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[rd][fic][Transformers] Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger 5/?
With techobabble editing by my Wonderful Husband! All hail the Wonderful Husband!
Warning level... some cursing, m/m pairing. So don't read if that offends you. Elsewise, enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 5: In the Air Tonight
by K. Stonham
prereleased 21st August 2007
The room was darkened, lights dimmed to half power to prevent glare on the multiple screens before the two men that sat there. One was in a wheelchair, his eyes fast on the screens, hands hovering over a keyboard as he waited to input commands. The other, in a normal chair, leaned slightly forward, his elbows propped on the desk and hands interlaced beneath his chin. His eyes flickered back and forth as he softly issued brisk commands into his headpiece. "Ironhide, hold position for sixty seconds to allow Optimus to rendezvous with you. You should be clear of the patrols at that spot." On one of the screens a black-armored figure was nigh-invisible in the shadows of a tree near the perimeter fence. "Spike, are you done yet?"
"Ten seconds," the teenager said druggedly. He was probably still disconnecting from their network.
"Good. Get ready to move out and don't forget the delayed reset of the security cameras to copy yesterday's records. Bumblebee, the guard's coming your way. Both of you maintain position until my say-so." Another screen, outside the room the two teenagers were in, showed a security guard making his routine way down a hall. "Jazz, status?"
"Say when an' I'll set th' timer t' cover our exit," came a whispered reply.
"Let me get Spike and Bumblebee clear first." The man turned his head to the left. "We're missing a heat signature on the third floor, Chip," he told the wheelchair-bound figure next to him. "Bring up the elevator cameras."
"You got it." Keys rattled and a new set of screens popped up, mostly showing empty interiors.
He hissed through his teeth. "Ratchet, you're about to have company. Get ready to move. Spike, are you done?"
"Clear and ready to run," the teenager said.
"Two seconds," he cautioned, watching the guard approach a corner. "Okay, go. Quietly," he emphasized. "Ratchet, he's in elevator five heading up. Make a break for the stairs around the corner to your left and take them down as fast as you can. Jazz, set the timer for seventy seconds and get out of there. Your floor is clear. Ironhide, Optimus, stand ready to cover all of them."
"Got it," the weapons specialist grunted. Over his voice and in the spiking graph bar under his screen there was the subsonic whine of his favorite cannon being charged up.
"Clear of the building and heading for withdrawal point," text scrolled across Bumblebee's screen. "No problems so far."
"Better run faster, Ratchet," Jazz advised. "Th' fireworks ain't gonna hold off for ya."
"Goddamn-- who the hell chains fire doors?!" the medic demanded, followed by the screech of a saw blade as it cut through metal. The fire door's alarm went off, flaring red as he exited.
"Chip!"
"Got it," the hacker said, and the alarm abruptly cut off. Keys flew and the record of its being triggered vanished.
"Clear," Ratchet said.
"Clear," Jazz said.
"Clear," Spike said.
"All present and accounted for," Optimus said quietly. "Let's roll out."
Michael sighed, pulling off his headset and rubbing at an ear as the team cleared the perimeter. Behind them, almost unnoticed, the soft red glow of an electrical fire began to show through one of the windows of the building.
"A clean job for once," Chip commented. "Nice work, Prowl." He was closing out their links to all internal cameras one after another. Slowly screens blinked closed. Even the six visual feeds from the Project operatives went black, leaving only the details of their physical conditions below. Their audio channels were similarly muted.
"You too, Chip." Michael disconnected his headset from the console and meticulously wrapped the cord into a neat figure eight before tying it off. "There shouldn't be any difficulties on their way back," he said. "I'll be heading home myself."
"So soon?" Chip asked, surprised, looking up. "But--"
"I have a court date in the morning," Michael explained. "Witness for the prosecution. I'll be back tomorrow evening."
"Of course." Chip nodded, understanding. "Good luck, Prowl."
"Thank you. Good night, Chip."
*
Michael was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Tired beyond measure, he slept almost dreamlessly for the few hours until his coverlet shifted and a warm body slipped beneath behind him.
