn't stop staring at him, intake open.

"I'd like that." The wink and the smile the Senator gave Orion when he left the shop with his purchases sent Ariel into a frenzy of some sort.

"How exactly do you know him?" she interrogated Orion, servos flailing in the air, "What is going on? The way he was looking at you... And you like him! I can tell!"

"No, there's nothing going on," Orion tried to explain, "The Senator is just like that, he does what he wants because he can..."

"And you think that's perfectly good and acceptable if the Senator who acts like that happens to be attractive?"

"What? No!" Orion gasped, looking awkward and panicking. "I mean, he is attractive obviously but that's not ---"

Ariel continued screaming at him, and outside the store, Senator Shockwave was briefly eavesdropping, chuckling to himself.

"Ah, females." 

***

Chapter Text

Ancient spires and domes made of granite and marble stood side by side with buildings of sleek chrome, shiny nanomaterials, and more exotic forms of metal, all glistening in the hazy midday halo of the binary system, the cold white light that could not be harnessed due to lack of funding. 

We were on our way flying to an exam above the marbled domes when we saw a new neon-lit anvil in front of the Grand Imperium, the house of the Senate. 

The anvil in bold neon green letters had the audacity to claim this:

'WORK MAKES YOU FREE'

"I can't believe the Functionists won with an oxymoron like that!" I fret, supporting myself mid-air with my thrusters. 

"They paid voters," Thundercracker suggests, "I know lots of people from dirt poor zones who were pretty open about it. Obviously the people recruiting voters for the Functionists weren't literally telling anyone to vote for the party because that's, like, illegal. They were offering shanix and discount coupons in exchange for a list of names and the parties those names were considering voting. The longer the list, the higher the amount of paid shanix." 

"Wait, you said 'dirt poor zones'... as in, from areas with the most Decepticon supporters?" I question. "But they're voting against their own best interests!" 

Skywarp gives me an odd look. "Come on, they're thinking with their empty tanks. Half a shanix can buy a hefty energon meal in some parts of the planet." 

"Well not in Vos," I claim, thinking about my hometown, known for hexagonal-shaped hab suites specifically meant for flier alt modes which became the target of a discrimination lawsuit since people with land-based alt modes could get in them only if they were particularly good climbers. 

"That's why we left, didn't we?" Skywarp recalls with a dreamy EM field. With his drug habit, I'm surprised he even remembers his designation.

"No, it was because Starscream committed tax fraud," Thundercracker reminds him, "Iacon is a different torus-state, and the local laws happen to protect him against extradition to Vos authorities."

"You don't have to look so smug about it, Screamer," Skywarp says, "since you kinda framed me and Cracker to pretend to be you in exchange for shanix we never got." 

"Oh shut up, dolt! You had to pretend to be me so we could all get out of Vos."

"But we weren't embezzling torus-state funds for a construction project that never happened because a contractor mysteriously went bankrupt..."

"Look, how do you think we can afford to attend the University of Iacon in the first place?! I paid for it all with that shanix!"

Skywarp seems confused. "You robbed a torus-state so I could spend three Solar Cycles recharging in class? Cool."

We arrive at the University's main entrance. 

"Cracker, how's the script of your play coming along?" I ask as we stroll the hallway looking badass (at least, I hope we look badass and not stupid as frag because Thundercracker keeps leering at all the hot flier fems and the buff truck and tank types, that fragging simp!) 

Thundercracker sure looks proud of himself! "You mean 'Starfires After Dark'? It's finished, and I'm holding auditions soon. Too bad I can't think of anyone good enough to play the lead role," he complains. "It's because the lead character is based on, uhh, Megatron."

I startle. "Obviously I'm the one who should play him!" I yell. "How could you even think of anybody else filling the lead role?!"

Our prattle arouses interest around us; other students not only look at us, they look at the badges we proudly display on our wings and armor.

I'm no longer just Starscream of Vos.

I'm Starscream, Chairmech of the Purple Brigade: the spokesperson of a student union we Seekers recently founded. 

"Hey, aren't those mechs from The Purple Brigade?" a fellow Seeker asks another further away; my HUD identifies him as Acid Storm.

"Yeah. Many fliers have joined them; I think we should too," replies another Seeker who appears to be designated Ramjet.

"But you're not even a Decepticon sympathizer!" Acid Storm claims.

I smile, confidently marching to the two new Seekers and offering them two of Skywarp's illegal mem recordings which are highly sought after among students.

"I am now," replies Ramjet, happily downloading the sensation of Megatron defeating an opponent in the arena.

I tell you, Cybertronian drugs beat anything you organics have ever invented.

***

"I know you want to know if I did it. I did not."

"Did what?" Orion Pax looked amazed at the flashy Senator sitting next to him on the creaky bench; Shockwave's paintjob was now blue-and-red, exactly in reverse colors to Orion's red-and-blue paintjob.

"Fund Megatron."

"How--?"

"Orion, due to the nature of my career, I have ways to predict events that go unnoticed by those more occupied with the more mundane side of life." The Senator suddenly looked melancholic. "I get messages from myself from another timeline. It may not make any sense to you, but some of the information concerns a great war in the future, and that you will play a big role in it, unless I do something... Unless we do something. But I also know that because I sent data to myself in the past, it created this timeline we are now in, and that alone may have changed everything."

"Wait, what? So will there or will there not be a war?" Orion's EM field implied floundering. 

The Senator turned to eye him with sadness in his optics. "That's a good question. I just think you need to be prepared for whatever outcome this new change of the game has brought upon us." He then suddenly produced a digital Functionist pamphlet from his subspace. "Do you believe in Primus?"

"I... I don't know." Orion looked wary, looking at the Functionist slogan on the pamphlet. "Work makes you free?"

"Sometimes this statement is true; when we are doing what our spark tells us we should be doing to be happy, then work does not feel like slavery. But I know most people are not lucky in the way you and me are, in this regard." Forlorn smile. "Are you happy? With your life and your job?"

Orion looked stunned. "I wanted to be a cop to fight crime," he said awkwardly, "but when I became one, I realized that I'm protecting structures that can be rather unfair and were established to protect the elite from the underprivileged. Truth said, our laws can be harsh and unforgiving, and at the same time the system is so corrupt that the elite is protected from these laws." Orion looked awkward, aware of the societal position of the mech he spoke with. 

Senator Shockwave placed his servo on his massive shoulder, bringing back that encouraging smile. "You're right, the Senate is corrupt and unthinkably vile in what it's ready to do to maximize the benefits of being the elite. But I do not want to put you in excessive danger because you would be up against forces that are beyond anything a policemech can handle." Unexpected wink. "Unless you find allies who are capable of fighting the Functionists."

Orion looked surprised. "Our precinct is closer to finding out who funds Megatron, but even if it isn't you, I'm no longer sure if interfering with Megatron's actions is the right thing to do," he admitted. "Fortunately our jurisdiction does not require us to go all the way to Kaon to arrest him unless we are being asked by the Kaon police, and so far that hasn't happened."

He felt a tingle as the Senator's servo slowly patted his arm. Then Shockwave took his servo in his own. 

"You're unlike anyone else in this city. You're blessed with such a strong sense of purpose - this conviction - passion for justice and an inner fire that is tempered with compassion. You have natural leadership abilities, and you could inspire people. Cybertron needs someone like you."

"But Cybertron has Megatron," Orion pointed out. "He's the force of change we need."

Senator Shockwave thought about his words. "It is not wrong to see him as an example. You could learn from him. Every trick he has up his sleeve."

"But I can't exactly join his cause while being a cop, can I?" Orion sighed.    

"Nobody's expecting you to make a decision about your career right away, Orion." The Senator gave him an understanding nod. "After all, there are many factors to consider. However, I think I should disclose a certain piece of information that directly concerns you, and the fate of our civilization."

"Yes?"

"If you go against Megatron," the Senator whispered, "together you two will destroy our civilization."

Orion looked mortified, then frustrated. "What options does that leave me but to quit being a cop, then? Going back to being an Archivist has no more appeal to me."

"No, you need to be in a powerful position where you bring change from the inside of existing power structures without directly opposing the Decepticons but such that these changes you implement will negate the needs of Megatron's violent approach," Shockwave replied. 

"But..." To Orion, Shockwave's idea reminded him of Alpha Trion. Having mentors like Alpha Trion and Codexa seemed to have predestined him for a political career, which he had tried to avoid with a more hands-on approach to crime and justice, and he didn't like it because it felt like depriving him of free will. 

"No, I am not saying you have to join the Functionists. In fact, I recommend joining one of the small parties or starting an entirely new one altogether." The Senator slowly stood up. "Now, I must leave. We shall meet again later, I assume."

"B--!" Orion realized he was disappointed that what he had hoped for being a date of some kind was more akin to having been given an assignment; however then he remembered Ariel and felt guilty. Also, it was entirely possible the Senator had never been serious about his advances to begin with - it could have all been just self-flattery and an exercise in the nonchalant pomp typical of the Senators.

But he had to admit, the warning he had been given regarding his career and Megatron was already giving him a major headache.

***

"Jetfire, have you read Senator Shockwave's latest preprint?" 

The tall white jet turned around in the university break room. Two researchers, Brainstorm and Perceptor, seemed to be in a heated debate over something.

"I presume it's about the Lattice Spore?" he asked laconically.

"Accurate. We're supposed to peer review it together with Jhiaxus," Perceptor replied, cautiously eyeing Brainstorm.

"What seems to be the problem?" Jetfire continued, producing the document in question from his own subspace.

"None of us even thinks Shockwave is wrong, but doing the review in this political climate is terrifying."

Jetfire initially had no idea what Perceptor was talking about. "Um..?"

"Didn't you read the outline that the Functionists published before the elections? It's where they told the people what kind of changes they're intending to implement in society during the next Solar cycle," Perceptor remarked. "Besides the usual discrimination against monoformers, outliers, and vocation-changers, there's an insane amount of emphasis on the role of religion that in their mind explains why science is bad unless it's for arms and weapons."  

"See where this is going, Jetfire? In Shockwave's paper, the gap between a naturally occurring spark in a hotspot and a fully formed Cybertronian doesn't feature Primus in any way," Brainstorm sighed. "Like, the Lattice Spore turning into something that can actively reshape itself and interact with its environment is already mindblowing, not to mention the parts where the Lattice Spore gains sentience and evolves into protoforms that can build their own armor and T cogs, but..."

"...the Functionists emphasize their religious dogma about us being creations of Primus," Perceptor added, "and Shockwave is challenging their entire doctrine."

"Oh? I didn't think about that part at all. Because the problem isn't scientific."

Perceptor and Brainstorm glanced at each other.

"The university could get into deep trouble if Shockwave's paper gets out!" Perceptor hissed. "The idea of a self-directed process of evolution where the sparks themselves drive their own development is both groundbreaking - and could get us all sent to prison if we confirm his theory to be valid."

Jetfire looked puzzled. "Why? Shockwave is just doing his job as a scientist. I have been his assistant for quite some time, and was closely involved in the 4D modeling of his calculations. I would say I have a rather good understanding of where his theory is based on. For example, you know that even the most primitive organic life or semblance of life is capable of surprisingly complex problem-solving, not to mention that any substrate can act as memory for the information that leads to problem-solving and decision-making? This all implies intelligence itself is a statistical phenomenon and can emerge from any reasonably complex system. What makes us unusual is that as quantum-based organisms, our evolution was extremely rapid."

"We're trying to say that Shockwave and his peer reviewers will get into trouble if the Functionists read his paper because the party justifies its own existence on following Primus and as those theocrats are the ruling party, the religious version of our creation is the only one allowed to be taught in schools."

"You don't actually believe in Primus yourself, do you? That would be... unscientific." Jetfire shrugged his helm. "So, if you are going to review his paper based on political motivations rather than logic and scientific accuracy, I will inform Shockwave that we need actual scientists to review the paper." 

Brainstorm rushed over to him and grabbed his bulky arms, trying to shake him. "This is about researchers' lives! This is about Shockwave's life! There's nothing wrong with wanting to stay online and out of prison - you and I, we're all too smart to die because of a theory!"

"Hm. The situation is that bad, is it? Well, I might need to ask the Senator what to do. He's busy with his Project Regenesis. Even I have no clue what that is." Jetfire looked at Shockwave's paper and then at the researchers. "I don't think you're really worried about our lives. You're concerned our funding will be cut if we publish something that goes against the Party's agenda, which is a rational deduction."

"So you will make sure Shockwave doesn't get his paper out or we'll have to unscientifically invalidate it?"

"What? No. The Functionists' counter argument against Shockwave is based on a petitio principii and that is simply not acceptable in any universe."

Perceptor and Brainstorm watched Jetfire leave the break room, his EM field radiating unexpected fury. 

"Shockwave taught him well, it seems," Perceptor sighed.

"We're so screwed."

***

The police HQ at Kaon woke up to the stark realization that a new era was beginning.  

"Sound the alarm! We're under attack!"

"Decepticons?"

"Decepticons!"

The main door blew up in the guards' faces. They had no chance against three massive mechs with government grade phase chargers and a legion of armed citizens storming in, slaughtering every bot they came across.

"He's here. Guns down," said one of the large mechs, a particularly handsome individual, in a reverential tone.

A very large grey mech in gladiatorial paint strutted after them, dragging the severely mauled hull of Senator Decimus behind him and then throwing him onto the desk of the HQ's frightened captain.

"Please, I...am...sure...we...can...work...out...an...agreement," Senator Decimus' failing vocal harmonizer produced more white noise than intelligible speech. 

"Do you bastards know," Megatron began slowly, his voice a threatening grumble, "how I cried every night to the heavens how the universe must have made an error, that I was never meant to be in the mines, until it dawned to me that there is no god, there is no higher force or higher purpose judging me or determining my fate, but only the greed and selfishness of an elite that never deserved their position out of some divine right but because they simply took advantage of an opportunity down the line! I thought, why not craft my own opportunity and spin my misfortune in my favor. So, I think we can both agree that you're dead right about... now!"

Megatron raised his fusion cannon and blasted Senator Decimus into bits and scraps of cable, machinery, and plating. He nodded to the most handsome of his three massive henchmen who then grabbed the police captain and tore him in half.

"That's the spirit, Damus." Megatron grinned approvingly, sending his young apprentice's EM field into a dreamy glow.

"Thank you, Commander, that means so much to me!"

"I know," Megatron smirked, revealing a pair of elongated, sharp fangs made from the toughest metal alloy on that side of the galaxy - a new black market upgrade. "And please don't lick the Senator's energon from the floors, that's disgusting - drink it straight from his pipes instead, you know, like a civilized mech."

He instructed his three bodyguards to tell his followers to replace the HQ vigil with the Decepticon insignia. While the bodyguards waited in guard, one of them, a navy blue one with tall horns, punched the handsome one in the shoulder.

"Damus, your pandering is making me sick!"

"He's our liberator, Overlord! He made it clear we are his best 'cons, and I want to prove him right."

Overlord rolled his blood-orange optics. "Sure, we all do. Don't we, Sixshot?"

The third bodyguard, a quiet white one with yellow optics, shrugged. 

"Point One Percenters will inherit this world," Overlord declared with a sinister smirk. "Megatron promised to make us the best fighters on this planet and each of us gets a torus-state to rule! I quite like that idea. I actually want this city."

Damus and Sixshot gave Overlord jaundiced looks. "Kaon? Why?" Damus entailed, feeling queasy over the other Point One Percenter's plans.

Overlord spread his arms and waved his servos at the panorama of dark towers, spires and triangular ancient monuments protruding from the thick smog like the teeth and claws of a prehistoric monster, mixing with modern factories and refineries.

"Look at this place! It's the perfect hell hole. A playground. Besides, we all know Megatron really wants Iacon."

"You'll need a hell of a lot of training and upgrades until you're good enough to rule a scrapyard," Damus hissed, angering the other Point One Percenter and forcing Sixshot to get in between the two for the umpteenth time.

Megatron was watching his apprentices from the shadows, grinning to himself.

"One day you will all get to prove your worth, just like I had to prove mine."

***

Chapter Text

Hi it's me again, fleshlings!

A lot of stupid things happened during this semester in this city, like the Functionists winning the elections, and Senator Proteus ordering a clampdown after somebody killed Nominus Prime and a bunch of Senators were defenestrated or found dead in their swimming pools. Everyone blames the Decepticons, but I happen to know that those murdered Senators were known Decepticon sympathizers and had even donated shanix to the cause (or had at least once criticized Senator Proteus, the Functionists, and Zeta Prime for lying about the economy!)

(You might be asking how do we have swimming pools when most of us have to use washing racks or public vehicle washing services? It's mostly the Senators who can afford pools - imagine the size of the pool if you weigh like fifty tons that's gonna displace a hell of a lot of water, most landlords won't risk the potential hazards of allowing that.)

The Functionists are scared of a scientific discovery made by the founder of the Academy of Outliers, Senator Shockwave. You organics wouldn't probably get it but imagine there were scientific proof that there both IS and ISN'T a God, and I'm saying this as someone who heard him personally explain his Theory of Everything.

Everyone knows you just can't mention Primus on a scientific paper nor openly state at which part of the process of becoming a Cybertronian Primus is involved, so the Functionists would rather force scientists to avoid researching things like our origins to begin with.

(Call me biased, but I'm very much an atheist and I think the Functionists just made Primus up to validate mode determinism, ratioism, and all the other slag.) 

A big bad cop called Orion Pax beat up one of my friends, Swindle - okay he's not really a friend but just some smuggler who sells circuit boosters and mem recordings to Skywarp and sells hardcore weaponry to the Decepticon leadership. NOT THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT AN ILLEGAL ARMS TRADE SO DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TELLING ANYONE ABOUT THIS!!!   

The weird thing about Orion Pax is that he greets me politely everytime we pass in the street (which is often because the campus is near the First Precinct), he'll be all 'Oh what a lovely day it is, isn't it?' or 'Hello again, I wish you a pleasant day' and I'm like what the frag you're a cop who beats the slag out of people I know because you serve the OPPRESSOR... but he's nice to me?! Like, why?! (And no don't get me wrong, I don't want to be beaten up by him. I've seen some of the people he's beaten up, they barely move or talk anymore!)

Oh, and happy things happened too!

I nominated myself as the President of a student union I founded, The Purple Brigade. I'll also be playing lead in Thundercracker's play based on Megatron's life!

Yesterday I got my servos on brand new copies of Megatron's Towards Peace and The Big Purple Book. He conquered the city of Kaon a while ago, the place where he became a famous gladiator. I can't wait to meet him in person some day! I've seen him from afar multiple times and frag, I'm sure even you organics would find him the most handsome, hottest piece of aft on this side of the galaxy!

My path to glory and leadership begins once Megatron himself hears about what I can do (or more like, make others do) for the Decepticon cause!

XOXO,

Starscream

News of Kaon falling into Decepticon command washed over the planet like the shadow of an eclipse. It was as if the entire civilization on Cybertron held its breath, waiting for a response move from Zeta Prime and the Functionists.

The indigo twilight with its aurora borealis enshrouded the First Precinct yet again as Prowl produced a holoscreen for Orion, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, Jazz, Ironhide, and Trailbreaker to ogle at.

The voices in the meeting room did not sound like anything like the languages spoken by organics: the short wavelength harmonic resonance coming from various speakers such as the one on Orion Pax' forehead, rather than the intakes was heavily distorted, to an organic ear it would have consisted of very low-frequency, unintelligible modulated grunting, rumbling, and chuffing coming from a distance, mixed with beeping and white noise-like streams of sound arranged in something akin to Morse code.      

"See this? The origin of the stolen phase chargers in the footage seems deliberately obscured, but I ran thousands of scans that revealed the arms came from Polyhex."

"Your hometown?" Jazz wondered. 

"Yes, but that isn't the point," Prowl snarled between his denta. The intensity of the light in his optics changed as he used internal signals to zoom in on another image. Orion used his own signals to examine a specific, partially erased code on the side of one of the missing phase chargers.

"So the local administration in Polyhex had reported these phase chargers stolen?" Ultra Magnus asked Prowl.

"That's correct. Interestingly, there is no CCTV or other monitoring data that shows exactly when and how they were stolen; it was certainly erased."

"Weapons get stolen all the time from government warehouses, but not on this scale. You don't just lose this quantity and value of armory," Ultra Magnus huffed. 

"But Polyhex local officials said what to our offers in aiding them in investigating the case?" Orion inquired.

"They declined, claiming they can solve the case on their own." Prowl rolled his optics.

"I'd argue they're trying to save face," Trailbreaker stated, "but in that case they wouldn't report the theft to begin with."

"You are right, Trailbreaker," Orion confirmed. "I noticed some of the stolen cargo has crudely engraved Decepticon insignias over a 'D'. I happen to know from my days as an Archivist that this is the symbol of the supposedly defunct Destron Battalion which fought the Quintessons and Liege Maximo under Straxus, the current Governor of Polyhex." His optics darkened, zooming in on other footage in Prowl's holoscreen. "But this weaponry is not from the Quintesson Wars; it is very recent. Some appear to be prototypes."  

"I see." Prowl folded his arms. "So the Destrons never disbanded after the Quintesson occupation ended, and now they're handing their arsenal to Megatron?"

Orion closed the holoscreen. "This is more concerning than an individual Senator funding Megatron because Straxus holds considerable power as a torus-state leader. Zeta and the Functionist leadership may have to send an army both to Polyhex and Kaon, now that they have lost contact with Kaon's police HQ." 

"Are we gonna have a civil war?" Jazz squawked, "I know I keep asking about it, but it sure looks like we're heading that way."

"We need to submit the evidence higher up the chain of command, regardless," Prowl said, ignoring his colleague, then looking pleased with himself, continued: "As Chief, it's your duty to take the evidence and our theory to the Senate. I bet they won't be too happy to hear a Governor may be responsible for supplying Megatron with arms and possibly even troops."

Orion's smokestacks began fuming. He ordered everyone except Prowl to leave the room.

"You've really been trying to get on my circuits lately, Prowl," he grunted. "And clearly certain I won't fire you, aren't you?"

Prowl looked smug. "I was the best graduate just after you, and few cops have my efficiency and determination to get the job done. All the others, they just want to go to their hab suites after a shift, but I exist for this job. What I'd like to know is: What about you?"

"You're doubting my loyalty to the law. Let me tell you something, Prowl." Orion came closer, staring down the considerably smaller mech with optics flashing. He was rarely like this with anyone, because with most people, he could work his charm and compassion to make them feel seen and heard. But Prowl didn't care about qualities like that. Only putting your pede down - possibly down on him - would work. "Everyone here has some thought, some opinion, that goes against the law if you actually lived by it. Some cops," meaningful glare at Prowl, "abuse their authority because of this thought that deviates from the law. It's a significant reason why the common people often do not trust us. Now we are at a point where a thought becomes illegal if it's against the Functionists' doctrine or Zeta's personal beliefs. I am sure you too have thoughts that they wouldn't like."

Prowl didn't seem entirely convinced, but he knew Orion's fiery nature might cause him to get beaten up in a future sparring session as retribution for questioning Orion's leadership. "All right then," he capitulated, "I'm sure we both can agree on the evidence against Straxus throwing the Senate in hot water, and at the end of the day, we are just the Iacon police. If we don't agree with the current regime whatever their decisions and policies are, what happened to the Kaon police will happen to us. I hope you remember that, Orion." He paused. "Tomorrow I and Chromedome will resume our investigation on the senators' murders."

Before you abandon us and join the Decepticons, he was going to add, but Orion's EM field silenced him. 

For the time being.

"You are dismissed," Orion stated as he received a call to his private comms. It was from Senator Shockwave. "Yes?" Orion watched Prowl's exiting back. 

"Orion, darling, I absolutely have to introduce you to some people at the Grand Imperium in eight deca-phases."

"Oh... I... The Grand Imperium?" 

"You seem emotionally weary. That Prowl bitch was being mean to you again, wasn't he?" 

***

It was seven past midnight in Polyhex when state gunmen entered the watchmaker's workshop.

The shop's only employee initially thought it was a violent robbery, but when he saw the state emblem on the soldiers' armor, he thought it was a misunderstanding.

"What's going on? What are you doing here?" the watchmaker shouted in shock as heavily armed government forces began to smash objects, furniture and utensils. Next, however, two large soldiers with visors and metal masks on their faces grabbed him and lifted him into the air.

"Designation Whirl, you're under arrest for violating the new government's ban on changing vocation to something that has nothing to do with your alt mode, and your Primus-ordained life purpose dictated by your alt mode!" one of the soldiers bellowed.

"But I left the air force even before the election!" shouted the watchmaker as they began to carry him out of the building.

"So what?" the soldier chortled contemptuously. "Besides, career changers are considered Megatron's supporters. That will get you a tougher sentence in court."

"But I don't even support Megatron! I'm not guilty of anything!" cried the watchmaker in vain as he was pushed onto the prisoner carrier.

***

Chapter Text

This is the day I will never forget.

Those cruel, spiteful zirconium blue optics and the threatening red chevron of the black-and-white cop as he points an EMP stun gun at Skywarp, followed by a briefly mesmerized expression as my pal simply vanishes into thin air and reappears high above on the University's roof. 

"It's an outlier! Gun him down!" a Triorian Guard is shouting. Everything around me bursts into screams and gunfire when rows of Triorians and police march forward, shooting students with EMP pulses and placing inhibitors on them to prevent transforming and the use of inbuilt guns.

"You can't just shoot him, he's just a student, dammit!" I scream at the militia. And then those cold optics of the cop turn to me. I see his EMP gun being raised, pointing at me as the policemech gives me a lopsided smirk. I see students being gunned down all around me, and all my sensors scream 'ALERT' in my HUD, realizing for the first time that I could actually die today.

"Time for a timeout, kid; I say you've protested enough for the day." That contemptuous smile as the cop fires at me with EMP. After the initial shock, the pain I feel in my circuits has me wail as I fall backwards on the cobblestone floor, injuring my right wing. But bringing me down isn't enough for the cop. Oh, no. He struts to me, kicking my side with his pede. Being unable to move, I'm completely at his mercy, and I have never been more afraid in my life when the cop is clearly running energy signature recognition scans in his neural network in an attempt to identify me, probably because I had been carrying a Decepticon flag. He then takes some kind of a cylinder from his subspace, presses a button on it and, much to my horror, a tentacle-like translucent piece of serpentine coiling springs out.

A neuron whip. I am mortified; I frankly had no idea the Iacon police would resort to such a torture device against mere protesting students!   

"Designation Starscream, Chairmech of the notorious Purple Brigade student union? You are under arrest for hooliganism!" 

The lashes begin. The gruesome pain after each electric shock is sending me down into a spiral of madness I don't think I'll ever recover from! I'm about to lose consciousness when I feel the ground trembling under massive footsteps, and there is a guttural voice bellowing somewhere above me.

"Prowl, what do you think you're doing, beating a civilian?! Stand down and get out of my way! The shooting must end, now!"

"Tell it to the Triorians. I don't think they'll be listening."

I recognize that voice. Then, my fear turns into amazement as I understand I have been scooped up by Orion Pax himself who proceeds to carry my limp, damaged frame in his bulky arms, away from the sounds of protesters being beaten and killed.

"Are you online?" Orion Pax's blue optics, faceplate covering his face, looking at me with kindness I have never experienced in my life before. "I'll get you and the others to a medic."

He begins a heated shouting contest with the Triorian Guard who have brought in a prisoner carrier and are rounding up captured students. I manage to turn my head and recognize Thundercracker, Acid Storm, Ramjet, and several others being thrown into the prisoner carrier despite Orion Pax' efforts at talking the Triorians out of it.

"We're under direct orders from the Senate, Officer Pax! This won't be the end of the matter for you!"

Then I pass out.

***

The sunset casting its hues made Kaon look like it was coated by a rust-orange blanket as Overlord and Damus were sparring at the gladiatorial arena under the supervision of Megatron. 

"Left jab, right uppercut, Damus! Don't let him beat you to scrap so easily!" 

Damus got his intake full of silica sand as Overlord simply kicked him in the abdomen with a loud metallic bang, sending the purple 'con flying almost halfway through the arena. 

"Ha, loser!" Overlord chortled. "You ain't worthy of being called a Point One Percenter, fragger!" He gave a victorious grin at Megatron, shrugging as if to point out how hopelessly easy Damus was to defeat. Then they all looked up as a large, shiny, birdlike alt mode of a gold and blue paintjob approached the arena from above, accompanied by dozens of fliers with the inscription 'D' on their wings, then descending from the heavens like a bad omen.

"Is that the-- ?" Damus pulled himself up, coughing in a modulated manner as he was trying to purge his tank from the sand. 

"Aye, the Destron Battalion," Megatron confirmed, "Deathsaurus is coming to negotiate terms on behalf of Straxus."

"Are they gonna be a problem?" Overlord eyed the landing delegation with suspicion. 

"It's in their best interest not to be a problem for us," Megatron snarled, patting his fusion cannon and showing off his elongated metallic fangs - Overlord knew most 'cons got them purely for aesthetic purposes, but with the right materials and modifications, they could be much more, and he knew one day he'd obtain something like that himself. 

The giant golden griffinlike creature landed on the arena, transforming into a very large bipedal figure with four red optics and a golden crest. Deathsaurus took a cold, hard stare at the derelict looking assembly of mostly young, untrained warriors fighting under Megatron's banner. Even Megatron himself looked so young, it was already hard to take him seriously. Conquering one city didn't mean much; Kaon wasn't important to the State, or else their soldiers would be fighting the Decepticons here by now.

No wonder Straxus calls them a hobo army, Deathsaurus thought to himself. "You must be Megatron, the Decepticon commander?" he asked surprisingly politely. Megatron eyed him up and down - Deathsaurus was slightly taller than him, but so were Overlord, Damus, and even Sixshot, and they all knew the real reason for Megatron's reputation as a phenomenal fighter had more to do with his speed and dexterity which seemed disproportionate to his size, rather than his strength alone. 

"Aye." Megatron ambled closer at a leisurely pace, and his henchmen backed him up trying to look as thuggish as possible, which seemed to amuse Deathsaurus a little.

"Then you know why I'm here. Straxus wants his return on investment, so to speak. Firstly, the Polyhex torus-state is off limits for future Decepticon campaigns. Secondly, his government must be paid commission directly with a percentage of the energon mined or otherwise gathered from the settlements you will conquer." 

"Energon? Not shanix?" Megatron tilted his head.

"Straxus believes your activities will lead to shanix losing all its value and people going back to barter economy."

"So he has that little faith in me?" Megatron laughed in a self-deprecating manner. 

Deathsaurus looked at the three huge Decepticons. While they certainly looked imposing, all he could see under those boasting mannerisms and thuggery were a bunch of teenagers - only Megatron himself, being older than the others, could be considered a young adult - trying to pretend they were more than a street gang. Even if it was a wildly popular street gang with tens of thousands of supporters.   

"Straxus has read The Decepticon Manifesto. He thinks you're trying to destroy and then rebuild from the ground up. It has certain... costs. Straxus said he doesn't believe you're just trying to get rid of a corrupt elite. Regardless, he wanted to let you know that he doesn't care what you do as long as you pay him back."

"His assumption is correct." Megatron looked pensive. "I will bring desolation and call it peace, aye; A peaceful turnover simply isn't effective enough to end an era of backwoods thinking with all the nonsense about Primus, ancient traditions, and the way power and property is distributed in a system where individuals who have done nothing to warrant such power, decide for the rest of us. I will replace all that, then elevate our society with what we Cybertronians were born to be." 

Deathsaurus gave him an odd look. "Please explain yourself, Commander." He read between the lines that the Decepticon leader considered things like basic manners and common decency as overtly bourgeois, beyond just embodying a disregard for conventional morality, which wasn't surprising given his background in the mines. It reflected in the crowd Megatron attracted; unlike the highly organized, covertly operating Destron Battalion, you had a bunch of thugs. Extremely violent, opportunistic, resentful thugs maybe, but more full of hot air than genuinely efficient military strategy.

He could use that inexperienced thuggery for his own gain, and so could Straxus, which is why the latter had opted to fund the Decepticons. But after evaluating Megatron he could already tell it was a risky move: Megatron was no fool despite his young age and the boastfulness that came with it.  

"The answer is technology. We are technology. As representatives of technology, our fate is intertwined with our ability to evolve and develop at an exponential rate. Otherwise we will become someone else's conquest - there are multiple spacefaring, technologically advanced races out there just waiting for an opportunity to get rid of us. Did you know the Functionists are planning to sell Luna 1 as a demilitarized zone for the Galactic Council? With its energon reserves, that would be stupid. But it just shows how scared the Functionists are. They are scared of developing bleeding edge technology that would help us evolve because they think Primus wouldn't approve it!" 

"What kind of bleeding edge technology?"

"Senator Shockwave's research documents on the Lattice Spore and spark-splicing. Most of his citations are based on Quintesson research; before their exodus they ran successful experiments on both--" Megatron was interrupted by one of Deathsaurus' henchmen producing a holographic screen in front of his leader.

"Sir, you gotta see this!"

"In breaking news, the Triorian Guard opened fire after a provocation from Decepticon activists during a protest against the Decepticon Registration Act at the University of Iacon. Thirty-six students were reported killed during the escalating violence..."

Deathsaurus noted the elation in Megatron's EM field upon watching footage of students clashing with the Triorian Guard.

"I am sure the death toll was higher than thirty-six, by the looks of it," Deathsaurus mentioned, but then the broadcast was cut off unexpectedly.

"Looks like state officials terminated the broadcast to censor an event that doesn't exactly make the government look good!" Megatron chuckled. "But they can't stop the Decepticon movement now. Not anymore."

"It seems you never believed the Decepticon Registration Act would actually grant your movement legal Party status."

"Aye... since power is never given. It must be taken." Megatron smirked, flashing his elongated metal fangs at Deathsaurus (who considered them one of those typical tacky fashion trends popular among Cybertron's youth.)

"It was a pleasure to meet you in person, Commander," he lied, "But I must get back to work; shanix doesn't launder itself."

"That's what keeps the Destrons in business?" Megatron laughed. "I assumed it was arms trade, manufacturing and selling mem recordings, and pleasure bot trafficking."

"Mere side hustles," Deathsaurus dismissed, "My main business on Cybertron is construction and space privateering. That's how you got the Constructicons to join you; I sent them. But Cybertron needs foreign currency and relies on imports these days, and since the government has banned foreign exports in fear of risking our technology ending up in alien servos, many Destrons are deployed as pangalactic privateers targeting alien raw material cargo, and Straxus has his servos full denouncing his involvement in enabling it because the Senate fears we'll get nuked by the Galactic Council as retribution. I would be open to selling mem recordings to aliens but only mechanical aliens could read them, I think. Although, the mem recording you agreed to record for a smuggler called Swindle in exchange for that fusion cannon on your arm is the best selling mem recording of all time. It's even more popular than sparkmerger simulations and 'The Fragger God of Tetrahex' !"

"Ah, the 5D film that teaches young bots the art of interfacing," Megatron mused, "It's my personal favorite. Swindle offered me a hefty sum for recording my own version of that. While it's flattering, I don't care for the crowds invading every aspect of my private life like that."

"Oh, I do understand; Swindle offered me shanix for starring in such a recording myself," Deathsaurus admitted. 

"Really? Imagine the shanix we'd earn if we made such a mem recording together," Megatron chuckled, eyeing the gold-crested Destron commander provocatively. "That said, you mentioned space privateering. You steal cargo from ships of organic races - and it's state-ordained?" 

Deathsaurus tilted his head, blinking all his four red optics. "Privateering indeed. You see, Cybertron is economically in a difficult situation due to the galactic trade being limited to a few product types in fear of Cybertronian tech ending up in the hands of organics. However, Cybertron desperately needs plastic and other oil-based products such as synthetic energon because we extinguished our own oil supplies and buying it from organic races risks Cybertron going bankrupt. So we must rely on off-world colonies and stealing oil from the alien races. Straxus has the official state mandate to conduct the privateering operations - which means me and my subordinates do the dirty work." 

Deathsaurus took another good look at the ensemble of young thugs before him. All Point One Percenters, the elite representatives of the proletariat cause. 

"I can tell you are not the kind to take advice well, Megatron, yet I have fought in wars before your activation day, hence being entitled to offer you a word of wisdom: Find a mentor who can teach you to control your emotions and violent urges." 

Megatron's optics darkened for a moment. 

A mentor?

...Terminus?

Should he really go back to his home village to find Terminus?

***

Department of Mechaforensics.

Ratchet examined the batch of injured protesters being carried to the med bay on gurneys, one of them Starscream whose broken wing hung miserably on his side.

"Will he make it?" Orion Pax asked the doctor with grave concern. Ratchet eyed the young patient briefly, then his optics darted back up to Orion.

"Sure, it's just a broken wing. I can tell he was beaten with a neuron whip, but that causes only temporary jamming. Why, is this student particularly important?"

Orion's EM field radiated a mix of worry and anticipation. "My officers found out he's the President of the Purple Brigade student union that has ties to the Decepticon movement; I believe he may be able to lead me to Megatron so I can interrogate him. Aside from that, I have encountered him often near campus grounds; he's a fine young fellow and I have a hunch that he will go far in life," he explained hopefully, blue optics twinkling in a starry manner that made Ratchet want to roll his own to express the Cybertronian equivalent of nausea.

"Right. Well, I'll get your little delinquent fixed right up so he can get back to protesting." Ratchet pulled out a wrench. "By the way, remember the mech you brought in some time ago, the one overdosed on circuit boosters? When he came back online, he told me he'd be joining the Decepticons right away because he thinks they represent the will of the people or something. I asked him how does one join them, out of sheer curiosity. The poor junkie - he called himself Deadlock - revealed some guy called Barricade handles membership registrations but to get to the recruiter, you have to talk to the members of the Purple Brigade." He began inspecting the damage on Starscream's wing.

"Oh? Please inform me when this little jet is back to normal, can you? Also... I have a question that concerns my... own spark. Is it normal not to be able to spark-merge?" Orion asked the doctor.

"To answer your question, no, it's not normal. Sparkmerging creates entangled qubits that function like small wormholes between the parties involved. Under rare circumstances, a prior quantum entanglement with someone prevents a new one from being established, as if all 'ports' are already being used."

Orion startled. "Are you saying... that if I cannot sparkmerge with someone, it's because I am already entangled with someone else?" 

"Well, yeah. But usually people know with whom they are entangled with." Ratched gave him an odd look. "People say being sparkmerged is often just a feeling unless you develop the information sending functions consciously, like how most people can dream but not everyone can lucid dream."

"How can I know with whom I am entangled with?" 

"That's a bloody good question, Orion. Maybe you were drunk when you sparkmerged with someone so you remember nothing about it?"

"But I have not been drinking that much engex since my Academy cycles."

However, the thought of being led straight to Megatron incited Orion with a newfound sense of adventure, putting a stride in his step as he left the facilities, transformed and rolled all the way back to the Precinct. 

He was about to storm in and give an angry lecture on civilian rights to Prowl, only to find Star Saber waiting for him opposite Ultra Magnus' desk. Both looked apologetic. 

"Officer Pax - Orion - I had to personally come give you a warning from the Senate not to interfere with the Triorian Guard because I expected the people they were going to send would do more than just warn you politely," the Defense Minister explained, standing up. "There was footage of you defying the Triorians and carrying that injured student off campus grounds that was broadcast all over Cybertron, and interestingly enough, Zeta Prime himself seemed impressed by your actions, but most of the Senate thought you deserve to be punished, so they arrived at a compromise."

"Am I getting fired?" Orion asked directly. He quickly glanced at Prowl who coincidentally appeared after eavesdropping in the hallway.