"Thank ya, Prowl," Jazz murmured just behind his ear, and pressed a soft kiss against his shoulder blade.
Comforted--Jazz's presence meant the whole team had indeed made it back safely--Michael murmured something incomprehensible back and slipped into a deeper sleep, warm in the embrace of his lover.
*
Michael woke with a headache.
It was not the fault of the alarm that he slammed an irritated hand down onto. It was also not the fault of the person (now vanished, but there were signs of his presence in the dented pillow and pattern of bedclothes rumples) who had spent most of the night curled up warm against Michael's back. It was not even the fault of the court date he had in three hours. It simply was, and that was all there was to it.
Twenty minutes and a hot shower later, he took two aspirin and swallowed them down with a glass of water before making his way to the kitchen. Jazz was humming, bopping his head to whatever music he was running through his CPU as he kept himself busy manning two pans at the stove. Whatever he was making, it smelled good. A glass each of orange juice and milk waited for Michael at the table. He sat down and let his head fall forward, thumping against the table. It didn't make things hurt any more or less. "Why do you have to be a morning person?" he muttered rhetorically.
"Can't help it," Jazz replied prosaically, his much-sharper senses having caught the mumble. "More of an anytime person, really."
Michael lifted his head and glared balefully at Jazz. "Do your modifications make you only need an inhumanly small span of sleep?"
Jazz paused and turned to look at Michael. "...Somethin' wrong?" he asked hesitantly.
"Headache. Don't mind me," Michael sighed, and let his head thump back against the table.
"Can't stop that," Jazz said, and Michael heard the sound of the stove burners being turned off, the sound of something soft being slid onto plates, and the pans being set down. "Heads up, Prowl."
Obedient, he lifted his head from the table but didn't open his eyes. Jazz set something down before him and Michael wished the world would just all go away. Then Jazz stepped behind him, his hands spidering across Michael's shoulders for a minute, searching. And then Jazz pressed down hard with his thumbs.
Pain splintered, shattering along his spine as Michael hissed, his eyes flying open. "Jazz--!"
"Give it a second," Jazz advised. "Trust me. You're strung tight as a wire."
Breathing through his teeth, Michael did as asked. Slowly, under the ministration of Jazz's hands as he rubbed tiny circles, the pain began to throb itself away. His shoulders slowly relaxed as an articulated touch worked across them, massaging, relaxing. Jazz chased the pain away down his spine and then went back up it to the knot at the base of his skull. Warm fingers rubbed there for a minute, then migrated forward and around to his temples. Michael closed his eyes as the touch, soft circles, worked its way slowly back through his hair, down his neck, and out across his shoulders again.
"Better?" Jazz asked quietly.
"Yes," Michael said, opening his eyes. "Thank you."
"M' pleasure," Jazz replied with a smile, taking his own seat. "Now, eat an' get your blood sugar up 'fore ya have a relapse."
"What's in it?" Michael asked, picking up his fork and looking at the omelet on the plate before him.
"Garbage omelet," Jazz replied. "Little bit a' everythin' I found in your fridge, so nothin' you'd have an excuse not t' eat."
Warned, Michael made a wary first cut at the innocent-looking meal and was cautious when taking his first bite.
It was... not bad, he found. Quite good, actually. And Jazz was looking at him, smiling as if he knew exactly what was running through Michael's head. Without saying anything, he turned back to his own meal and began to eat. Though that pleased little smile of his lingered around the corners of his mouth for several minutes.
At least it did until he froze, stared off into nowhere for several seconds, then started swearing colorfully in several languages. Michael lost track after Jazz cycled through English, German, Spanish, French, and what sounded to his ear like Japanese. Surprised, he waited. Eventually Jazz's tirade wound down and he glowered at Michael's wall like it had personally questioned the marital status of his parents at his time of birth.
"Do I want to know?" Michael asked.
Jazz bit his lower lip and looked ready to spit out another round of curses, but he kept control of himself. "Prime jus' contacted us all over comm lines," he said, picking up his fork and stabbing it vengefully into his omelet. "Th' data we grabbed last night? False, every last bit an' byte a' it." He tilted his head to one side, appearing to listen again to things Michael couldn't hear. "When're ya outta th' court?" he asked.