"Not yet, at least." Star Saber looked concerned. "Alas, do not take your position for granted, Orion. What the Senate needs right now is one or more suspect to be brought to trial for crimes against the State. Preferably a suspect called Megatron. The Senate wants his supply chain broken and will grant you temporary jurisdiction in Kaon and Polyhex, although it is expected Governor Straxus will make investigation difficult..."

"So he thinks he's got the situation under control in there, does he?" Prowl chuffed contemptuously. "Sadly we cannot arrest the Governor, can we?"

Star Saber shook his helm with its very long, pointy silver audials. "The Senate is adamant that erasing the Decepticon problem sends a strong signal to Straxus. No matter what he's been up to since the fall of Liege Maximo, he didn't cause societal unrest. Whoever is leading the Destrons isn't doing that either. Only Megatron is seeking to destroy this society as we know it." He took a cold hard look at all the officers in the premises before saying goodbye. 

"It helps to have friends in high places, doesn't it, Orion?" Prowl remarked casually as he sat down by his own desk. "Now, I hope you can tell us how we are going to arrest Megatron. Because you just had to claim authority over the Triorians, we are being punished with actually having to go out there to look for him."    

Ultra Magnus looked at both of them. "It's been stated before, but we are indeed just the Iacon Police. Megatron has enough mechs and government grade arsenal that we're simply not qualified for an undertaking of that scale, Orion. It's a suicide mission." The worry in his EM field gave away that his stoic demeanor was faltering badly.

Orion thought about it. "I believe I have found a way to get to Megatron. You two, track down designations Deadlock and Barricade. I have already found someone to interrogate once he's released from med bay." 

Prowl brought up his datapad. "As you command, Chief," he muttered in an exaggerated manner.

"Please don't turn this into a scene," Ultra Magnus pleaded, his voice a hoarse whisper (if someone whispered very loudly in an auditorium.)

"Oh, I'm not going to flip a table just because we're being sent to get disassembled by terrorists armed to the denta," Prowl hissed with sarcasm. 

"Thank Primus!" Ultra Magnus sighed.

"I absolutely will not. Magnus, you know I'm an atheist?"

"No, I never thought about that before. But for the record, being an atheist is against the Functionist doctrine, so better keep your religious alignment a secret." Ultra Magnus eyed his surroundings as if to expect eavesdroppers. 

Prowl turned around to glare at Orion and flipped the nearest table over which happened to be Sunstreaker's desk while the aforementioned was using it.

"Frag! Prowl?! Why --- ?!" the black and yellow policemech roared fists in the air, but the black and white supervisor strode off to the staff break room.

Sunstreaker turned to stare at Ultra Magnus whose EM field vibrated in an apologetic manner.

"Prowl reads instruction manuals as diligently as I do but tends to ignore the parts which he thinks don't work in practice. It seems he realized for the first time that his personal beliefs are contrary to the State's official policy regarding faith and religion. Basically no one is allowed to promote atheism anymore, although declaring oneself an atheist isn't necessarily punishable per sense." Ultra Magnus briefly looked like he was seriously considering arresting Prowl for announcing his lack of faith. "However, the government even founded a new department to run matters like this."   

"The Ministry of Truth," Orion grunted darkly, "which Zeta Prime appointed Senator Proteus to personally oversee, suggesting particular importance of whatever said ministry is meant to govern." He rolled his optics, and his smokestacks let out a dark cloud that would have temporarily blinded everyone in the office, weren't for their various other sensors beyond common electromagnetic vision.

I told Prowl he too has illegal thoughts and I was right, he wanted to shout out loud, but kept his cool.

After spending the rest of his shift reviewing reports from his subordinates, Orion got pinged by Senator Shockwave again, making his circuits race in excitement: The Senator's invitation for a drink was too much to resist, and not just because the Senator had access to the best high-grade engex on the planet. Orion arrived at one of the most luxurious skyscrapers in Iacon, a rare design with stacked torus-shaped hab suite blocks that hosted its own guards, shops, and entertainment for the residents. Many Senators lived there, including Shockwave, and even in his clean paintjob, Orion feared he'd be seen as an unwanted raggedy bum who got lost. The building's guards waited for Senator Shockwave's call before they let him in, however.

"Orion, darling! You look fabulous," the Senator burst into a warm welcome after the guards escorted Orion into the top floor torus where the Senator's hab suite, possessing one of the best views over Iacon, stunned Orion in its gaudy opulence. The view of Iacon's city skyline was spectacular from the Senator's residence, and Orion ambled to the apartment's marbled terrace to enjoy the scenery, where the sunset remained a faint blood-orange glow casting a scarlet hue over the smog partially covering the city, methane clouds drifting idly above, glimmering like waves of dirty gold; The Praesidium, the Grand Imperium, the Basilica, the Citadel, the Iacon Tower, and many others of Iacon's renown, grandiloquent landmarks were all clearly visible from Shockwave's hab suite, and even constant air traffic with its stream of blinking lights couldn't ruin the view. 

"Ah, I don't want to ruin this beautiful moment," the Senator chuckled behind him, "but no one has genuinely been that enamored by all the smog you can see from here." Senator Shockwave offered Orion an expensive looking designer container, then wrapped his arms around him, sending vibrations of joy and anticipation through Orion's now shuddering frame. As they admired the city skyline together, Orion could taste the flavors of terbium and cerium in the cocktail given to him, realizing it was indeed a very expensive drink. He turned around, his massive red arms slowly placing themselves around the Senator's shoulder and waist.

Something told Orion this was one of the most amazing moments in his life to be treasured forever, and the passing melancholy glint in the Senator's EM field and optics, now shifting from amber to emerald green, affirmed that something concerning was up that the Senator couldn't stop thinking about.

"Are you... worried about those prophecies you said you were sending to yourself from the future?" he asked, pulling the Senator closer until their nasal protrusions, then foreheads touched, Orion's forehead speaker leaning against the Senator's chevron, Orion's massive blue servo rising to touch the side of Shockwave's face. 

"It's the eve of war. If only... if only there was one single moment in my life when I could forget the goal and purpose of my life," the Senator sighed and produced a faint smile. 

Orion watched him with compassion. "Senator Shockwave, I would like to sparkmerge with you," he then declared with blunt sincerity. The Senator's EM field shifted in response so vividly that Orion couldn't keep track of what was going on. 

"Orion... The truth is, I am sparkmerged with myself through entangled particles. That is how I am able to send messages to myself, from spark to spark. I'm sorry."

"But how.. how is that possible?!" Orion gasped, staring at him terrified. Shockwave gave him a funny look, then proceeded to pull him indoors and had him lay down on a luxurious marble divan while he positioned himself on top of him, his white aircraft wings spread out on his sides. Orion's EM field was so full of eagerness and innocence that the Senator wanted to giggle, but his own constantly fluctuating thoughts and emotions quickly pushed such an intention aside. His digit traced Orion's chin as he spoke:  

"Imagine countless overlapping levels of electrons where every level is a torus, and together these levels form an orb: This is our spark. Our sparks are storage for potential and kinetic energy, have mass as energy, and are made of irregular lattices repeating in time in an interval. This creates a pulsating motion, but unlike a single pulse, it is a million pulses at once, forming a clockwork where entropy is fixed. A prior version of me in a different timeline sent information as qubits to the past directly to my spark via negative energy, creating a tunnel between our sparks akin to a tiny wormhole. This way, I am permanently linked to the Shockwave of the future in another timeline."

"And he's been warning you about an impending war?"

"He... I am saying," Shockwave corrected himself amused, "that you can try to reorient the outcome with the highest probability domain when the timeline is different. This is that different timeline where war is not necessarily happening. This is why every action and decision has significance even if people think nothing matters nor makes any difference."

"And you still think stopping the war is up to me?"

"My job is to solve Cybertron's energy problem, and I will continue to strive for that until the day I cease to exist. I'm a scientist, not a military leader. You believe in freedom, and that will clash starkly against the new regime's principles. To fulfill your job in law enforcement, you will have to compromise yourself. Ask yourself if this is what you want, whether protecting civil rights or societal order is closer to who you are."

"But shouldn't Star Saber know about this?"

"He wants to recruit you, but I don't think you're ready for what he has in store for you. Now, open your intake, Orion. Let us enjoy a rare moment when Zeta Prime's Thought Police aren't hijacking our quantum encrypted communications." The Senator grinned before unleashing his glossa into Orion's intake, and Orion's own electromuscle reached out to wrap itself around the shiny metallic organ before they formed a conjoined, pulsating cable.   

Orion was soon intoxicated in a bliss of feeling Shockwave's vivacious bursts of nonchalant jubilance like they were his own.

It was the closest thing to heaven he had ever experienced... so far.

***

"I told you, it's all I know!"

I had awakened, seeing three bots staring down at me, one of them Orion Pax.

"Can you please repeat, uh... Starscream? Did you really say there will be bombs going off on Victory Day? Who told you about these bombs?"

The Officer sounds friendly, but it's not like I'm gonna tell him where he can find Soundwave!

"Starscream, please. If you know anything about the informant, we need to speak to him," the big red officer pleads. I almost feel sorry for him, but cops can't be trusted. 

"The bombs aren't placed by the Decepticons! The purpose is to frame us!" I yell. My broken wing hurts; I'm pissed off that it hasn't been repaired yet. 

The two other bots watch me and then turn their attention to their boss. 

"So, bombs on Victory Day?" asks a black and white bot with a visor, turning to me. "And it aint by Decepticons, huh? Like, don't you want us to protect civilians, including Decepticons, from those bombs?"

I feel silly for a moment. "Cops can't protect Decepticons nor anybody else because you're Zeta Prime's henchmen!" I shout, "We Decepticons know that the Functionists under Zeta Prime have started kidnapping and killing registered Decepticons to harvest their energon and parts, but it's not like you cops are doing anything about it."

"That's quite a daring accusation, young mech," Orion Pax points out, looking surprised and horrified. "Can you provide evidence or lead us to an informant who has proof of such cruelty taking place?" 

Got to give it to Pax; his sincerity is almost endearing. Makes me think whether he's really that good of an actor! 

"Trust me on this, Soundwave isn't gonna cooperate with cops no matter what your agenda is," I tell him. "He wanted to warn us so that the Functionists wouldn't be able to kill Megatron's supporters en masse before he's ready to liberate us from the corruption of this government." I glare at Orion. "Now, when will my wing get fixed?"

Orion Pax talks to his subordinates for some time and then to the medic tending to other patients in the med bay. He returns to my berthside and kneels to whisper:

"Starscream, this is between us, two citizens, not cop and Decepticon. Do you believe a general warning is enough to save Decepticons from Functionist persecution?"

He still seems sincere with those dazzling blue optics. "No," I admit. "But you've seen the news, they started killing students because we have taken the oath of Decepticonism. What exactly can you do about that, as a cop?"

"I ask you to take me to Megatron. Maybe he can help both of us."

I jolt. "You what?! I don't even know where he is! I have never personally even met him!"

Orion Pax gazes at me calmly. "Then please at least take me to Soundwave, even if he's difficult to deal with. Otherwise Decepticons will have to rely on good luck, if the bomb and kidnapping theory is true, without any proactive help. Please give me a chance to show you what I can do for you, your fellow Decepticons, and others in harm's way."

That confidence! His words come with such conviction, sincerity, and passion, that I can only stare at him with my intake agape as my resistance falters.   

If only I had even a fraction of his faith in himself and his own abilities! Frag, I could move the Manganese Mountains!

"Oh all right, I'll contact Soundwave about your request. There's a rumor Megatron wants to meet you anyway, and I want to meet him."

Orion tilts his head. "Really? For what purpose?"

I shrug. "Ask him yourself, Pax. But don't expect him to be friendly to a cop, no matter on whose side you say you are."

Orion Pax nods, stands up and turns to the medical staff. "Can somebody please repair this young gentlemech's broken wing? Ratchet...?"

Tired of waiting, I attempt to activate my T-cog regardless. Pain bursts through my circuits and I scream in panic as smoke surrounds me.

The white and red medic waddles to me with a wrench in his servo.

"Orion, this poor bastard's T-cog caught fire! These damned youths get cheap third party upgrades that I have to fix."

I screech as the medic empties an entire extinguisher at me.

***

Chapter Text

Dear Orion,

Every so often I am interrogated about Project Regenesis that your lack of inquiry has left me, dare say, perplexed.

My dedication to solving this planet's energy problem led me to spend many an endless night calculating the nature of an unspeakable secret:

Infinite energy, and compiling the missing equation unifying the Lattice Spore with the M-Field Theory and its practical application, replacing Cybertron's exhausted core with a gargantuan version of a Cybertronian spark.

Our planet could one day be alive again, if the Functionists allow me to finish my work. 

For them, re-igniting Cybertron's core is blasphemy against Primus.

Yours,

Shockwave

PS. I convinced Star Saber to have the arrested student protesters released as you wished. However, some of them had gone offline during the imprisonment and could not be recovered, for an unknown reason.

Behold, Darkmount. The capital of Polyhex and seat of Governor Straxus who invited me to attend an investors' meeting with the Destron Group.

It is intriguing to the rational mind how something like natural gas stops being mere energy that keeps factories in business and becomes pleasing to the sensors when rearranged by temperature and pressure into beautiful golden clouds, spewing tiny icicles landing on my fusion cannon. In my mind, to see any meaning in matters pertaining to all that is pleasing to the senses without the context of contributing to survival, such as aesthetics, is where we stop being just machines, as organic races call us, and form a true civilization. 

For those familiar with my poetry, you will be aware I take pleasure in harmless but inspirational activities such as watching aurora borealis and admiring the frozen crystalline spires leading to the Iron Falls of the Manganese Mountains whose rivers flow to the Sea of Rust. You could say I'm a bit of a traveler. Not that I particularly enjoy having to do it with treads, hence Astrotrain, but I must wait until my medic Knockout and an offworlder scientist called Tarantulas have finished working on my new frame. Then I will no longer be earthbound. Those mods were expensive; fortunately, Straxus' shanix paid for it all.

The Cybertronian Dream is not what it used to be... not that it was even available to a miner like me. It used to be about having a stable lifelong job (whether it matched your alt mode or special outlier abilities or not) that guaranteed you a living, a decent hab suite, happy colleagues, enjoyable friends, and getting a Conjunx with whom you could eventually mentor a newspark emerging from some hotspot so that one day they could serve the nation as a decent worker. There was prosperity that showed in the erection of massive monuments, shiny shopping malls, and the elites getting bigger and more expensive armor and weaponry. The citizens were told that because the nation was prosperous, they too should have been happy.

I am looking at the statue of Nova Prime.

During the Age of Expansionism - our civilization's Golden Age - we sent Metrotitans across the galaxy to spread our species, knowledge, and technology, as we sought to transform the universe in our own image. Then Nova Prime disappeared with his ship, and the feeling of us being invincible and infallible as a nation and as a species went in decline as fear gradually took over.

This is how the Quintessons were able to colonize Cybertron, by taking advantage of our weak leadership, the fears of the nation, dwindling resources, and the disruption of communications to offworld colonies.

This is why this society needs someone like me, and everyone who dares to bear the Decepticon insignia on their chassis!

Decepticons, rise up!

***

Late night in Iacon.

Hot Rod and Bumblebee were finishing their night shift of flipping energon burgers at Fulcrum’s fast fuel joint when the latter found something strange in an expired energon patty floating in the residual mineral oil they used for cooking.

“Um… Hot Rod? I hope this isn’t what I think it is.” The small yellow bot picked up what appeared to be a large titanium screw while his older orange friend hungrily eyed a soggy leftover burger with a low-quality patty made of mercury, lead, and arsenic.

“Holy slag!” Hot Rod yelped, his EM field implying he was amazed and terrified at the same time when looking at the object Bumblebee had discovered. “I’m no mechanic, but screws like this are used to repair broken ball joints.”

“But we’re not a medical facility, so how did the screw end up here?” Bumblebee gawked, staring terrified at the energon patty floating in the oil. “Oh frag. Hell no. No, no, no…”

“What? Obviously it’s somebody’s used titanium screw.”

“Well yeah, and it was inside that energon patty. So the energon must have come from…We’ve been selling other people’s energon in these burgers, Hot Rod!” Bumblebee cried out.

“I figured that out too. We should report this to the police,” Hot Rod suggested, folding his arms. “I wonder if Fulcrum knows where he’s sourcing his energon from. He does always brag how cheap it is, and I thought it was because of its occasional radioactive isotope contamination. Silly me!”

They turned to stare at the neon green anvil on the wall, with bold letters declaring:

‘ALWAYS RECYCLE’

“And I used to think that sign was about just reusing the cooking oil,” Bumblebee wailed.

The Praesidium, its marbled auditorium full of senators and members of the Triorian Guard; the former favoring regal paintjobs of white, gold, royal blue, bronze, and red, the latter in steel grey, silver, and black armor. Hundreds of optics in all colors of the rainbow glowing, some optics coming in multiple pairs or in uneven numbers.

"Welcome to the hearing, Senator Shockwave and Officer Orion Pax," Senator Proteus announced.

The Senators turned around slowly as the renowned visionary scientist Shockwave strutted side by side with the Chief of the First Precinct in front of Zeta Prime himself who awaited them by the podium, his ginormous frame shining in tones of white gold and platinum adorned with a massive crest that reached from his forehead to the back of his helm. While Senator Shockwave only gave a respectful but quick bow, Orion Pax kneeled before Zeta Prime, as was custom of his social rank.

"Orion Pax, Chief of the First Precinct," the Prime boomed in a modulated voice that echoed all over the walls, "You were invited to this hearing to explain your deviation in regard to the handling of the Decepticon protests. The Functionist Party especially is concerned of the way you acted during the protest and has recommended me to remove you from your position, but I am granting you an opportunity to explain yourself as several high-ranking officials have spoken in your defense: Alpha Trion, Star Saber, and Senator Shockwave. Senator, you may return to your seat."

Orion turned to see Star Saber and his mentor, Alpha Trion, stand up and briefly bow to Zeta Prime as their designations were mentioned. He lumbered over to the podium assigned to him, letting his optics shift from each individual in the hall.

"Citizens," he began, "I must address a central problem in our society that is corruption, for it undermines people's trust in institutions and puts a halt in societal progress. An example of corruption would be if I was given, say, a million shanix to prevent the investigation of a crime someone has committed, in which case I would acknowledge that I am being paid to not do my job. And you know what I would do? I would give the money back and carry on doing my job as a law enforcer! You see, I cannot be bought. I know people sometimes believe it is difficult to uphold a sound moral compass in the face of real-world pressures, but really: It's not that difficult. All you need is decency and being able to say no if you are tempted by financial gain..."

The Senators and ministers, including Star Saber and Proteus listened to the big red policemech speak, their EM fields radiating conflicted emotions regarding his words. On the one hand, they noted his genuine passion for justice, his apparent moral integrity, and his ability to be persuasive without being overtly preachy or aggressive about it; this Orion Pax was a thought-provoking person indeed. On the other hand, while listening to Orion Pax with considerable approval, Star Saber overheard Senator Proteus and Zeta Prime conversing about Pax by eavesdropping on their internal comms:

Proteus: <Pax is absolutely right, no doubt about it, but that's not how the game is played.>

Zeta Prime: <Well, he's the Chief of the First Precinct and has to set an example to his subordinates, so I suppose you could expect holier-than-thou posturing like that. Even if it does come across as painfully naïve.>

Proteus: <Pax thinks he's Thunderclash and wants to play hero, doesn't he?>

Zeta Prime: <Indeed. But I like Pax... I could use someone like him. Behind his conviction is bound to be someone aware of the perils of leadership, the tough decisions that the average citizen does not have to make. This is where I disagree with him, where he tries to portray lofty ideals as easy to manifest; they are not.>

<But what's his appeal to you, Sir?>

<Orion Pax is a perfectionist who truly believes in himself. I could use that.>

<A useful idiot, eh? What about the rumors of him being a Decepticon sympathizer?>

"...as for the rumors of me being a Decepticon sympathizer," Orion Pax continued on the podium, startling both Proteus and Zeta Prime, "Like many of you, I have read Megatron's best known publications, such as The Decepticon Manifesto, but I do not support his violent methods. There is a call for a grand-scale societal upheaval that goes against everything I have sworn to protect. I was protecting those protesters to defend freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, not defending Decepticonism. In light of my principles, I hope I can help you make better decisions."

"Is that all? All right then, thank you for your testimony, Officer Pax. You may leave now," Zeta Prime declared at the end of the hearing. While the Functionists seemed overall displeased by the defiant cop walking away unscathed, they weren't going to defy the Prime.

After all, the Prime was chosen by Primus himself, naturally via a Party committee...

Orion Pax trundled in his Cybertronian truck alt mode through the night city ahead of his subordinates, officers Trailbreaker, Jazz, and Strongarm as they all drove past the notorious nightclub The Valveplug, known for its trade of saucy and violent mem recordings and pleasure drones. It was a typical raiding destination for patrolling officers on otherwise boring nights, but tonight Orion was on the hunt for Megatron.

Starscream was loitering in front of the nightclub, perking up as the police showed up and transformed into their bipedal modes.

“Remember our deal, Pax? I talked to Soundwave. It’s Megatron’s specific demand that you ask a bunch of higher-ups to release the arrested Decepticon students, and Soundwave said Megatron might actually agree to meet you,” the young jet hissed, “But not in this city, nor in Kaon either. In Polyhex.”

“I have already forwarded your request,” Orion said, but tilted his blue helm. “I am not surprised he’s testing me in that manner, but why Polyhex?”

“Soundwave said we can't tell you that yet.” Starscream folded his arms. “I told Soundwave I want to personally see that you get to Megatron. It’s to ensure Soundwave won’t meddle with you.”

Orion read the jet’s EM field carefully. It dawned to him that Starscream was looking at him as some kind of a trophy that he wanted to take to Megatron - the jet was practically sugarcoating taking someone as a war prisoner. Orion’s optics darkened briefly as a passing frustration expressed itself as fumes coming from his smokestacks, but he decided to ignore the feeling quickly; after all, he could sense the rivalry within the Decepticon ranks, between Starscream and this Soundwave person, and getting to Megatron was his personal goal right now anyway.

“Alright then.” Orion and his subordinates followed Starscream into the nightclub where patrons were already head over heels with mem recordings firing up their circuits, their biolights glowing with shifting colors, some connecting themselves with pleasure drones and even attempting to approach the policemechs.

Starscream went over to a bulky figure with a visor. “Here he is, Scorponok. Orion Pax himself.”

Scorponok glanced at the cops up and down. “And this guy can and will deactivate those bombs on Victory Day?”

“We need to know the exact locations, if you have them.” Orion looked at the Decepticon suspiciously. He had been expecting Soundwave, but clearly the aforementioned wanted to remain elusive.

“I have the coordinates of every bomb the Functionists plotted to set up,” Scorponok claimed, “since we have a certain insider in the government. However, do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into by defying the Functionists? They’ll be asking questions. Those questions can lead to us. Police fraternizing with Decepticons? Either you’re naïve…”

Orion stepped closer with optics flashing. “Don’t patronize me, Decepticon! I am here to protect civilians, including those who support Decepticons. Tell me where the bombs are!”

Scorponok grinned. “Hey, pal, it’s your funeral.”

He sent the coordinates to Orion via his internal comms.

Back at the Precinct, Orion’s team zoomed in on golden and blue holographic maps depicting the alleged locations of each bomb.

“We have seven phases left to deactivate the bombs,” Orion told his subordinates. “I will assign specialists to manage the bomb deactivation but oversee the bomb at the Praesidium myself.”

“Oh, how heroic of you,” Prowl muttered. 

“What did you say?!”

“Absolutely nothing, Sir.”

“Very well then,” Orion confirmed sternly, “I expect each of you to prepare ---”

“Chief, uh, Orion?” Ironhide mumbled in the back. “If the bombs really are planted by the government itself to frame Decepticons, won’t they just attempt it again if we deactivate the bombs?”

“Like, yeah,” Trailbreaker confirmed. “That Scorponok guy kind of suggested the Functionists would suspect that we got tipped by the Decepticons.”

“I don’t think I want a reputation as a Decepticon sympathizer in this political climate,” Ultra Magnus remarked with concern.

Orion eyed his subordinates gravely. “Must I remind you that civilian lives are at risk because these are the very sites crowds will gather to celebrate the Quintesson Exodus Victory Day! All right, I shall speak to the best specialist I know to come up with a solution to this three-bomb problem we have in our servos.”

Orion read Senator Shockwave’s latest message and pinged him back. A breem later, he was at the Senator’s apartment and explaining his plan to the scientist over ornamental containers of thulium cocktails.

“So, Orion, you’ll take two fliers - who are only Police Academy students? – and my quantum decryption software that intercepts the frequency of the bombs’ timers?”

“The bomb I'm intending to dispose of is, according to the Decepticon insider within the Senate which I believe is designation Soundwave, placed inside one of the statues standing in front of the Praesidium - you know, the one with the soldier holding the sliced tentacle? I was considering using Trailbreaker’s levitation ability to hang upside down over the bomb site, but then I thought, why not wear a jetpack instead?” Orion suggested.

“I see the point, but do you have enough time to learn to maneuver around with it properly, and hover inside Trailbreaker’s levitation field without setting off any alarms?” After seeing Orion’s hopeful expression, Senator Shockwave nodded.

“I will head to my lab immediately to see what I can do for you, Orion. Take care.”

They embraced before Senator Shockwave jumped off his balcony while transforming into his white, green and gold aircraft alt mode, briefly causing irrational fear in Orion that he would somehow fail transforming and fall.

***

Prowl’s EM field implied disgust as he stood in the Mechaforensics department with Ratchet and Chromedome, all staring at a used titanium screw that retained traces of mineral oil and a sample of an energon burger patty.

“The yellow paintjob kid who brought this in said it was part of an energon patty he found at his workplace,” Prowl explained, looking stymied at the test results.

“There’s no doubt that innermost energon was used to make this patty, so it definitely is used energon that came from a somebody,” Ratchet said, his EM field horrified. “The energy signature trace is readable enough for you to attempt matching it to your missing persons’ database,” he continued helpfully.

“Thanks, Ratchet. I think I and Chromedome can continue from here,” Prowl stated, sighing in frustration.

Chromedome glanced at Prowl as they both wandered back to the office. “I suppose we have to arrest the fast fuel joint’s owner for selling harvested energon?”

“Don’t be hasty,” Prowl deflected, “We will certainly question him, but we can’t assume he knew exactly what kind of energon he was selling and where it came from.”

Chromedome spent some time cross-referencing the lab results from the energon patty sample. “Turns out this energon patty was made using the innermost energon of… designation Impactor. He was a Decepticon activist who got arrested in a bar fight in Polyhex together with – you’re not going to believe this! – Megatron of Tarn.”

Prowl turned around, his EM field in disbelief. “What, Megatron got arrested and nobody told us?”

“This was in Polyhex, you know, so it’s not like he was arrested by any of us.”

The duo scanned through dozens of files and police reports with any mention of Megatron, but they couldn't find any useful data beyond him being referenced as a footnote in the arrest report about Impactor.

Chromedome's EM field implied he was baffled. “Why isn't there a separate arrest report on Megatron if he was arrested too, and it seems he certainly was?"

"Interesting. Very interesting. It’s... as if the officials in Polyhex are trying to cover something up,” Prowl spewed pensively, "We need to know why they're trying to keep Megatron's arrest a secret. The only reason we even know about it is because some rookie wanted to brag about having caught Megatron himself along with that poor Impactor sod."

"Whom they turned into an energon burger." Chromedome gave Prowl a terrified glance. "Is your hometown possibly full of cannibals or what's going on in Polyhex?"

Prowl looked sour. "I am about to flip a table, thank you very much."

Back at the Precinct, Orion couldn't initially believe what his subordinates were telling him about Megatron and the unsettling fate of his comrade.

"How can Megatron be already arrested if the Decepticons claim he personally wants to see me in Polyhex? And what did that Deadlock person and designation Barricade say?" Orion inquired gutturally, his EM field suspicious as he paced back and forth in the office.

Prowl, leaning back by his desk with a defensive posture, scrolled through information on his HUD. "A very interesting question, but don't you see any error in trusting the Decepticons like that? The only connection between Megatron being under arrest and wanting to see you is Polyhex, and that leads us to Straxus."

Ultra Magnus gave Prowl an awkward glance. "Barricade escaped our clutches, and Deadlock claimed he doesn't know about Megatron's situation."

Orion pinged Star Saber. After explaining the peculiar situation to the Minister of Defense, Orion got told the Senate reportedly knew nothing about Megatron having possibly been arrested in Polyhex.

<Can you verify the information again, Orion? Why would there not be an official arrest report regarding Megatron if he was indeed arrested?>

"I do not know," Orion admitted, his EM field in frustration. He ended the call with Star Saber, smokestacks fuming again.

Prowl looked at Ultra Magnus, producing a self-satisfied smile. "According to the Functionists' Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy, Megatron and his deceased comrade belong to the Disposable Class. I predict becoming assigned to this category deems one an unfortunate candidate for, er, processing. Maybe they turned Megatron into an energon patty too? He's possibly being munched by teenagers in some downtown level fast fuel joint. There goes the revolution, hah."

Orion's furious glare and flashing optics nearly startled him as the red Chief spun around. His angry stare and fuming smokestacks had Prowl shrug in a very slow, confused manner. 

"How dare you...!" Orion growled, "Do you have no idea what's happening to this society as we speak, Prowl? And don't start with the Decepticon sympathizer claims! I accept being proven wrong - although it doesn't often happen - and the occasional times I have been proven, if not wrong, but somewhat less right, I've been fine with it; if we always agreed on everything, we would exist in a nonsensical information bubble. But our job should be about fighting for the people and for the truth, which is exactly what Megatron has been doing, but I am no longer so sure about us. Especially about you, after you beat up that student for just yelling slogans!"

Prowl's EM field implied he was tired of being lectured. "Orion, we had this same exact debate on the nature of law enforcement back in the Academy. Please, let's not start that again."

Ultra Magnus walked in between them. "I most certainly agree! I think we should focus on planning the deactivation of the Victory Day bombs, as we are running out of time."

Orion, still full of ire, kept eyeing Prowl who pretended to ignore him while focusing on data retrieval. "Don't you ever suggest Megatron is an energon patty ever again!" he yelled before storming out of the office, then transformed into his truck mode and headed to the Academy of Outliers to see Senator Shockwave.

Ultra Magnus walked over to Prowl's desk. "Seriously? You were saying that just to annoy him, weren't you."

"Well, technically it's possible Megatron has already been, eh, processed and consumed like his friend was, isn't it? They're both Disposables."

"And you find that acceptable? Even the new Cybertronian Taxonomy law does not explicitly state that such horrendous activity is legal."  

"Magnus, we've worked this field long enough to have noticed that implementing, not to mention abiding laws, depends on the circumstances and the class of citizens involved. I know well that the Senate or Zeta might as well announce a new law overnight but only require it to be followed whenever they feel like it. The key is, I understand what maintaining order requires, whereas Orion's philosophy on this job..." Prowl threw his servos helplessly in the air. "It doesn't make any sense to me, to be honest. He runs around preaching how saintly he is while drinking with senators and ministers, trusts Decepticons just because he agrees with their ideas on civil rights..."

"What are you implying?"

"Orion Pax will take the Precinct down with him in his idealistic folly, that's what. And I swear by my Iacon Police badge that I will not let that happen." 

Nightfall coated Iacon with shades of deep blue, purple, orange, and pink. 

Orion Pax, testing out his new upgrades built for him by Senator Shockwave, opened his comms as he prepared for bomb disposal.

<Roller and Chromia. As you're in charge of your respective specialist units, I need you to position yourselves as I instructed at the Precinct. Jazz, Ironhide: Herd possible civilians away from the sabotaged monuments when I say so. Trailbreaker's force field is required to grant me stability when I will arrive to deactivate the bomb hidden inside the statue. Do you copy?>

<Yessir.>

<Roger that.>

Jazz and Trailbreaker patrolled the stairs leading up to the Praesidium, eyeing the Victory Day monument which had been erected to celebrate the day of Cybertron achieving independence after aeons of slavery. The monument, depicting a Cybertronian soldier holding a limp cutoff tentacle, didn't look like anything peculiar had been done to it.

Trailbreaker glanced at Jazz. "Suppose Orion's plan gonna work? The way he explained it back at the Precinct, getting through the security measures is gonna get tough."

"Don't worry too much, the boss knows what he's doing... no matter what Prowl says," Jazz comforted his colleague.

"Someone drilled a hole into the statue and put a bomb in there, but where?" Trailbreaker wondered.  

"Um, I think the boss said the bomb is in the statue's... codpiece." Jazz looked puzzled. "But I don't think he meant it literally. Just sayin' 'cuz Orion's never direct about the sensitive places, like the times we get assault victims reporting how someone jammed their circuits at a club and inserted weird things into their--"  

"So the bomb is in the interface array? That would at least be a natural hole for a foreign object, you know? Not that statues need one."

The duo didn't have to wait for long until Orion Pax ordered them to move. Suddenly their internal comms were blasting from traffic, when all task units Orion had assigned in different parts of the city, dispensed themselves to deactivate the bombs. Jazz and Trailbreaker looked up and saw two trainees from the Police Academy, Air Raid and Silverbolt, approaching with their alt modes. Jazz took action on cue, shoving curious pedestrians discreetly but firmly away from the tinkered statue. Both he and Trailbreaker were looking nervously in the direction of Triorian Guards at the entrance of the Praesidium - did they expect a bomb was meant to set off soon?

<Trailbreaker, activate your force field. I am just a klik away.>

They couldn't believe their optics when they saw Orion Pax skimming between skyscrapers in what appeared to be a jetpack, but they quickly realized wherever Orion had got himself the upgrades installed, they had added plenty of extra weaponry, had built him an extra set of small missile launchers on his usually empty arm, and even included a faux flier cockpit. While there was generally nothing odd about someone in the police forces occasionally using a jetpack for missions, the one Orion had was much more elaborate and massive, implying it wasn't meant to be disassembled anytime soon.

"How in the hell is he gonna transform into a truck with all that surplus gear?" Jazz remarked while his colleague triggered his forcefield. He got a little worried upon noticing there was some uncertainty in Orion attempting to maneuver himself with the jet wings.

Trailbreaker reached out to Orion. <What do we do about the Triorians guarding the entrance? They seem to be getting overtly curious about what we're doing here.>

<Air Raid and Silverbolt will distract them.>

Jazz and Trailbreaker startled when they saw missiles going over their helms across the yard, into the Memorial Park that constituted of crystalline spires and then hitting a wall.

"There's just an abandoned warehouse, nothing important," Trailbreaker said.

"What do you mean it ain't important?! They filmed The Fragger God of Tetrahex 4 in there!" Jazz squawked. The distraction apparently worked, as the Triorians at the entrance of the Praesidium and more coming from inside the building, ran to investigate the damages while Air Raid and Silverbolt disappeared into the midnight sky. 

Orion Pax took advantage of the chaos by landing right next to Trailbreaker, clumsily hitting him with his jet wing. Unfettered, Trailbreaker forced his force field to surround Orion along with himself while Orion began operating Senator Shockwave's pre-installed decryption software by first opening a small plate on the inside of his wrist, then pressing a button in there, closing the plate then switching to manipulate the software on his HUD. He noticed Trailbreaker was curiously looking at his wrist.

"Senator Shockwave made a program that identifies the type of software used in the bomb and the statue, switches off a specific NAND gate within the bomb's circuitry, then intercepts possible alarm signals so that alarm centers won't react to them. His software also intercepts CCTV targeting this location. He has helped me tremendously with this mission."   

Trailbreaker stared at Orion's jet wings and faux cockpit. "Sure looks like it, yeah." 

<This is Roller, from Task Force 2. Bomb deactivated.> 

<Chromia from Task Force 3. Bomb deactivated.>

<I copy. Good work.> Orion watched Senator Shockwave's program run on his HUD for a quartex, then pulled out an engraving tool and a hammer from his subspace. Trailbreaker and Jazz watched him nervously - after all, they were in close proximity to a supposed bomb - as he activated his jetpack again to reach the statue's codpiece area, then feeling the marble below the statue's codpiece to begin working the edges of what clearly looked like a drilled and then cement-filled area right where the statue's interface array should have been. A nanoklik later, Shockwave's program had reached the end of its run, allowing Orion to scrape off the cement from the hole opening before him. Inserting a fist inside, he reached to pull out a white cylinder.

"What's going on here, Chief of the First Precinct?" grunted a Triorian Guard behind all three of them. "Why are you damaging the statue?" 

"Bomb disposal," Orion said coolly, turning around holding the cylinder. "Do you by chance want to verify whether this really is a bomb?" The Triorian was taken aback, his EM field unnerved. Orion read his reaction as indicating this particular Triorian had no prior knowledge of a bomb meant to blow up here anytime soon.

Jazz flashed a grin. "We found out Decepticons put a bomb into this statue so we came to take it out before it blows up tomorrow on Victory Day."

"I see." The Triorian seemed uncertain, as his colleagues were still on general alert mode, marching around the yard on the lookout for terrorists, no one suspecting the Iacon Police of anything. "You can't leave the statue like that; tomorrow's Victory Day. Someone's got to fill up that hole on the statue's...uhh..."

"Valve?" Trailbreaker suggested helpfully, grinning at Jazz.

"Yes, and a statue shouldn't have one." The Triorian chuffed and plodded off to the site of the abandoned warehouse where the distraction missiles had struck.  

Orion reopened his comms. <Orion Pax from Task Force 1. Bomb deactivated.> He turned to Jazz and Trailbreaker. "The Triorian is right about one thing: One of you has to go find cement while the other one guards the statue till morning, I'm afraid. I must go cover evidence leading any of this to Senator Shockwave."

Jazz and Trailbreaker watched their intakes agape as their boss activated his jetpack and made a slightly wobbly flight back to the Academy of Outliers.

"So, you wanna call a shop that sells cement?" Trailbreaker mumbled. 

"I found one. The cheapest shop is D-Industries, a sub-branch of... oh. Where have I seen this name before?" Jazz looked quizzical.

"What?"

"Destron Group. Like, this isn't the Destron Battalion?"

"But the Destron Group is a construction conglomerate. They have a skyscraper and a factory in every megacity."

"Something aint right in the energon, if you ask me."

Next morning, Quintesson Exodus Victory Day.

Crowds all over the planet had gathered on notable sites within their cities and settlements to commemorate the cycle of the last Quintesson ship leaving Cybertron. Morning transitioned into a beautiful midday - as much as you could call a smog-enshrouded city that, as the smog was so thick it covered the faraway binary system that meagerly passed for Cybertron's central star.

Jazz and Trailbreaker, low on energon after a double shift and repairing the hole in the statue, watched citizens arrive to lay red, yellow, pink, and baby blue crystal flowers on the monument representing Cybertron's liberation from a foreign invader. The statue of a Cybertronian soldier holding a limp, severed tentacle nowadays had a visibly off-white layer of paint between its thighs. Trailbreaker and Jazz observed how mentor couples with their adoptive sparklings were queueing to a booth that offered glitter paintjobs to sparklings. A very young grey bot was holding servos with their adoptive mentor while the latter placed a pink crystal flower on the foot of the statue.

"What happened to Liege Maximo, the bad Prime?" the little bot asked.  

"He was defeated in battle," their mentor replied, "Our brave heroes, Generals Star Saber, Dai Atlas, Thunderclash, and Straxus performed a successful coup d'état, took the Matrix of Leadership out of his frame, and gave it to Nominus Prime when he was elected leader by a committee."

"Elected? But isn't the leader meant to be chosen by the Matrix itself, by our ancestors?"

"You're asking so many questions today, my dear Megaempress," the mentor replied, and they walked into the glitter paint booth. Trailbreaker noticed how the mentor's apparent Conjunx was trailing behind with four other, more colorful sparklings. It was unusual for mentors to adopt that many, but the government reportedly paid incentives to those who chose to take on raising future taxpayers whether they had been forged or constructed cold.