"With luck, by three," Michael answered. "Why?"
"Prime's contactin' your boss, then, an' buyin' ya th' rest a' th' day off," Jazz relayed. "He wants ya in on this meetin'." He grinned, a sudden flash of light in his dark mood. "I think ya impressed him with th' way ya ran th' mission last night. Cleanest we've ever been in an' out on that type a' job."
*
The conference room was nearly full, bodies crowded around the table to discuss what was at best to be considered a worrisome development.
"This is not right," Peter said, disquieted. "Ideas?" he asked, turning his team loose. They were all here for a reason, and he let them have free reign for the most part.
"They're falsifying their own classified data," Ratchet agreed, letting a stack of printouts fall from his hand.
"The entire damn operation was worthless," Ironhide grumbled.
Not entirely, Bumblebee wrote. We did take out one of their lab facilities.
"Yeah, but they got others, B'," Jazz replied.
"The question is, where're they hiding the real info?" Spike said, glaring at the screen before him like it was implying that the false data he'd grabbed was his fault.
"No it isn't," Prowl disagreed. He looked up from where he'd been scrolling through pages of redundant specifications and schematics. "The question is, why are they bothering to falsify their own already highly-classified records?"
"You think they're on to us?" Ratchet asked, looking taken slightly aback.
"Maybe they're just that paranoid?" Jazz suggested.
"Cybercon's got at least three layers of obfuscation going on here," Chip said. "First, this information is already classified away from the public and lower-level employees. Second, it's encrypted so that only running it through certain programs on certain computers, physically restricted to access by a handful of individuals, will render it legible. And third, it's false. They've got to be hiding the real information somewhere...."
But why hide it, though? Bumblebee asked.
"Who gains what from hiding the information?" Prowl remarked, tapping the cap of his pen against his mouth.
"Do you have a theory, Prowl?" Peter asked.
"Not so much a theory as a set of questions," Prowl replied. "What does Cybercon make?"
"Computer chips and hard drives," Ratchet answered him.
"They have some government contracts, supply some of the components for satellites and for our unmanned aircraft," Ironhide supplemented.
"Their R&D department is working on an A.I.," Spike added. "Doing about as well as anyone, given their press releases."
"So what in all that is so important they need to conceal it at this level?"
Jazz sat up straight. "Ya think they're workin' on somethin' else entirely an' th' rest a' it's just a cover?"
"It's a possibility." Prowl didn't commit to anything in particular.
"Their products are real enough," Sparkplug interjected. "We have some samples over in Jack's lab."
"Prime," Prowl said, "permission to borrow Spike and Chip to do some research from the ground up?"
"Gentlemen?" The two looked at one another, then each nodded. "They're all yours, Prowl," Peter told him. "Do you think you can find something?"
"There's always something to find," the detective replied. "It's just a question of what."
*
It was second nature by now to guard Spike when he was 'Net-diving, so even though Brian wasn't actually assigned with the other three men in the comm room, he was there anyway, sitting quietly in a chair in the corner, monitoring Spike. Spike lay on a black reclining chair, both of his neural interface plug "earrings" jacked into the computer bank next to him. His eyes were closed and his breathing slow. If Brian didn't know better, he might have thought Spike was just asleep. But on the main window of the monitors data streamed continuously, with a scrolling line of text beneath that was peppered with familiar sarcasm.
Spike was right, Brian thought. It really was kind of funny that, being government employees themselves, they were hacking the IRS.
The change of font to red caught Brian's eye and he looked up to see several of the cruder terms from Ironhide's vocabulary describe the firewall Spike was hacking. Then the text went white-on-blue again with the word "Clear."
"Right. Cybercon was formed in 1984," Prowl said into his headset, the words transmitting to Spike's consciousness. "I want their tax records going back that far, as well as all their employee data, please."
You don't ask for much, do you? Spike texted.
"He's asking for less than Prime did last night," Chip pointed out.