Jazz glanced at Trailbreaker and his EM field brightened. "You know, how about we head to Maccadam's after this thing is over? Having some nice engex, not the usual low-grade stuff but something with, like, ytterbium?"

"That's really expensive," Trailbreaker complained. "Besides, I gotta save up for having my oil changed, I'm in dire need of a wash and polish and..."

"It's on me." Jazz' EM field was beaming.

"For reals?" Trailbreaker's astonishment was so palpable it made Jazz chuckle. 

"After working on the statue's valve all night, we could share a big juicy energon cube," Jazz suggested. 

"Sounds good. I'm so low on energon I'll probably collapse before we get to the bar."

"It's alright; I'll carry you."

Trailbreaker gave one final look at the Victory Day statue's crotch, smiling inside.

***

Chapter Text

“The Senate seeks to completely subjugate the people and nullify their right to self-determine by feeding disinformation that locks individuals into echo chambers and thus isolation, increasing people's suspicion of each other. Every dissenting opinion then becomes an attack on one's own position and identity, such that people no longer know how to communicate - by truly listening to the other party, not by merely shouting from the top of your vocal harmonizer to silence the other person - and the end result is a culture of paranoia where no one trusts each other anymore and everyone strives for complete selfishness in order to maintain their position, even by sacrificing their closest friends and loved ones. Citizens value each other only in terms of the societal position they assume others hold in relation to themselves, and by the power or lack thereof that comes with that position.

But the government doesn't want you to realize that we are all equal, no matter what we do for a living, and that we have the right to do what we want with our lives.”

- Megatron, "Towards Peace"

The Grand Imperium. 

Gargantuan marble pillars adorned with obsidian engravings in Old Cybertronian glistened as Zeta Prime's impressive white gold hull outshone the ensemble of senators gathered at the great hall of the ancient building, a cold white light emanating from his optics as he gazed at the rows dominated by the Functionist Party - his party. They weren't hard to distinguish from members of the minority parties: As Functionists valued cohesion as both a method of achieving consensus and diffusing responsibility, most of its members had adopted modest but sleek, uniform, expressionless bronze or copper-hued frames, in stark contrast to their leader who basked in platinum and gold - arguably in order to emulate the legendary First Prime, Prima. 

In contrast to the Functionists' deliberate attempt at invisibility through uniformity was the sight of Senator Shockwave strutting to his seat with long, pompous strides, his green-and-white armor somehow managing to nearly blind everyone with its shine, much to Zeta Prime's passing envy.         

"Good Senators, my glorious brethren," Zeta boomed, one massive servo reaching out for a straight-armed salute, which was answered with a matching salute from everyone except Senator Shockwave, "Our society is facing a population crisis when less citizens are willing to form bonded pairs and embrace the mentorship of newsparks emerging from Cybertron's core. Financial incentives have not seen the results we were hoping to attain. Research shows mem recordings are responsible for the debilitating attitude of the youth, as they choose entertainment over traditional values. However, the Functionist Party proposes a new solution to the population issue: Newsparks will henceforth be gathered to state farms to be raised and educated to fit predestined but suitable functions in society. Secondly, to crack down on illegal mem recordings, we have gathered to vote on the legalization of all types of mem recordings to increase tax revenue. Since entertainment is what the people truly want, we might as well both give them what they want and profit from it." 

Senator Proteus agreed. "That ought to help with the inflation and declining mine output, Sir," he chirped. "Speaking of the decrease in resource extraction and closing mines, what do we do with the masses of unemployed workers before they start rioting in numbers we cannot contain?"

"Oh, that would be the obvious: Product Recall. The workers can perform one final service to society that way," Zeta Prime hummed smugly.

Senator Shockwave signaled his will to speak up. 

"Yes, Senator?" Zeta Prime addressed him. "Hopefully it is not about your Dyson Sphere again. We cannot afford it, sadly."

There was general laughter among the Senators, making Shockwave irate. "Several mines and factories were closed down during the past three stellar cycles. Businesses are going bankrupt, people are being laid off en masse!" he shouted. "There's no justice in your solution to the mass unemployment! What about the lack of available hab suites because Destron Group owns the majority of all property and has monopolized the rent market? What about the energon crisis?!" Visibly enraged, Senator Shockwave was pointing his digit at Zeta accusingly, causing jittery sentiments among the Functionists. 

"Speaking of the energon crisis," Zeta Prime acknowledged, his low, modulated voice calm, "I am expecting you to hand out details of your Project Regenesis in the near future as a counterbalance to your horrific research paper on the dreadful Lattice Spore which upset many, many of my colleagues here."

"Project Regenesis would not be a counterbalance, I'm afraid," Shockwave replied defiantly.

"Really?" Zeta did not seem surprised, however, as he leaned back behind his podium. "Well, that is indeed unfortunate. Your research paper is forcing us to cut down on the funding of the University of Iacon and shut down the entire Faculty of Cognitive Architecture as its researchers peer reviewed your blasphemous paper."

"What if I told you I have a solution to Cybertron's energon crisis but this solution is against the Functionist doctrine? Would you sacrifice Cybertron's people for religious beliefs?" Senator Shockwave yelled as there were shocked gasps coming from among the Functionists. "What if I told you the difference between a dying, dried up planet and the re-ignition of Cybertron's core is not a prayer to Primus but a quantum differential equation that my predecessors failed to discover?"

More terrified gasps from the Functionist rows in the audience.

"Blasphemy!"

"Heresy!" 

"Primus cannot possibly allow Senator Shockwave to join the Allspark for such audacious claims!"

However, the Senator's challenge seemed to have sparked curiosity in Zeta Prime. "Senator, while your research fascinates me to an extent, you have gone far enough with your critique, and I must ask you to sit down."

However, the defiant Senator Shockwave turned on his heels and stormed out of the hall, optics rapidly changing colors from blue to green, then to orange and back to blue in fury, to the astonishment and unease of everyone present, as the strength of his EM field was felt as unpleasant, undulant vibrations by everyone sitting on the lowest rows of seats or standing by the exit.   

The departure of the exasperated scientist Senator was greeted with sighs of relief, as in, vents puffing smoke. 

"Well now," Senator Proteus coughed - his cooling fan was clearly audible, indicating Shockwave had managed to rile him up, "Let's hope he won't interrupt us further. Where were we? Oh yes, our committee has a proposal regarding how the unemployed workers can invest their energon to the State before their parts are recycled, and citizens who absolutely want to avoid all this - by having jobs, naturally - should download a security patch that enables their optical vision to be transmitted directly to state monitoring, such that we can identify enemies of the State more efficiently."

There was approving grumbling especially among the Functionist Party senators.

"Indeed," Zeta hummed, "After all, the citizens have nothing to fear... if they have nothing to hide."

***

The First Precinct, interrogation room, completely dark; only infrared vision and the low grumble of engines and cooling fans exposed the presence of heavy mechanical frames shuffling their weight from one pede to another out of frustration and boredom.  

"Listen, Swindle," Prowl hissed smoothly, optics narrowing with a spiteful twinkle. The lash of the neuron whip sent the squirming smuggler twitching in pain, then rendering him immobile. "One more time: Who supplied the energon that you sold to Fulcrum's fast fuel joint? Quit saying you don't know or you can tell your circuits goodbye."     

"Fulcrum... snitched on me?" Swindle spat hoarsely, drops of energon bleeding from the side of his intake. 

Prowl produced a smug smile.

"I interviewed Fulcrum after ordering his eatery to be closed down due to a failed health inspection. You see, it's not legal to sell people's parts and energon to restaurants - at least, not yet - and the meals Fulcrum was selling below the average prices in this city implies it's energon somebody wanted to get rid of, not make shanix of."

A large blue frame opened the door to the interrogation room as Swindle was about to pass out of electric shock. 

"Any luck?" Ultra Magnus asked carefully, eyeing Swindle's drooping frame with a mix of concern and suspicion.

"Success in these matters isn't a matter of luck, Magnus. You out of all bots should know that." Prowl stepped away from Swindle's limp frame with his datapad typing down notes automatically as quickly as his parallel-computing mind produced them, rolling his optics after seeing his colleague's expression. "Oh, he isn't dead. What do you think I am, a monster?"

Ultra Magnus' look suggested it was certainly a possibility. He lifted a digit. "I need to address the interpretation on the new Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy Law, namely concerning the Disposable Class. Those in this category may be subject to a procedure the government calls the product recall where their parts and energon are recycled. But even if the procedure is legal, its enactment requires a public mandate from a government official. After you and Chromedome raided Fulcrum's fast fuel joint, Orion ordered further raids of fast fuel joints around town, and now the Mechaforensics department has identified dozens of victims of which none was officially sentenced to product recall. As they were all registered Decepticons and classified as Disposables, this begs the question..."

"Magnus, that's not a proper use of the sentence, but I do understand that a bunch of Decepticons have ended up as junk food for unsuspecting consumers, and that it doesn't have a legal basis because as you said, there was no official decree on product recalling and recycling these individuals. The new law is meant to prevent outdated, useless technology from consuming limited resources, and the recycling and repurposing of those recalled is strictly monitored by the government - it's written right here." Prowl waved his datapad where the Grand Taxonomy Law was on display. "The victims being Decepticons should have nothing to do with it, however."

Ultra Magnus nodded. "I noticed registered, and unregistered but known Decepticons are automatically classified as Disposables in databases no matter what kind of function they carry out in practice. This is something I must discuss with Orion immediately."

Prowl followed the larger blue mech out into the hallway. "Magnus, didn't you use to have a different job before you joined the Police Academy?" Prowl suddenly asked his colleague.

"Yes. I am a trained lawyer and was hired as a Risk Inspector at an insurance company. But law is my true calling," Ultra Magnus admitted.

"Your passion for rules has no bounds, does it?"

"Well, it can become overtly abstract at times. I wanted field expertise on applying law in the real world."

"So, we find purpose and meaning in law enforcement despite our different background and approach. And hopefully, as long as we are useful to the State as officers, we won't get reclassified as Disposables," Prowl stated dryly. 

Ultra Magnus looked very, very concerned. Both stopped to stare outside a small window where the neon green light of a new anvil was casting the latest government message from the opposite side of the Precinct:

'WORK LIBERATES'  

***

Iacon's monuments, towers, and skyscrapers basked in rutilant glory under the darkening indigo sky as Orion Pax tested the ailerons of his jetpack wings, his HUD reminding him of the quicker than average depletion of energon that using a jetpack caused, versus using a streamlined high-speed alt mode designed specifically for flying. However, if this factor was ignored, Orion Pax still couldn't believe the sensation of freedom his new jetpack gave him as he dodged skyscrapers and flier alt modes left and right. The buzz and bustle of Iacon felt different to him now as he could experience it in an additional dimension - its lights, colors, and smog felt more vibrant to him than ever. Flying made him feel the proverbial pulse of the city - that of all of its inhabitants. 

Orion could feel the pulse of a million electrons changing spin inside his spark casing and as he coursed through an established flier air lane in the red glow of the sunset, looking at the neon lights all around him, he felt more alive than ever, ready for action and all the adventure life could possibly throw his way.   

He felt someone pinging his comms.

"Orion? I'm right behind you." Senator Shockwave's much faster green-and-white aircraft alt mode flew past Orion, then settled in front of him, signaling him to follow. "I had a bit of an altercation at the Grand Imperium today, but I've been buying time by presenting a number of new inventions to Zeta and the Senate as to avoid the Functionists having my academy closed down. For example, I showed him the composition of a new type of economical refined energon that improves engine efficiency, as well as cleans fuel injectors. It may not be a permanent solution to the energon crisis, but it certainly helps."  

They soon landed on Senator Shockwave's terrace to admire the sunset painting Iacon's skyline in scarlet and vermilion, Orion Pax holding the Senator in his massive arms. The former had retained the jetwing setup Shockwave had built him; despite it preventing him from accessing his truck mode, it had given him a newfound sense of freedom that he didn't want to lose, at least not anytime soon. Even if he kept bumping into his colleagues with the jetwings, got stuck on doorways at the office, and felt having a protruding cockpit a little weird. But he had also sensed how the successful bomb disposal operation together with his new look seemed to have increased the respect his crew felt for him - well, except for Prowl.

"That jetpack suits you," the Senator cooed, his amber optics glimmering before changing to emerald green, turning to caress the side of Orion's helm playfully, "But doesn't it bother you that you can't transform in it? You'll stay a monoformer unless the jetpack is disassembled. And it's not even meant for long distance travel, given the higher costs of energon usage compared to an actual flier alt mode. You said earlier you'll be traveling to Polyhex in search of Megatron? I recommend using some other mode of transportation than the jetpack to avoid depleting your energon."

"I can use Sky Lynx for this mission. What would it take for you to turn me into a triple changer?"

"I'd have to reprogram your transformation sequence. That's tens of millions of lines of new code."   

"Ah." Orion let out a mildly disappointed sigh, but the Senator's servo wandering down to his codpiece sent his EM field beaming with excitement. 

"Before you go to Polyhex to find Megatron, there's something I'd like to give you, my dear Orion," Shockwave whispered to his audial and produced a transparent cylinder from his subspace.

Orion realized quickly what it was. "Your innermost energon...!" he gasped.  

"Yes." The Senator looked down on his own pedes atypically shyly. "I could feel your disappointment when I told you I can't sparkmerge with anyone but myself, as ridiculous as it is. So giving you my innermost energon is the next best thing."

Orion took the vial with shaky servos. He watched reverentially how the hot pink liquid circulated inside the cylinder before concealing it within his own subspace, then pulled the Senator against his chassis. 

"Shockwave... I love you," he uttered quietly, shaking, as the Senator's gesture had touched him deeply. Senator Shockwave let his crested helm rest against his lover's neck cables, feeling Orion tremble.

"I love you too, Orion. You are my brightest hope," the Senator replied softly and smiled, "And I have another gift for you as well..."

With a swishing sound, he opened his interface array, sending Orion's engine revving and his EM field into a frenzy. He scooped Shockwave up and carried him chivalrously to the Senator's opulent, luxuriously wide berth.

The sky over Iacon blackened as Orion immersed himself in Shockwave's addictive, rapidly fluctuating energy fields, their incandescent armor soon ablaze and bejeweled with glowing biolights before they fell into recharge, listening to the gentle hum of each other's cooling fans. 

"Orion, if anything ever happens to me because of my spat with Proteus, Zeta and their cursed Party," Senator Shockwave whispered into Orion's pointy blue audial early in the morning, "remember me as I was."

His lover's response was sleepy groaning intercepted with a mumble of "Huh?".

Later, as Senator Shockwave was snuggling against Orion's neck cables, Orion woke up to Ultra Magnus' call from the Precinct.

***

A datapad displayed Megatron's manifesto out in the open on Star Saber's desk at the Ministry of Defense. The former war general gazed at his venerable guest, Alpha Trion, Head of Treasury.

"Alpha Trion, I have to do what should have been done a long time ago."

"Do you really want to register the Autobots as... an actual party?"

"There are enough supporters. Straxus has been hiding something from all of us all these stellar cycles, and I can no longer stand by while he interferes in the affairs of the State more than his position as Governor allows. Alpha Trion, I really don't like what's going on in our country. I'm a patriot. Straxus is only interested in power and shanix."

Alpha Trion looked at his friend with deep understanding. "But if you are in charge of a new party, you can no longer serve as Defense Minister. You were given a lifetime post as a reward for the courage you showed against Liege Maximo and the Quintessons. In charge of a new party, you have to start over. You will instantly end up in the opposition, and become a rival of the Functionists. Think hard whether it's worth it."

"I know all that," Star Saber blurted out, "Why are you so worried? I am an experienced war veteran, not a sparkling in need of guidance."

"It concerns Orion Pax," Alpha Trion admitted, "Because if you are in the opposition, you cannot help him like you've done so far. I and Codexa have been worried about him lately. He means well, but he is overconfident and blunt in a way that is very dangerous in the current political climate."

"Ah, yes." Star Saber pondered the matter for a moment. "I have already offered him membership in my party, but that would mean the end of his law enforcement career, and he is not ready for that."

Alpha Trion seemed surprised. "Did Orion refuse? But he's seemed very dissatisfied with his job lately. He told me that his bomb squad prevented an entire series of bombings on Victory Day, and that the bombs were placed by the Functionists."

"Surely not? Where is this world heading?" Star Saber mourned, slowly shaking his red helm. "Yet, I should've expected it. We should expect anything from them, Alpha Trion."

"Not that I am not proud of him," Alpha Trion said, "Orion was socially awkward when growing up, burying himself in data as an Archivist. But he was driven to do and achieve something, and joining the police somehow allowed him to... break out of his shell? I was glad he found friends and a healthy outlet for his energy, something that would benefit society and the people. I once hoped he would follow my footsteps into a governmental position, but now that he's become the talk of the town since his speech before the Senate, I no longer know whether that's the right direction for him." 

Star Saber listened intently. "His speech before the Senate confirmed that he is exactly the type of person we need at the Autonomous Assembly of Universal Unity, AAUU for short. The senators may call him naïve, but I think he's more realistic about his challenges than they think."

"Have you read the revised Functionist Party plan for the next committee meeting?" Alpha Trion asked him.

"Yes, indeed I have." Star Saber looked dour. "The Grand Cybertronian Taxonomy or class division and its consequences to outdated models will be alleviated with an unrestricted but propaganda-filled access to mem recordings to keep everybody happy with their assigned function in life, and newsparks will be raised in state camps to ensure Party loyalty. Then there are the challenges: Firstly, the Functionists demand total transparency from the citizens and this requires an increase in monitoring all their activities at all times, censoring communications and limiting access to information. Secondly, an impending energon crisis means the State is preparing to enter... a war economy, whether there will be a real war or not."

"The Functionists want a war economy? Who are we going to wage war against? The Quintessons are no threat anymore."

"It seems the primary target is the Galactic Council that bombed the Quintessons to save itself and accidentally saved us from them in the process."  

A faux-cheerful voice behind his office door interrupted them. 

"Minister of Defense? We have to discuss matters concerning Senator Shockwave and Officer Orion Pax."

Star Saber looked anxious. "By Primus, not him. It's Proteus from the Ministry of Truth."  

Alpha Trion's EM field flared up with concern. 

***

Trailbreaker and Jazz had visited the Iacon headquarters of the Destron Group in a futile attempt to gain useful information from employees, before heading over to a trendy nightclub The Circle to relax after the end of their shift. Swerve, its bartender, greeted them cheerfully when Jazz ordered two pints of Nightmare Fuel.   

"Tough luck," a hoarse voice came from behind them. Turning around, Trailbreaker and Jazz spotted a stern, purple mech with a horned crest sitting alone in a dark corner with multiple empty drink containers in front of him. He seemed to be of a flier alt mode type.

"Um, excuse me?" Jazz gave Trailbreaker a confused look; the latter shrugged.

"You were trying to question the staff of the Destron Group in vain," the purple mech remarked contemptuously. 

Trailbreaker walked over to his table. "You've been stalking us? Why?"

"My designation is Cyclonus. I was part of the original crew of The Ark, Second-in-Command. Now I am but an accountant." The mech eyed the policemechs' drinks, thinking. "What is it that you specifically wanted to know from Destron Group's employees?"

Jazz gave Cyclonus an odd look. "What's in it for you? Are you one of the employees and why would you voluntarily tell us anything?"

Cyclonus looked peevish. "I am an honest mech, you see. I was very proud of my military career, serving under Nova Prime himself. After what happened to him and the rest of our crew, I was forced to return to Cybertron as the sole survivor of The Ark, only to witness his murderer become Prime. It saddens me that nobody cares, as Nova's fate is the reason for the miserable state our society is now in. And unfortunately the corporation I work for aims to profit from what's about to unfold." 

"So you were aboard The Ark. What happened to The Ark anyway?" Trailbreaker sat down in front of the purple mech, looking curiously at him. Jazz decided to watch their surroundings in case of eavesdroppers, but fortunately Cyclonus allowed Trailbreaker to access his private, analog comms port - some old models retained such ports, and newer models were installing them from the black market, as it was the only surefire way to counter government surveillance these days.  

Cyclonus took a long sip of engex. "We were on our way to colonize and cyberform a planet that was rich in iron and carbon, but very blue, full of water, and with a higher oxygen and lower methane content than Cybertron, and with a single moon orbiting it. Very wet and muddy, you know, so I wasn't looking forward to visiting it." His EM field emitted angry vibrations. "Turned out, it was Nova's consultant, Liege Maximo's plan to lure him to Quintesson territory and then intercept the ship's comms so we couldn't call for help when the tentacled ones attacked The Ark. We were taken as hostages to Quintessa where we underwent a mock trial. The Quintessons allowed Liege Maximo to personally rip out the Matrix of Leadership from Nova Prime's chest and feed him to scraplets after they executed the rest of the crew except me. Then Liege Maximo returned to Cybertron with the lie that Nova had supposedly given him the Matrix on his own deathberth on some faraway asteroid. But people only cared that he had the Matrix of Leadership, not how he got it."

"That's... a lot of new information?" Trailbreaker gave Jazz an uncertain look. "But why did the Quintessons and Liege Maximo let you live?"

"He needed an experienced, reliable Second-in-Command to be his right hand in his ascension to power, and I accepted his offer because I wanted to live."    

Trailbreaker shook his helm. "That's dark! And you served him until he was killed by Thunderclash?"

Cyclonus laughed spitefully. "Nobody believes me, but Liege Maximo isn't dead. Do you want to see what happened?"

"Maybe, but what does all this have to do with the Destron Group?" Jazz asked him, concerned that they'd be up all night listening to the drunken rambling of an ex-soldier, but Trailbreaker's apparent curiosity towards Cyclonus' story changed his mind about leaving the bar.

Cyclonus produced a holographic projection on the bar's hot pink wall. The two policemech peered over his spiky shoulders, finding themselves watching a scene where Star Saber and Thunderclash were battling a gargantuan bat-winged figure with a vantablack armor and very long, curved horns made of chrome. A wounded general - Trailbreaker recognized Dai Atlas - was bleeding energon beneath the demonic figure's pedes.

"Wait, is that black thing... really him?" Jazz' intake was agape. Primeval models looked so weird to him. 

"Liege Maximo, yes. That was his alt mode, however," Cyclonus explained, "His T-cog enabled mass displacement; he wasn't usually that large." The broadcast was cut to a new scene where Star Saber stopped fighting Liege Maximo to help Dai Atlas, and as Liege Maximo was about to slash both of them with a giant sword, Thunderclash surprised him from the behind, striking the back of his neck with what looked like a giant needle. "Thunderclash severed a cable going from Liege Maximo's processor to the spark, disabling the camera vision. His armor and sword were made of nanocarbide that cuts through steel and various other metals, so Thunderclash had to be very precise regarding where to target. But after his move, you can see how Liege Maximo's attacks became sporadic and desperate, making him easier to immobilize... but not kill."

Trailbreaker and Jazz watched the metallic black demon fall on its back on the holographic screen, with Thunderclash delivering the final strike after which the corpse stopped moving. Cyclonus stopped the projection.

"They were careful not to damage the Matrix of Leadership that was contained in Liege Maximo's chest," Cyclonus mentioned, "but I had to stop recording because they turned their attention to me at that point. In any case, that was the end of my military career. Now, you asked me what does this have to do with the Destron Group? The fourth general there on that day was Straxus who owns the Destron Group, and he uses the conglomerate for very dubious purposes - I know this by being one of the accountants." 

"You said Liege Maximo didn't die," Trailbreaker pointed out. "I'm interested - what happened to him?"

"Liege Maximo's loyal followers carried his wreckage to the Manganese Mountains and made a digital twin of his consciousness before his spark extinguished. I was there and saw it all. The digital copy is an approximation of his spark, containing crucial thought patterns and subroutines. His followers hid the digital twin into a memory device that looks like one of those ellipsoid-shaped objects that people use for..." Cyclonus looked awkward, going silent.

"Interfacing?" Trailbreaker suggested happily.

"Eh, yes." Cyclonus looked embarrassed. "They were originally just memory devices, not for interfacing, but of course people have to turn everything into a perversion!" he complained. "Nova would have never allowed that."

Jazz tilted his helm. "Liege Maximo's consciousness is hidden in a frag toy?"

Trailbreaker gave his colleague a beaming grin. Somehow, working with Jazz on this case was making him experience exciting thoughts. Thoughts involving interface panels.

He couldn't quite fathom why.

***                    

One red optic opened.

Cold white light cast a faint shimmer on Megatron's battered armor as he slowly dug his digits into the dirty, stony floor of his cell where he had been thrown with transformation inhibitors on; his couldn't feel his guns either, rendering them useless. 

At first he had considered it peculiar that dozen heavily armed militia had decided to beat him up after an insignificant bar brawl that hadn't been even his fault, before he understood that the beatdown had been a warning from Straxus.

But the one-eyed scissorhanded thing that had been released into his cell to continue the beating was too much. He knew immediately the very angry bot had been an Empurata victim - punished for disobeying the government in some way - but the bot's evident rage towards him had initially seemed pointless. The bot had taunted him relentlessly during the beatdown, but Megatron had understood the message beneath the rambling, that somehow the scissorhand was blaming him and his ideology for his disfigured condition, that the government was after citizens who had changed jobs because Megatron and the Decepticons had supposedly drawn too much attention to it.

"Because you made changing jobs a huge deal, me and my friends lost our jobs, our hands, and our fragging heads!" the scissorhand had yelled before leaving the cell, Megatron immobilized on the floor. While he certainly had found the bot's warped logic childish, it concealed a bitterness that citizens who agreed with Decepticon ideology without the genuine will to support it often held, stemming from conformism that dabbled with anarchism out of an idealistic desire to be free upon realizing that conformism fails to bring happiness, but paying the price of being truly free felt too much. Some people chose to live double lives to combat this dilemma; Megatron was very familiar with that sentiment - he had once held that viewpoint himself, that maybe he could work his way up from the mines when some higher-up would notice his true potential, but no - he had been forced to fight his way up. He could see that once the angry scissorhand would come to accept the consequences of his choice to be free, he would embrace becoming a true outcast instead of blaming Megatron for it. 

Yet Megatron knew it was Straxus who had sent all those mechs to throw him into a cell, beat him, and then sent the scissorhanded menace to nearly finish the job. He produced a self-deprecating grin.

Of course Straxus had somehow found out that the energon yield reports from Kaon were seriously downplayed, resulting in a lower return-on-investment than they had agreed; Megatron's temptation to test the waters had backfired, but he didn't blame himself for trying. Now he was smarter about Straxus, knowing he was still alive because Straxus found him useful despite falsifying energon production reports, and because what the Decepticons were going to achieve would bring immense wealth to both the Destron Group and the government that was to replace the existing one. 

The government Megatron saw himself being the head of, after he was going to cut off Zeta Prime's--

"Get up, prisoner," grunted a warden, "You're being handed over to the custody of officials outside of the Polyhex torus-state."

Megatron tilted his helm curiously. "Very interesting. Is Straxus truly going to feed me to the Functionists?"

The two frames he then saw peering into his cell had him break into a hoarse laughter.

"Is that him?" Orion's EM field is all disbelief and worry. 

"Of course it's him, what did you expect?" I hiss. Orion Pax seems unusually nervous, but gotta admit, seeing that tall bulky grey hull rise from the filthy floor to measure us both up with red predatory optics is kind of making me fidgety as well. I'm also kind of jealous that Orion's jetpack is pretty impressive, even if its energon consumption is higher and his maximum speed is lower than if he had a real aircraft alt mode. I can tell all his new integrated guns and missile launchers are real though, and mine pale in comparison, so that sucks! 

Megatron looks like slag, yet his presence embodies a kind of authoritarian grandeur which goes beyond his sheer bulk. He's clearly been beaten up so bad he needs a new armor, his joints sound creaky like that of a poorly oiled old mech, and I can see droplets of energon simmering out of his seams.

But that's him, Megatron live and real. I can't contain myself when I pull out a flag made by Thundercracker, depicting the Decepticon insignia with the tagline Glory to the Conquerors of the Galaxy, and I could care less of Orion's visibly embarrassed EM field as he sees me flail the flag.

Megatron gives me a nondescript look before his gaze moves on to Orion who stands behind me.

"Interesting. Who are you, and what is the Iacon Police doing here?" 

"I am Starscream, the leader of the Purple Brigade student union, fiercely loyal to you and the Decepticon cause---!" I introduce myself, but then I realize Megatron isn't even looking at me. No, he's staring at Orion Pax like he's never seen anything like him before.

"Uh, I am indeed from the Iacon Police. My name is Orion Pax," the red officer explains awkwardly. There's something very fishy about the entire situation. "My mechs are waiting for me at the reception... We are here to escort you to Iacon."

"Really? I want to know what's going on." Megatron gives us amused glances. "Is this a joke? Somebody explain." He flashes a set of elongated metallic fangs which startles Orion, which Megatron notices and chuckles at his reaction.  

Orion's EM field is blushing! "Our precinct in Iacon received an official license from the Polyhex administration to come make an arrest because you were tentatively causing a disturbance," he explains apologetically. 

"What?" I quip, "I thought Soundwave made a secret deal with the jailers to let Megatron out under the guise of being held captive by the Iacon Police, so that we could take Megatron in reality back to Kaon."

"That wasn't what you told me, Starscream!" Orion grumbles. "You said Megatron actually wanted to meet me in person."  

"I didn't ask to see you," Megatron grunts, "Someone made that up. It looks like you've both been lied to." The sight of Orion slouching disappointedly amuses him. "One thing is evident: Straxus had me imprisoned but now wants me released, and I am damn right going back to Kaon."

I look at both him and Orion, undecided. "Astrotrain is ready for takeoff, Commander Megatron," I declare. 

"But I am supposed to take Megatron aboard Sky Lynx!" Orion yells at me. 

As Megatron steps out of his cell in all his tattered glory, his amusement seems to increase. "I would be flattered by you two fighting over me like that," he muses such that Orion is all flummoxed, and I feel cringe, "if I weren't fully aware we are being pawns in Straxus' game," he continues, glancing at me.

"Starscream is your designation? Flier alt mode. It is most excellent that you founded that student union to spread my word."

That is the biggest compliment anyone has ever given me! I'm over the moon! Both moons actually!  

"And you, cop," Megatron addresses Orion, "I do remember you from attending one of my gladiator shows. I remember you because I was being cornered by an opponent - whom I later killed - and yet I could tell there was genuine admiration in your EM field. It's the only reason I'm not going to kill you just yet."

Orion Pax's EM field indicates he's both terrified and curious. Megatron looks at him in a way that baffles me; I assumed there'd be deep-seated mistrust between them, but no!  

"I decided we're going to make a detour because there's someone I want to see, but right now attending a med bay seems to be on the agenda. I will be boarding Astrotrain, and you, cop, will come with me."

"But... I must take you to Iacon!" Orion Pax protests. I'm astonished he doesn't try any physical maneuvers to overpower Megatron who seems physically unfit to fight back, just letting him walk out of jail while his cop friends are staring. 

"Yes, yes, I know you're asking me out on a date, but you have a choice to make, cop." 

The red optics turn to watch both me and Orion.

"Gentlemechs, I'm going home."

***

Chapter Text

"On Functionism

The central societal development is the tendency to normalize unjust social structures, highlighting the disconnect between people's innate sense of fairness and their ability to rationalize systemic injustice."

-Megatron, "Towards Peace"

Cybertron's binary central star was once again setting over Iacon.

In a district populated by the city's richest citizens, including Zeta Prime, Proteus, Senator Shockwave, and Alpha Trion with his Conjunx Codexa, there was a modest gathering at the couple's hab suite complex overlooking The Grand Imperium. Alpha Trion and Codexa had wanted to invite both their adopted sparkling Orion and his girlfriend for dinner, and Orion's announcement that he was off to Polyhex for a mission didn't make them cancel, as the Conjunx couple had known Ariel for a long time. 

Ariel had accepted Codexa's invitation to dinner with conflicted sentiments; it was difficult for her to explain Orion's adoptive parents that she and Orion had a bit of a falling out ever since she had begun suspecting her longtime partner was in love with someone else - someone extremely high-ranking, wealthy, and influential. Someone with whom it was impossible to compete except by becoming a Prime.

Ariel eyed her food - energon laced with copper sulfide that gave the meal a beautiful azure blue color - and nodded politely when Codexa asked her if she enjoyed her new recipe.

"Ariel, you can be honest with us," Codexa then said warmly, "Are you and Orion still together?"

"No." Ariel's EM field flared up in anger. "Senator Shockwave--- oh how I hate him so much! -- snatched him! What I don't understand is why would someone so rich and powerful want to date a cop?"

Alpha Trion and Codexa glanced at each other meaningfully; they knew the young pink fem meant how Cybertronian hierarchy implied citizens from vastly different sides of the socio-economic spectrum didn't or couldn't usually have a relationship that was considered equal, either because the wealthier partner was expected to abuse his power over their lower-ranking partner, or the wealthier partner's family and peers tended to look down upon both the less wealthy partner and the relationship itself.

"While we do find it unfortunate that your and Orion's relationship came to pass," Alpha Trion acknowledged, "His liaison with the Senator may endanger him, as Senator Proteus told the Defense Minister that Shockwave has helped Orion interfere in State secrets he shouldn't have known about, and that Zeta Prime is planning to close the Senator's Academy of Outliers very soon." 

"What did Orion do and who told Proteus about it?" Ariel quipped.  

"We do not know who told him," Alpha Trion admitted, "but apparently the Functionists were intending to kill civilians and blame it on the Decepticons, as Orion told me. Orion and his team prevented this from happening, and the Functionists are livid."

There was a ring from the front door's security system, and Alpha Trion scrolled his HUD to see who was trying to get in, only to witness the CCTV footage he was receiving to his HUD depicting the building administration and guards lying offline on the zero-level floor, surrounded by massive hulls of armored militia.

"It's the Triorians!" Alpha Trion snapped.

"Triorians?" Codexa and Ariel looked at each other, putting down their condiments and utensils. 

Suddenly the hab suite door blasted open, sending a pressure wave that hit Alpha Trion against a wall while his spouse and former daughter-in-law crawled under the dinner table. Massive pedes traipsed in and surrounded the table as the Triorian Guard stormed in, shouting modulated grunts as they lifted Alpha Trion from the floor and placed inhibitors on him, effectively locking his T-cog and integrated gunnery. Codexa and Ariel began screaming in panic as the soldiers dragged both fems up, placing them under inhibitors alike. 

Alpha Trion, still conscious, attempted to transmit a message to Orion Pax' private comms, but for some reason the reception on Orion's side seemed compromised, as if someone was listening to Orion's channel, or the reception had been artificially jammed by a third party. "Orion! Someone must let him know...!" He wriggled with all his strength upon seeing his Conjunx being carried off by the Triorians, followed by Ariel's sylph-like figure writhing under the Triorians' manhandling.

"Alpha Trion, Head of Treasury - you are under arrest for treason by the order of Zeta Prime!" a Triorian boomed behind him.

"What? Treason? I have most certainly not betrayed my country! Let my Conjunx and Ariel go; they have done nothing to warrant this unforgivable treatment!"

"That's not up to you to decide," the Triorian grumbled and lashed at him with a neuron whip until he was completely motionless. Then the Triorian Guard hauled his frame to the elevator.

Outside the luxury apartment building, Alpha Trion's last sight before passing out was the Triorians pushing Codexa and Ariel into a prisoner van. 

***

The First Precinct, nightfall.

"He said what?" Prowl's EM field radiated uncredulous disdain as he tapped a digit against his desk. While Ultra Magnus was the official stand-in for Orion at this time, Prowl's sense of entitlement had somehow superseded his authority as to leave him watch the situation unfold from the sidelines. 

"Infiltration mission." Constable Sideswipe looked awkward and confused, seeking support from his colleagues, Officers Sunstreaker and Smokescreen who had accompanied him to Polyhex with Orion Pax.

"How is it an infiltration mission if Orion just let Megatron walk free, enter a Decepticon ship, and then joined him without you?" Prowl inquired sardonically.

"It did look a bit like a hostage situation," Smokescreen explained. 

"Oh, really? I find it hard to believe Orion would allow himself to be taken hostage; that would be outright inexorable." Prowl glanced at his perpetual datapad, expecting not a single refutation. "What do you think, Magnus? Would our heroic, exemplary chief really allow himself to be captured by the State's biggest enemy and yet claim to his own subordinates that it's just an infiltration mission?"

"Um... no, I do not think he would go down without a fight. Sideswipe, are you sure there wasn't a fight?"

"We didn't see any fighting. Orion boarded that Decepticon ship with the student activist whom Officer Prowl previously beat up at the University protests, and both Orion and the student were escorted by Decepticon soldiers."

Prowl's blue optics sharpened to an icier shade, his EM field smug. "So, I truly was right all along." A lopsided smile of victory appeared on his silvery white visage as he pressed his digits against each other, looking pensive.

His colleagues looked uncertain and baffled. "What's going on?" Sunstreaker asked behind him.

"Dear colleague of mine... It is time for us to accept the recognition of Orion Pax as indeed a Decepticon, no matter what he claims."

Prowl's audials were pleased by the shocked gasps he heard around the office: His day of breaching Orion's shadow had finally come.

However, he was badly caught off guard when a tall, elegant mech in a blue, white and red paintjob strutted through the office all the way to his desk, their EM field ablaze with holy rage. Initially Prowl thought it was Pax coming to avenge him, but then he was slapped in the face with a metallic thunk.

"I can't believe I scratched my paint for you. Bitch!" 

Everyone watched with their intakes agape as Senator Shockwave turned on his heels and exited the Precinct, leaving Prowl holding the side of his helm and realizing his red chevron was partially twisted. It irked him knowing that there was no hope for someone of his status retaliating a Senator legally, but as he knew why the Senator had slapped him, that knowledge in itself was revenge.  

***

Darkmount, Polyhex.

Destron Commander Deathsaurus, his gold-and-blue armor with a beaked golden helm polished to amplify his fluorescent paintjob, marched with long strides across the hall of Darkmount Castle to kneel before his lord, High-Governor Straxus who awaited on his throne, his midnight blue armor with red accents coated with a matte finish that gave a faint sheen instead of a bright shine; it had the effect of making the armor look like it was made of plastic, and plastic was very expensive on Cybertron as it had to be imported offworld.

Deathsaurus noticed his lord's paintjob; only the elite could afford to look plastic, so it was a sought-after status symbol.  

"Megatron boarded a Decepticon vessel this morning instead of the aircraft of the Iacon Police, as you predicted, milord. The Decepticons took the Chief of the Iacon Police hostage."

"Excellent," Straxus' gravelly voice bellowed behind his protruding mouthpiece - a feature considered attractive on Cybertron - yellow optics dimming of satisfaction, "Megatron's escape and humiliating the Iacon Police makes Zeta Prime look weak, and now that Megatron has been put in his place, the Decepticons paid the return-on-investment we agreed upon, as my accountants clarified. When he continues occupying more cities and settlements, the Destron Group has a splendid opportunity to claim land currently owned by Senators and Zeta Prime himself, as that will be one of the few ways Megatron can pay what he owes me for funding him."

Deathsaurus nodded. "Then the Destron Group can rebuild everything Megatron's troops have destroyed, and thus we will monopolize the postwar hab suite market and property development on Cybertron? An excellent plan, milord."

"Yes, my faithful servant. We are speaking of billions of shanix, and millions of barrels of energon in profit, Deathsaurus. I allow Megatron to live because he's an investment: A tool, an instrument of destruction, as well as an instrument of distraction."  

Deathsaurus wanted to tell Straxus that Megatron was more likely to lease the occupied land instead of just handing it over to Straxus, as the Governor was clearly underestimating Megatron's intelligence, ambition, and persistence.