"And hopefully this information is more correct," Brian added.
"It's the IRS. The government hates letting go of money," Prowl said.
Fine, fine. Spike was quiet for a minute, working. Right, found the taxes. Sending copies to Teletran. Employees... you want their tax records too?
"Sure," Prowl replied. "It's been a while since I played data analyst."
Gimme a few minutes. There're tons of them.
"So what are you looking for in the tax records?" Chip asked Prowl.
"Discrepancies," he replied. "And... history. Who worked for them, when, why, what did they develop, why and how were they let go. Specialties and specialists."
Listening to the conversation between hacker and detective, Brian almost missed the first signs of distress, a sudden spike of energy in Spike's CPU. The teen's breathing audibly quickened, his heart rate suddenly doubling. "Spike!"
"Spike, what's wrong?" Prowl demanded.
Gibberish scrawled across the screen in response.
Chip's fingers flew across keys in response. "His signal's breaking down--Spike, are you being attacked?"
More gibberish. "Get out of there!" Prowl commanded. "Forget the data, pull back!"
Dead silence. A frozen screen. An error message.
Brian stared unbelievingly at the frozen screen.
"...Prowl..." a hoarse voice grated. Three pairs of eyes whipped around to stare at Spike whose own eyes were open, staring into nothing.
The screen suddenly flared back to life, data downloading into the mainframe almost faster than it seemed possible through the thin cables that were attached to Spike, wired into his CPU. Two names bored white into the screen.
Judith Ann Witwicky.
Benjamin Irving Witwicky.
Prowl stared at the screen, then stared wide-eyed at Spike, who slipped into unconsciousness.
*
"They've been missing for three years," Prowl, as the case's investigating officer, explained to the others. "They were at the mall. His mother handed Spike some money to get lunch at the food court while she took his brother to get a new backpack, and that's the last anyone saw of them. They never got to the store to get a backpack. The family van was found three hundred miles away, abandoned at the side of the road and out of gas." His fingers drummed on the counter. His expression was tense, drawn. "Forensics couldn't find a thing. The vehicle was completely clean. No bloodstains, no suspicious fingerprints, not even a hair inside that didn't belong there. The security cameras in that quadrant of the mall and parking lot were mid-replacement at the precise time they vanished. We've never been sure whether it was a homicide, a double kidnapping, or a parental abduction. There were no traces, absolutely no clues to go on."
"It should be safe to disconnect him," Ratchet said, finishing his scan of Spike. "He's been told before not to let his emotions get the best of him while he's diving."
"It's not exactly his fault this time," Bumblebee pointed out.
"Whadda we tell Sparkplug?" Jazz wanted to know.
Peter raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Prowl.
"It's the middle of the night," Prowl said. "He's probably asleep right now. Let me look over Spike's data heist and see what's in there first." His lips compressed into a line. "What I want to know is why the use of her SSN didn't set off any bells with the missing persons report. And I'd also like to know why Benjamin is listed as an employee... he was twelve. He'd be fifteen now. That's legal only with parental consent in California, and, again, his SSN should have tripped some wires, especially given his age."
"That's assuming they're real employees, not just falsified records," Ratchet said, carefully unplugging Spike from the computer and tugging the cable slightly to trigger its recoil.
"Even if they're not, it does raise interesting questions about why Cybercon would be using the identity of a missing woman and her son as employees," Peter said thoughtfully. He nodded once. "We'll hold off on telling Sparkplug until he reports in in the morning. Prowl, are you okay to go through that data tonight?"
The detective nodded. "Just set me up with a pot of coffee."
"I'll help," Chip added. "Just tell me what to look for," he asked Prowl. Prowl nodded.
"Right, up we go," Ratchet said, lifting the unconscious teenager into his arms. "Prime, I'll be in the medbay with Spike."
Peter nodded.
"I'm going too," Bumblebee sent. He turned blue eyes on Peter. "This is my fault. I should have been watching him closer."
"In this type of situation, Bumblebee, there was nothing you could have done," Peter told him. "But stay with him."