Instead he said: "The Decepticons are preparing to perform a hostile takeover of Nyon, Tesarus, Helex, Vos, and the settlement of Tarn. In fact, they have probably already conquered Tarn by now."

"Hmm, that should bring at least six energon deposit fields under Megatron's supervision, and a thirty percent cut of all the energon belongs to me. He better not send me fraudulent production reports again, or I shall deal with him less kindly next time."  

"Indeed, milord. However, I estimate they do not have sufficient troops to seize all of these cities," Deathsaurus explained.

"Send Tryptikon!"   

"Really, milord...?"

"Do not question me! I want the energon deposits that Megatron will conquer for me."

"I... yessir. I understand."

"You see, Deathsaurus - being the richest mech on Cybertron is not enough for me, as I control only the most significant energon mines on the planet but not all of them. After that problem has been rectified, I will need a suitable puppet to handle the administration while I focus on expanding my business offworld."

For a quick moment, Deathsaurus considered warning Straxus about viewing Megatron as such a potential puppet, but decided to keep his vocal harmonizer shut - if he allowed Straxus to make one single mistake, it could open the door for his own rise to power.

Straxus, the warlord of Darkmount gazed intently at him, as if in an attempt to read his thoughts.

"You may go now, and bring me only good news of victory when you return."

As Straxus watched his right hand strut off to fulfill tasks, the thought of all of Cybertron's energon mines falling under his control after he'd have Megatron assassinated brought him even more excitement than torturing both his enemies and hapless victims for random crimes alike, for so insatiable was his greed for energon.

Straxus realized only then that he had just overloaded on his throne at the thought of owning all known energon mines in the universe.

***

"Entschuldigen Sie, bitte!"

"Erm...what?" 

Orion had been recharging when one of Megatron's lieutenants, a bulky purple Decepticon with a red visor, a sand-hued helm and matching accents speaking in a strange dialect tapped his jetpack wing. Orion startled when he realized he had drifted sideways across the floor all the way to Astrotrain's open cockpit - a cockpit only in the sense that it was technically the head-end of the vessel, without gear for outsiders to operate, offering only screens displaying flight data for passengers to look at.

"Oh, sorry about that." Orion's jetpack wing was blocking the Decepticon from getting out of the cockpit back to the cargo zone. 

The background hum inside Astrotrain grew louder as the massive aircraft approached a settlement below. Orion saw Starscream wandering around Astrotrain, side-eyeing the bigger jet who had woken Orion up and then holding onto his dear life as the huge Decepticon aircraft landed with a sudden drop and stop such that the passengers tumbled all over Astrotrain's floor.

Starscream and Orion were escorted out by four Decepticons before Megatron himself emerged from Astrotrain's hull, apparently kept intact mostly by a material that was very revered and highly expensive on Cybertron.

"What?" Megatron scoffed when seeing the look in their optics, "Haven't you ever seen a mech held together by duct tape before?"  

Cold gusts blew dust and silica sand over the quiet, unassuming village that looked deserted aside from a raggedy encampment nearby constructed of tarpaulin stretched between steel poles and concrete bollards. 

"It's said organic races think Cybertron is an industrial wasteland. Yes, it does look like an industrial wasteland. But to me, it's the center of my universe." Megatron's creaky pedes hauled his massive, damaged frame towards the Decepticon camp. Four Decepticon soldiers pushed Starscream and Orion down Astrotrain's boarding ramp to follow him.

"We're in the middle of nowhere! I am beginning to feel we are held hostage." Orion gave the small jet a concerned look.

"Beginning?! I've thought so this whole time!" Starscream quipped. A strong wind blew dust into his turbines and Orion's forehead speaker.

"I can understand why they wouldn't trust me, but why would they do this to you? You're... one of them, right?"

"It's probably because I haven't been initiated yet." Upon noticing Orion's baffled expression, Starscream added: "It's not exactly a fun process, for crying out loud! They take out a piece of your spark casing to make the insignia!" 

Orion gasped in horror. When he saw the Decepticon camp up close, he couldn't believe his optics at the mess: squabbling, bickering, shouting, and swearing soldiers drinking low grade engex, exhibiting generally raucous behavior. There wasn't an ounce of decency to be found anywhere in sight - some pairs were even openly fragging in clear daylight. However, when their leader showed up, there was elated chanting of Megatron's name, gladiatorial stadium anthems, war cries, and labor movement songs.

Soon the Decepticon soldiers' attention turned to Orion and Starscream. 

"Look at these two new pretty princesses we got!"

"I want the bigger one! I like 'em big and buff!"

"No, Backshot! The big one is mine!"

"Frag off, Rimjob! You wouldn't even find his valve!"

"Hey, it's a fraggin' cop, see the badge? We have a cop here?!"

Orion looked mortified as the crew burst into laughter and spewing insults at him and Starscream before Megatron's lieutenant prodded both of them into one of the tarpaulin tents serving as shelter. 

"These... barbarians!" Orion complained, optics in terror.

"Mm, they're kind of meh."  Starscream sulked, looking into the horizon where the sparse, flat and low buildings of the village of Tarn resided. "By the looks of it, Tarn was pretty easy to conquer; it looks completely abandoned."  

"What's your name, anyway?" Orion asked the big Decepticon jet who sat down to guard their tent from curious and apparently rather malevolent onlookers. 

"Ich bin Blitzwing. Megatron tell me to watch deinen Arsch. No, he tell me to look at Dich... after you."

"What?! I need to speak to Megatron right now!" Orion yelled. "It's like we've been taken to..."

"...the set of a Fragger God of Tetrahex movie?" Megatron entered their tent, still covered in duct tape and appearing to be in pain, but producing a metallic saber-toothed grin to cover it up as he boldly sat down between Orion and Starscream, making himself as comfortable as he could. "Aye, I know that's what it looks like around here when the crew gets bored. It's because we have no pretense among Decepticons: If we want to be blunt and direct, we'll be blunt and direct. If we want to act on our needs and desires, we'll do that. Conventional conformity need not apply."

"But... that's terrible and rude!" Orion cried out. "It's outright disgusting!"

Megatron laughed. "Call it what you want, but that's equality. If you read my books, you should know I'm against all things bourgeois." 

"Like... table manners?!" Orion stared at soldiers gobbling up energon cubes like they were the last ones on Cybertron.

"You see that?" Megatron waved his servo at a bunch of soldiers fighting over an energon cube. "In their purest form, our spirits are free, and when we are free, we are wild. And wild sparks don't care about conventions or other people's opinions."

"If you are all equal and free, then why do you give orders instead of allowing everyone to vote for a strategy?" Orion criticized him suddenly.

"Clever cop, aren't you? There are two answers. The first is physical: Without organized leadership, we can't succeed in a revolution as we haven't yet evolved to interlink ourselves to each other in terms of thousands of individuals. The second answer is psychological: All these people choose to follow me because I of all people offer them something others cannot. In exchange they must respect my will. It's an exchange; a transaction. A contract, if you will."

Orion was still glaring at him, and even his blue finials had flattened backwards - which was a very profound sign of strong dislike and discomfort. 

Megatron burst into laughter. "Don't spend your energon being upset with me and my crew, cop. You'll need it soon when I will see what you can do... and don't bother calling for help from Iacon; the Senate knows the villagers of Tarn expelled the local magistrate themselves before we even got here, and this settlement is too small and poor to be of the State's interest."

A sad, worried look appeared on Orion's face. "Why are we here and not in Kaon? Why is Starscream a hostage too?"

Megatron turned to measure up the small jet rocking himself back and forth in silent anxiety. 

"I'm here to visit an old friend. I'm waiting for my medics to fly from Kaon to fix my armor and guns before I'll have myself installed in a completely new frame." Megatron eyed Orion's jetpack. "And then I too can fly. Who built that jetpack for you, by the way?"

"Senator Shockwave."

"Ah, him. Aye, I should have expected. He's the kind of mech I'd love in my crew...if he weren't a Senator!" Megatron got up, gave Blitzwing instructions and left the tent with his joints creaking. Orion watched Megatron's back fade somewhere among the tents and he was now seriously worried over his and Starscream's safety, as drunken soldiers were loitering around their tent, attempting to peer inside. 

"Starscream, we need to watch out," Orion whispered, trying to get the visibly frightened jet to face reality. 

"They're gonna kill us or take us by force!" Starscream whined. 

"No they won't, I shall protect you!" Orion declared, but slightly uncertain whether he could live up to such a promise.

To Orion's surprise, he soon heard Starscream weeping silently in a fetal position.

"I thought you wanted all this?" Orion asked him quietly. "To be part of Decepticons? You were taking me as a trophy to Megatron, weren't you?"

"Maybe, but I wanted to avoid the branding ritual and all the other invasive stuff I've heard about, because not every member has to go through it the hard way - many members just get a sticker, but they must swear allegiance to Megatron anyway. I don't wanna die in here!"

Orion looked astonished. "Do you think I'm being expected to...?"

"If you mean if Megatron wants you to choose whether you accept the Decepticon membership and stay alive, then the answer is yes, that's how it goes. But it's hardly gonna be that simple because you're a cop. Normally Decepticons just kill all the cops."

Orion's EM field was blinking in alert mode. What had he gotten himself into?

"We must stay strong, Starscream," he attempted to comfort the jet.

"But you can't even transform," Starscream pointed out, "Because of that jetpack. And you won't be fast enough to escape real fliers."

"Then why haven't you escaped yet? Your top speed must be among the highest in this camp."

"Because I have nowhere to go!" Starscream cried out, "Zeta Prime closed down the Faculty of Cognitive Architecture because the Functionists want to punish the researchers who validated Senator Shockwave's research on the Lattice Spore, and I can't go back to Vos either. I can't continue my studies, I can't graduate. I have nothing left to return to!"

Orion pushed part of the tent covering to look around the camp. He soon understood that nearly everybody here was like Starscream: Either they had never had much of anything - status, social networks, shanix, education or property - to begin with or everything had been taken away from them.

It was fertile soil for ideas calling for rights and respect that could be attained with brute force.

"By the way," Starscream muttered, "Why didn't you try stop Megatron from taking Astrotrain instead of your ship, and why did you let him take yourself hostage?"

Orion spent some time thinking about whether to answer at all - being reticent among Decepticons seemed like a generally good idea anyway. But he replied: "I got a hunch that me and my colleagues would've been outnumbered by Decepticons had we interfered with his departure."

But Starscream's comment caught him by surprise. "That's not the whole truth, is it?" Starscream pointed out, "You didn't want to arrest him and you weren't going to arrest him. I know your reputation; you wouldn't have let being outnumbered stop you."

"Hmph," Orion grunted. "I admit I wanted to meet Megatron so I could be sure what to think of him and the Decepticons in general. And based on what I've seen so far, I don't want anything to do with Decepticons. They are horrible people!"

"That's the cop in you talking," Starscream hissed, "You have no idea what oppression can do to people. If you did, you wouldn't be a cop."

Orion side-eyed the little jet in an annoyed manner; perhaps the churlish student activist had hit a little too close to home with his snide observations.

***  

Under the indigo sky over Iacon, a shiny white-and-green aircraft was encoding a message while traversing a flier lane.

"Dear Orion, these are perhaps my last words to you.

I have a confession to make. I must tell you something you do not want to hear.  Zeta Prime is shutting down my Academy of Outliers and will arrest the staff, including me, with a very high probability of 88,98 percent.  I know you are going to be angry as to why I did nothing to actively stop all this.  The reason for my decision is one that saddens me deeply, but in many ways I have no better option when I measure the best of Cybertron against my personal desires, for in the long term, my desires are but ever-changing and whimsical,  fleeting and selfish.

At the end of the cycle, my final goal of solving Cybertron's energy crisis takes precedent. It is my final command, and without fulfilling this command I would implode of frustration, to be honest. 

I received a message from my future self that the only obstacle in my way is not Zeta Prime, nor the Functionists, nor Megatron, nor Proteus and the Senate in general.

My only obstacle, as woeful and disheartening as it is for both of us, is my love for you.

We both must come to accept that life is chaos and grief, full of undetermined information and unfulfilled dreams.

I know that by choosing this path without you, I have doomed myself into a life of loneliness and sorrow, but what is best for Cybertron and its people is more important than emotions.

I'm deeply sorry, but please do not condemn me for I am only being logical.

Yours, Shockwave."

The aircraft sent the message and realized then that two Triorian fliers had appeared on the sides of his wings, ordering him to break away from the flier lane and follow them.

He knew resistance was futile, and obliged.

***

Chapter Text

The Grand Imperium.

Zeta Prime eyed his subordinates in a brand new golden paintjob that was meant to create contrast with his platinum crest and the white gold accents of his armor. However, instead of shining like a newly minted gold coin, there was a brassy, almost orange-y tone to his armor now that his subordinates didn't dare to point out.

"Honorable Senators, I present Star Saber, Minister of Defense," he announced, "He has something important to say."

The senators watched expectantly as the majestic Star Saber ambled over to the podium, his EM field radiating profound disappointment. 

"Senators, Zeta Prime. These last few stellar cycles have seen rapid changes that I cannot possibly fathom, namely concerning the sudden disappearing of Alpha Trion, Head of Treasury, as well as Senator Shockwave, and the rumors that Chief of the First Precinct, Orion Pax, having joined the Decepticons after misleading officials in Polyhex about taking Megatron into custody. As Defense Minister, I should have known better and protected the State against those working against it from the inside. Due to my failures, I hereby declare myself resigned from the post of Defense Minister. It was an honor to serve the State for all this time."

A wave of surprised EM fields flickering all over the great hall of the Grand Imperium; even Senator Proteus looked perplexed, and there was an air of curious bewilderment among the senators. The former Minister of Defense ambled off the stage with grandiose majesty while the senators were watching him, whispering to each other. Zeta Prime left Senator Proteus to lead the Senate session in the Great Hall while he himself swept through a side door into the corridor through which Star Saber was leaving the building.

"A word with you, Star Saber."

"Yes?" 

"While your reaction to these certain events is understandable, there's no need for you to exercise such penance over yourself; after all, those events were beyond your control, truth be told." 

"Hm. It sounds like you want me to cancel my resignation, but unfortunately keeping the position is out of the question for me." 

"Reason for my interference is that Governor Straxus poses a far greater threat to the State than we imagined. The notorious but useful First Precinct, with its newly appointed Chief Ultra Magnus, has uncovered more evidence of not only that Straxus plausibly funds Megatron, but that the real reason for him doing so is to seize all of Cybertron's energon mines, as well as profit from the property development opportunities arising once Megatron has conquered our lands for him."

"I see." Star Saber's optics darkened. "The only reason I and Dai Atlas ever teamed up with Straxus was because the Destron Battalion had the necessary mechpower to break Liege Maximo's defenses. Straxus never participated in the battles himself."

"Star Saber, I know you want to be of use when you see a threat like this. You always said we gave Straxus too much leeway following the fall of Liege Maximo, and turns out you were right! I would be honored if you were to return to being a General and led Iacon torus-state troops to perform a... northern excursion against Straxus, the Destron Group, and the Destron Battalion. Yes, the latter still operates and does so under the command of designation Deathsaurus."

"I cannot believe they were allowed to operate freely all this time!"

"I know, I know. It was a bad mistake. So now I ask you what you want in exchange for working as a General for our State once again."

"There's one condition: Allow me to register the Autonomous Assembly of Universal Unity as an official party."

"Interesting request, but as long as you can work with the existing government, I shall grant you that liberty. And what is the short term for your new party?"

"I and Dai Atlas have always called ourselves Autobots, just like Straxus and Deathsaurus called themselves Destrons."

"Well then. You know what's likely going to happen at the next elections? You and your Autobot party will find yourselves in the opposition next to the Free Engex Party, the Anti-Vocationist League, the Monoformer Party, and the Shareware Party. But don't be too bothered about it; I'm sure you'll love it. It's going to be beautiful."  

Zeta Prime lumbered off, leaving the reappointed General Star Saber standing in the hallway with a queasy EM field.

***

The Iacon Police sans Prowl and Ultra Magnus held court at Maccadams Old Oil House, examining their engex containers in a state of perfunctory reticence.

"Well I'll be damn!" Ironhide announced to a taciturn audience, "I don't know what to believe anymore, y'alls!"

His colleagues were chiming in.

"So how can Orion be a Decepticon?" Arcee asked everybody, "It's just ridiculous! I don't get how anyone can say that of him."

"Yeah, it doesn't make any sense," Jazz confirmed, "I ain't saying every Decepticon is a criminal but Orion knows Decepticons have no, like, morals. And he has enough spare morals to give everyone by the truckload." 

"Then why has he always defended Megatron?" Sunstreaker asked him, "Not to say I support Prowl's argument, but it's not impossible that Orion really switched sides."

"Orion would never switch to the criminal side," Roller insisted, "He's not like that. This is about something else. Blackmail, maybe?"

"How so?" Chromia doubted.

"Didn't you hear his family and ex-girlfriend were arrested four phases ago? And Senator Shockwave got arrested last night! Prowl told Ultra Magnus about it in the break room and said it was part of Zeta Prime's anti-corruption campaign."

Shocked gasps, uneasy grumbling and modulated muttering.

"So the government believes Orion has changed sides," Sunstreaker argued, "Why else would they target his loved ones?" 

"But why would they take Ariel? Orion's not with her anymore", Ironhide said, "Not that it's my business or anything."

Trailbreaker stood up and tapped his engex container to get everybody's attention.

"Guys, this is probably not about Orion actually being a Decepticon because most of us seem to be pretty sure he isn't one," he suggested carefully, "But more to do with the fact that Senator Shockwave helped Orion foil a Functionist conspiracy. I was there right next to Orion and he explained what he was doing, hacking systems with the Senator's software and devices. So either one of them got caught afterwards, or somebody blew their cover, and I definitely hope not from the inside."

There were concerned flares among the patrons' EM fields.

Sideswipe looked around displeased. "Okay, but are we just gonna obey Prowl from now on, because it's not like Magnus has stepped up on his leadership game? I kind of want to quit because Prowl is being a dick."

"You know what happens to jobless people these days?" Trailbreaker asked him dryly. "They literally get thrown into the recycling bin." 

There was shocked silence. Product Recall was the term everyone thought about but nobody dared to mention.

"It's all so suspicious," Springer stated, "I overheard Senator Proteus specifically asking Prowl this morning to cover up the cases of Decepticons ending up dead in the spare parts market and as energon patties in fast fuel joints, supposedly to 'prevent mass panic and rioting'. And Prowl agreed to do it."

"He what...? Really? I don't know how I can continue working in the police anymore," Sideswipe scoffed, followed by huffs of acknowledgement from his colleagues who felt the same.

"Remember if y'all attempt to switch jobs, keep it consistent with your alt mode," Ironhide warned them, "Or there's an Empurata operation waiting for ya at the end of the rainbow. Finding work in transportation and logistics is a good bet for most of us, for obvious reasons."

"Oh great, so if we don't wanna be police anymore, we can always be delivery drivers. Yay!" Sideswipe muttered.  

"I'm seeing job change-related Empurata a lot these days," Chromia remarked, "Empurata victims even formed their own association." 

Arcee nodded. "It's kind of absurd that wanting a better paid job can get you handicapped. You'd think the government wanted people to work instead of... disabling them."

"On the bright side," Trailbreaker noted, "Prowl has been given the green light to allocate more personnel on the Destron Group case, since Zeta Prime is hellbent on purging corrupt officials or something. I and Jazz have a great lead because one of the corporation's employees, an accountant, sent us evidence on how the Destron Group is aiming to profit from Megatron's warmongering."

"Do Magnus and Prowl know about this?" Sunstreaker asked him.

"Yeah, we sent them the accountant's testimony. I figure it means those who still want to work at the Iacon Police have a pretty good chance of doing something interesting like raiding the Destron Group Tower in this city." 

"Too bad this accountant hasn't kept in touch since," Jazz said. "But he claimed to know where Liege Maximo is, in case any of us is interested, and sent me the coordinates to an address in the Green Lights District before he disappeared."

"Liege Maximo?" Chromia uttered. "What does a dead emperor have to do with any of this?"

"Ain't got no clue. Me and Trailbreaker just thought it was pretty cool to know something like that."

***

***

Chapter Text

Iacon, the Ark One Memorial Hospital.

Ratchet eyed the patient on his table with a wrench in one servo and a welding machine in another. The opened plating of the patient exposed sooty, oily wires, cables, and screws. He inspected the patient's throttle position sensor and fuel pressure regulator before reaching a diagnosis.  

"I'm afraid Senator Proteus needs to have both his fuel pump and T-cog replaced within the next three cycles until they cease to work altogether." Ratchet looked at the Senator's aide, the adoptive sparkling of a high ranking Functionist official. 

"Can you perform the surgery as soon as possible?" the aide asked him.

"I could, but spare parts for Proteus' model type are no longer manufactured, they flied off the shelves a long time ago. We don't have fuel pumps nor T-cogs of his model in our storage anywhere." Ratchet showed the aide a datapad containing the specs of the required new transplants.  

The aide took a brief moment to make a call. 

"It appears we have found a suitable donor. The Senator will, of course, compensate you generously for your efforts."

Ratchet shook his red helm - he had performed parts replacement surgeries for dozens of Senators within the past few stellar cycles due to corrosion, wear, and age causing parts failure, but what was going on these days was getting out of hand in his opinion.  

Old, long discontinued parts in dire need suddenly available in a nanocycle's notice?

"Don't tell me the donor was yet another Decepticon, an outlier, a monoformer, or a Circle of Light member," he muttered, "since they seem to be all too eager to donate their parts and energon these days. I wonder why that is."

The aide gave him a blank look.

"It just means the Functionist Party's campaign encouraging parts and energon donation is very successful."

"Yeah..." Ratchet gave Senator Proteus lying on the table a grim look. "I'll do it." It was his job, after all, and his oath required it.

"Great! The transplants will be shipped here in a phase from The Institute," Senator Proteus' aide chirped.

Sometimes Ratchet wished his medical oath didn't always require him to save people.

***

I was told by a government official that I have been ‘playing in the shadows’, whatever that means.

I remember being a senator. Apparently, it was only a deca-cycle ago, or so I was told. There was a mock trial in which I was accused of very heavy charges, such as treason, and strange ones, such as blasphemy, heresy, spreading false information, demagoguery, tax evasion and corruption. I was reportedly in a relationship with the chief of the Iacon Police, who may have taken bribes from me. I do remember Orion Pax; He must have been some kind of plaything or test subject for me, because I don't remember him being useful in any way for my career. A very naïve and childish person in search for the truth.

Not such a truth as one plus one equals two, but something incomprehensible, where extremely complex things are easily explained, simple, and unchanging. After what was done to me after my trial, I realized that there is a considerable number of people who strive for simple truths, and that is why we live under the yoke of the Functionist Government.

Everything in the universe is information, if you think about what it is in relation to consciousness, and consciousness is just the universe's way of becoming aware of itself. But because there is an extreme amount of information and it is uncertain in relation to our available computing power, every consciousness operates with limited, undetermined information and still thinks it is right and knows the truth. Truth, like everything else, has an error margin: It settles at some point on the spectrum where one thing is more likely than something else. Thus, it is quite acceptable to maintain several simultaneous conceptions of truth, because nothing is absolutely true:

The 'truth' is analogous to the multiverse itself, existing in and as multiple states simultaneously depending on the perspective and angle, even when viewed within a single space. What is 'truth' when the multiverse is akin to a being trapped in a labyrinth of mirrors where an object appears to be one thing in clear light, yet containing information that is hidden in plain sight? 

For not only does the lack of absolute truth imply our perception shapes the way we see truth, our perception shapes the truth and as such, what we call reality. And a reality that is subjective and malleable can be made in one's own image.   

It started as an innocent dispense of information. But the Functionist Party, whose goal is to dominate others, tries by all means to make the people believe that it is their claim that is true and that other arguments are not. The Functionist Party began to control all public information and discourse, and now even that is no longer enough. They want everyone to change their minds to abide by the party’s truth by any means necessary.

So why would anyone believe the Functionist propaganda? Initially, the party began paying popular, influential bots to spread its message. The communication was sensational and emotional instead of appealing to reason and logic, and as such it sunk in with the general public. Agents hired by the party began to persecute those who disagreed with them in order to silence them. In addition, the party deliberately published information about its non-existent achievements, which would supposedly prove the superiority of their policies: Misinformation.

In the party's opinion, I was wrong when I went to criticize it publicly.

Now I look at my hands – they are gone. Instead, there are some kind of pliers.

I look at my face – it is missing too. Instead, there is a simple, cylindrical box with two antennas, in the middle of which glistens an expressionless camera with a yellow light. I remember that my old frame was something that others thought as aesthetically pleasing and beautifully colored. It was streamlined and could fly. Now I am of uniform dark purple color in a clumsy-looking, heavy frame. I don't know why they even bothered to repaint me, unless the purple color itself is some kind of punishment for my criticism of the government.

Purple. The color of dissidents. The color of the Decepticons.

In fact, I wonder why the party didn't kill me – would I have become a martyr for the people? Instead, they wanted to humiliate me, stifle my passion, tame it with the government-positive thinking. The mnemosurgeons at the Institute were tinkering with my neural network, reading my memories, attempting to rewrite my thought subroutines and my goal alignment to their liking. I realized they didn't want to erase my memory, even though they had the opportunity. They were looking for something. This hidden information kept me alive.

The Functionists did not realize that I had prepared in advance by encrypting certain parts of my data and memories so closely that even the Institute's decryption couldn't crack everything: Information that my future self had told me. The Institute's researchers did get information about Project Regenesis from my neural network, but not the most important parts. I knew that if I had let them read all my information, they would not have allowed me to live and thus complete my mission.

They set me free in my disfigured frame. The bots on the street looked at me in horror and hurried away, as if I had fallen ill with cosmic rust. I learned that the government had closed my University of Outliers and confiscated all of my possessions on this planet, which were vast.

Some people pity me, assuming I must be sad, angry, or bitter after what the government made me endure. But in spite of everything, I do not feel anything about the adversity or setbacks I faced. I do not feel any anger or bitterness towards the government or the party. Nor do I feel anything for the police officer who told me that they love me.

I only have a task that needs to be completed, a goal that needs to be accomplished. I just need more resources and new workspaces, and I already know whom to turn to. They need my talents. He needs my services, and he will offer me resources and protection in exchange.

I may have once been a true dissident, and under other circumstances would have joined a rebellion on the basis of shared values and ideology. But now none of those things hold any meaning to me; I see only the means to an end.

My single optic gaze falls on a Decepticon flag flying in a demonstrator's servo.

***

Green Light District, Iacon.

Nightfall beckoned as Jazz and Trailbreaker drove themselves in their alt modes under green neon lights illuminating the street's rundown-looking stores, consisting of illegal bars, obscure nightclubs, workshops doing UV tattoos, prohibited upgrades, and black market modifications. Had they been looking for crime to punish and criminals to arrest, they would've identified hundreds of suspects at one go. But tonight was different, as whether a crime had been committed regarding what they were looking for, was uncertain.

Trailbreaker parked himself in front of a shop advertising the latest installment of The Fragger God of Tetrahex, Cybertron's most popular movie franchise. He noticed his colleague was eyeing the advertisement very keenly before turning around slightly embarrassed.

"The tenth movie, imagine that!" Trailbreaker remarked happily when transforming into his bipedal mode, "I saw the first eight but gotta say, the franchise went totally downhill after the third. But none of them fired the circuits like the first one."   

"Can you, uh, remind me why are we doing this again?" Jazz tried the store's front door. A customer service drone showed up to scan him. 

"This enterprise has a license," the drone stated, producing a holographic document in front of Jazz's visor.  

"It's okay, we're not raiding this place," Trailbreaker said, pushing himself past the drone to examine the shop's offerings. 

The drone followed him. "Perhaps you would like the latest Fragger God of Tetrahex film? It received good reviews and has an A list cast, and is popular among couples with its sophisticated plot involving a mystery relic and an ancient prophecy..."

Jazz and Trailbreaker looked at each other. "Maybe not tonight? We're looking for a specific toy, actually," Jazz pointed out, not wanting to admit that under different circumstances he would have wanted to buy the film and watch it with his colleague immediately. 

"The toy selection is over there," the vendor drone chirped helpfully, leading the policemech to the shop's toy section. Trailbreaker examined the wares with excruciating intensity while Jazz took a box from a shelf featuring a white, egg-shaped item with cable ports on each side. Trailbreaker instead pulled out a box from the shelf with a small pink cylinder inside it. 

"Um, I'd like to ask something," Trailbreaker called the drone, "Do you possibly sell any of these used? We're looking for a used one." 

"Used interfacing toys? While there is a market for those, many avoid them out of fear of having their neural network contaminated. We do have some collectible antique items, but your credit score can't possibly afford them," the drone replied.

"Oh yeah? The artefact we're looking for is evidence for solving a crime." Trailbreaker wasn't entirely sure if it was true, though. 

"You need a search warranty if you're not going to buy anything," the drone explained.

"Show us your collectible antiques," Trailbreaker insisted. "We assume you have the item we're looking for legally, so we are not taking it away without paying for it. That is, if you even have it."   

"I assure you we have everything in the world of interfacing available," the drone claimed defensively.

"Prove it."

"Hey, isn't that...?" Jazz pointed at a grim, menacing, but handsome figure with striking red optics in the corner.

"Yeah, it's a life-sized Megatron frag doll. Unbelievable." Trailbreaker shook his helm. 

"Do you want one?" the drone chirped, "This model has AI and is popular among senators and government officials - mainly because only they can afford it."

"Oh." Jazz glanced at Trailbreaker. The latter lifted the box with the small pink cylinder in front of the vendor drone.

"Thanks but no thanks; we're looking for a used version of this sort of, uh, memory sliver. But it probably doesn't look like this."

The drone scanned the product. "You are looking for a used valve toy?"

"Are we?" Jazz gave his colleague a puzzled look. "I thought what we're looking for is a memory device disguised as a frag toy."

"Uh huh, a 5D memory device. That goes into the valve." Trailbreaker grinned. "It makes perfect sense when you think about it: the thing inside it is looking for a host, and a frag toy is something people will use readily and willingly."

"But not if it looks used, and you make it sound like there's a virus inside it," Jazz argued, his EM field nauseous. 

The drone brought a box packed in colorful cardboard and plastic - materials of expensive offworld origin.

"How can it be in mint condition?" Jazz took the shiny box in his servos, showing the contents to Trailbreaker who inspected the small cylinder inside it - the packaging said it was made of jade.

"It's an antique collectible and sold as a used item despite being packaged soon after manufacturing," the drone said, "and the only reason we still have this available is because, like I said, people don't want to use used toys, so most used toys like this have ended up in museums or on the shelves of private collectors. This jade egg costs fifteen million shanix."

Jazz gave Trailbreaker a helpless look. "But we don't have that much shanix."

"I can see that," the drone commented, "so unless you have a search warranty, I must kindly ask you to leave."

Trailbreaker's EM field radiated heated defiance, as he realized he was so close to what he'd been looking for. 

"I may not have enough shanix to buy the jade egg but I have enough to buy the tenth Fragger God of Tetrahex, thank you very much!" 

Jazz stared at his colleague intake agape.  "You're gonna... watch that?" 

"Right now. Shops like these have backrooms for private viewing in order to sell engex," Trailbreaker whispered. "Now that we know where one piece of the puzzle is, we can plan our next move."  

"But what kind of a crime is this supposed to solve? Prowl ain't gonna let us raid a frag shop just for fun."

Jazz could see proverbial and literal gears turning and twisting within Trailbreaker's mind as his thought processes sped up. 

"Jazz, remember what the accountant from Destron Group said? That dusty old valveplug contains the memories of Liege Maximo. I think if we follow this lead, we can prove he was no Prime. And Nominus was elected by a committee, so was Zeta - it's all a sham. A conspiracy. While they may have carried the Matrix like containers, they never wielded it actively because they weren't chosen by Primus. We haven't had a real Prime since Nova! This could, like, force Zeta to resign and the government to disassemble. We could have Orion's name cleared so he can come back."

"Um... what?"

"Yeah!" Trailbreaker grinned. "So, do you wanna watch the movie with me or not?"

"Are you serious?" Jazz saw the vendor drone bring the film and two containers of low grade engex to Trailbreaker.

"Come on! We're pretending to be legitimate customers, so at least get on with the script."

***

The binary star system went down upon the Decepticon camp in Tarn, turning the sky deep purple. Lieutenant Blitzwing made way when Megatron lumbered over to the tent hosting Starscream and Orion Pax. 

"Starscream?" he addressed, pushing the tarpaulin aside, "I've been informed there are members in The Purple Brigade who want to join this camp," the warlord told the jet who was furiously polishing himself.

Starscream perked up immediately. "Oh... yes! Lots of fliers like myself, Lord Megatron."

"Good. I will instruct Soundwave to have them arranged here so we can properly train them; it is time you all become true Decepticons not only in spirit but by undergoing the necessary combat training and accepting the badge into your very spark casings."

Megatron saw Orion Pax sitting in the tent with his jetpack and armor repaired by Megatron's medics but Orion wasn't even looking at him.  

"What's up with you?" Megatron sat down next to the ex-cop. "I thought Knockout did a good job fixing you, from what I heard."

"I can use my jetpack again, but my T-cog's permanently fried and cannot be saved." Orion stared into the distance, his EM field signaling frustration. "There wasn't a spare T-cog available because Knockout said they're always in huge demand."

"Poor monoformer," Megatron chortled, receiving an angry glare and flattened finials from Orion as a response - he found this expression highly amusing. 

"Megatron, I want to ask the same question you asked me previously: Why haven't you killed me? Why are you keeping me around? Everybody here is rude to me because I was a police officer. And my family..." Orion's shoulders and jetpack wings sagged. To his shock, Megatron placed his massive steel grey servo on his shoulder. 

"You're a Point One Percenter like myself and my best soldiers. I can't let potential like that get wasted in the government if I have an opportunity to get one to join me." Megatron patted him. "And it doesn't look like you have too many options, does it?"

Orion kept sulking. "It wasn't a long time ago when I agreed with if not all, but with most of your publications, Megatron. But when you wrote in The Big Purple Book that you aspire to equalize and unify society by abolishing the caste system and class structure, it bothers me that you essentially aren't allowing people to choose, but instead you enforce your philosophy with brutality, with the end goal of eradicating all individuality!"

"Really? You think making reforms is that easy as to merely letting people choose? The government has effectively closed all known loopholes for overturning existing structures peacefully," Megatron replied, shrugging. "I am not deceiving you when I say that I thought about a peaceful solution long and hard. The surveillance state has made that impossible. Even now we are able to speak freely only because my Communications Officer and an offworlder scientist set up an encrypted private network that is based on a quadratic qubit programming language developed on the planet Eukaris. The government wants badly to capture the scientist for the exotic technologies he brought with him to Cybertron; I can't possibly allow that since he has exactly what Cybertron needs."

"Exotic technologies?"

"Phase sixing, recombination by an unlimited amount of single units, for example. Some say these are just old forgotten tech from the Golden Age, when Nova Prime's government was more concerned with increasing the population through Cold Construction via spark splicing than developing combiners and supersoldiers."

"Senator Shockwave... he often spoke about having a solution to the energon crisis," Orion recalled, "The energon crisis that is the root of all of our problems and started during Nova's regime because he was squandering resources and people left and right with his endless conquests. I know our history well since I worked in the Archives before becoming a cop."

Megatron looked curious. "You were an Archivist? I used to borrow digital copies of books in my spare time in the mines: History, philosophy, poetry, mathematics, medicine, astrophysics, programming, music. Without educating myself that way, I wouldn't have learned of the true meaning of inequality and that it couldn't be changed by just following rules and protocol."

Orion's EM field indicated surprise. "When you borrow books in the Archives, your serial number and batch number appear in the client database. It doesn't show designations. Otherwise I might have remembered you. But it makes sense now how a miner could have learned rhetoric like that, sounding highly educated without a university degree."      

"Are you trying to mock me?" Megatron suddenly punched Orion on the back such that he fell face forward into the tent floor. "I knew you were a privileged piece of slag, with a happy upbringing, being able to do anything you want! Soundwave compiled your profile for me."

"That's why you made me fight your warriors? Out of... jealousy?" Orion stood up slowly, tilting his helm while gazing at the warlord calmly. 

"As opposed to humiliating you to death, yes. I gave you an opportunity to prove yourself." Megatron grabbed him by the elbow joint and pulled him out of the tent. Orion noticed Decepticons in all sorts of alt modes rolling and flying to the camp that seemed to expand by the cycle. "You were complaining that I'm supposedly not allowing people to choose Decepticonism by their own volition. We are not mercenaries like the Destron Battalion, Orion, but ordinary citizens tired of a societal hierarchy that slowly bleeds the energon out of us, then deems us disposable and will slaughter us for spare parts. This is the system I am up against. Once you join me, you give up your old life and in doing so, you take a massive risk, but you are also no longer responsible for pretty much anything - I am. You can become an adventurer and do what you want. But without organized leadership, a designated leader, there would be a need to vote on every action as a group decision in order to achieve anything - this is impractical and time consuming, unless we attain a level of recombination where everyone votes as a hive to attain consensus."

"That sounds like simulating the Allspark itself. I do not think achieving democracy requires a consensus, just a majority vote."

"This is war, Orion. You cannot run a military campaign on a majority vote, and democracy is how the Functionists won!"

"Not quite true. The Functionists have built up their power on the rumor that fighting the Quintessons left us too weak to fight the Galactic Council's organic races that supposedly want to annihilate our species. The Functionists are driven by fear and paranoia, infecting the population with the same mindset, and a fearful population will make decisions in debilitating panic." 

"Orion, the Functionists want to give up and appease the organic races via demilitarized zones - our moons. I am not going to sit and watch them do what Liege Maximo did with the Quintessons. The Functionists are just as bad as leaders, as Liege Maximo was. But having organized leadership is the natural order of things, even a pack of turbofoxes has an alpha that gets replaced when it begins to malfunction. Such must an old and stale regime be replaced with the new and competent."

"I still think a leader's job is to serve as an example, to inspire others with empathy, integrity, and high principles to bring balance and fairness in order to bridge opposing viewpoints. But you seem to be only interested in eliminating all opposition rather than actually governing."

"Orion, you are oversimplifying leadership. You've been leading task forces and combat units, but not an army nor a nation which is different. You assume you would remain impartial in the middle of contrasting viewpoints, but there is no evidence you could lead an entire nation and do it fairly. You're begging the question."

"Megatron, I am aware any rule system gaining an upper hand in society will be forced on those who don't want it - that is how the law works- but I do not believe in stifling individual potential. You compare yourself to an alpha turbofox, something that bites everything it doesn't like? That would be appropriate, sadly. I regret having defended you to my colleagues for so many stellar cycles."

Megatron flashed his elongated metallic fangs at him. "Embrace the beast within yourself. Organic races call us machines, as if we just work and follow orders all the time. But a Cybertronian is alive and hardwired to drink engex, fight, and frag! Among Decepticons, you can drink all the engex you can find, frag anyone you want regardless of their class or status - you won't be judged, for we are all equal." 

"Megatron, I am a serious person and I didn't come here to act like a... drunken turbofox. I feel the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. Towards my family and friends, and..."

"Senator Shockwave? Aye, I know about him. You two are close, aren't you? Or more like... were."

Orion went grim. "Do not speak of him, please."

"What do you think happened to him? Because my intel gathered that he was trialed and sentenced to Empurata."

Orion's EM flared up in terror. "Empurata?! No, that cannot be!"

"He was the first Senator to be sentenced to Empurata, and even his scientific achievements couldn't protect him. In fact, they seemed to have contributed to it."  

"One more thing: I am classified as Disposable because I became unemployed as a miner. Guess in what class you belong to, after being fired from the Iacon Police and marked as a Decepticon?"

Orion's EM field radiated pure agony.

***