The blond nodded and disappeared out the door after Ratchet.
Peter sighed softly.
"What is it, Prime?" Chip asked.
He turned to look at the computer whiz. "Spike got into the Project to look for Judy and Buster," he said quietly. "I don't believe he was really expecting he'd ever actually find anything, though. This will be hard on him. Especially if it turns out to be a false hope."
"Well, we'll just havta cross our fingers, then," Jazz opined.
*
The day was bright and fair and as Ron entered the Project's main building he was in a good mood. He wasn't surprised at Sam not having come home the night before; the late-night data heist had probably gone on longer than intended and his son had probably just opted to grab some shut-eye on one of the beds in Ratchet's medbay. It was a fact that his boy was coming home later and later some nights. Ron counted himself more fortunate than some parents; his son might've been growing up and away, but he knew where the boy was and that he was doing good work. He had a son he could trust. Judy would have been proud.
He wasn't expecting Ironhide to take him by one shoulder, though, barely five feet after he'd entered the building, and steer him toward the conference room where they'd all been just yesterday afternoon. "There's another meeting about Cybercon," Ironhide told him. "You need to be in on this one."
Nodding amiably, Ron ended up in his usual seat. Looking around the conference table he found most of the usual suspects present, and all the usual vacancies absent. Mikaela seldom came to the meetings, considering them a waste of time when she could be working, and Jack and Percy tended toward the same attitude. For the most part, unless their particular specialties were required, Prime let them slip.
Sam was absent, though. As was Bumblebee.
"Spike discovered some disturbing information in last night's retrieval," Optimus started. He looked directly at Ron. "He's currently still unconscious in the medbay."
"He let his emotions overwhelm his CPU and crashed out of the system hard," Ratchet explained. "He's fine, he just needs to sleep it off. Bumblebee's with him."
"He did get the data, though," Ironhide emphasized with something that sounded like grudging pride.
"Prowl?" Optimus asked
The detective looked drawn and weary but alert, as did Chip. Ron suspected they'd both pulled all-nighters. "Cybercon has several missing persons listed among their employees," Prowl started. "Their initial dates of employment are routinely two days after their disappearances. Yet somehow this has never set off any state or federal investigations."
"It looks like they've set up some very specific network routing in the IRS's network that intercepts queries to their data centers and lets them alter the results," Chip expounded. "Guess who has the contract to supply network upgrades for the IRS?"
"Are you saying...?" Ron started, almost not believing what he thought he was hearing.
Optimus' tone was very gentle as he said, "Sparkplug, we may have found your wife and son."
Warning level... some cursing, m/m pairing. So don't read if that offends you. Elsewise, enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 5: In the Air Tonight
by K. Stonham
prereleased 21st August 2007
The room was darkened, lights dimmed to half power to prevent glare on the multiple screens before the two men that sat there. One was in a wheelchair, his eyes fast on the screens, hands hovering over a keyboard as he waited to input commands. The other, in a normal chair, leaned slightly forward, his elbows propped on the desk and hands interlaced beneath his chin. His eyes flickered back and forth as he softly issued brisk commands into his headpiece. "Ironhide, hold position for sixty seconds to allow Optimus to rendezvous with you. You should be clear of the patrols at that spot." On one of the screens a black-armored figure was nigh-invisible in the shadows of a tree near the perimeter fence. "Spike, are you done yet?"
"Ten seconds," the teenager said druggedly. He was probably still disconnecting from their network.
"Good. Get ready to move out and don't forget the delayed reset of the security cameras to copy yesterday's records. Bumblebee, the guard's coming your way. Both of you maintain position until my say-so." Another screen, outside the room the two teenagers were in, showed a security guard making his routine way down a hall. "Jazz, status?"
"Say when an' I'll set th' timer t' cover our exit," came a whispered reply.
"Let me get Spike and Bumblebee clear first." The man turned his head to the left. "We're missing a heat signature on the third floor, Chip," he told the wheelchair-bound figure next to him. "Bring up the elevator cameras."
"You got it." Keys rattled and a new set of screens popped up, mostly showing empty interiors.
He hissed through his teeth. "Ratchet, you're about to have company. Get ready to move. Spike, are you done?"
"Clear and ready to run," the teenager said.
"Two seconds," he cautioned, watching the guard approach a corner. "Okay, go. Quietly," he emphasized. "Ratchet, he's in elevator five heading up. Make a break for the stairs around the corner to your left and take them down as fast as you can. Jazz, set the timer for seventy seconds and get out of there. Your floor is clear. Ironhide, Optimus, stand ready to cover all of them."
"Got it," the weapons specialist grunted. Over his voice and in the spiking graph bar under his screen there was the subsonic whine of his favorite cannon being charged up.
"Clear of the building and heading for withdrawal point," text scrolled across Bumblebee's screen. "No problems so far."
"Better run faster, Ratchet," Jazz advised. "Th' fireworks ain't gonna hold off for ya."
"Goddamn-- who the hell chains fire doors?!" the medic demanded, followed by the screech of a saw blade as it cut through metal. The fire door's alarm went off, flaring red as he exited.
"Chip!"
"Got it," the hacker said, and the alarm abruptly cut off. Keys flew and the record of its being triggered vanished.
"Clear," Ratchet said.
"Clear," Jazz said.
"Clear," Spike said.
"All present and accounted for," Optimus said quietly. "Let's roll out."
Michael sighed, pulling off his headset and rubbing at an ear as the team cleared the perimeter. Behind them, almost unnoticed, the soft red glow of an electrical fire began to show through one of the windows of the building.
"A clean job for once," Chip commented. "Nice work, Prowl." He was closing out their links to all internal cameras one after another. Slowly screens blinked closed. Even the six visual feeds from the Project operatives went black, leaving only the details of their physical conditions below. Their audio channels were similarly muted.
"You too, Chip." Michael disconnected his headset from the console and meticulously wrapped the cord into a neat figure eight before tying it off. "There shouldn't be any difficulties on their way back," he said. "I'll be heading home myself."
"So soon?" Chip asked, surprised, looking up. "But--"
"I have a court date in the morning," Michael explained. "Witness for the prosecution. I'll be back tomorrow evening."
"Of course." Chip nodded, understanding. "Good luck, Prowl."
"Thank you. Good night, Chip."
Michael was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Tired beyond measure, he slept almost dreamlessly for the few hours until his coverlet shifted and a warm body slipped beneath behind him.
"Thank ya, Prowl," Jazz murmured just behind his ear, and pressed a soft kiss against his shoulder blade.
Comforted--Jazz's presence meant the whole team had indeed made it back safely--Michael murmured something incomprehensible back and slipped into a deeper sleep, warm in the embrace of his lover.
Michael woke with a headache.
It was not the fault of the alarm that he slammed an irritated hand down onto. It was also not the fault of the person (now vanished, but there were signs of his presence in the dented pillow and pattern of bedclothes rumples) who had spent most of the night curled up warm against Michael's back. It was not even the fault of the court date he had in three hours. It simply was, and that was all there was to it.
Twenty minutes and a hot shower later, he took two aspirin and swallowed them down with a glass of water before making his way to the kitchen. Jazz was humming, bopping his head to whatever music he was running through his CPU as he kept himself busy manning two pans at the stove. Whatever he was making, it smelled good. A glass each of orange juice and milk waited for Michael at the table. He sat down and let his head fall forward, thumping against the table. It didn't make things hurt any more or less. "Why do you have to be a morning person?" he muttered rhetorically.
"Can't help it," Jazz replied prosaically, his much-sharper senses having caught the mumble. "More of an anytime person, really."
Michael lifted his head and glared balefully at Jazz. "Do your modifications make you only need an inhumanly small span of sleep?"
Jazz paused and turned to look at Michael. "...Somethin' wrong?" he asked hesitantly.
"Headache. Don't mind me," Michael sighed, and let his head thump back against the table.
"Can't stop that," Jazz said, and Michael heard the sound of the stove burners being turned off, the sound of something soft being slid onto plates, and the pans being set down. "Heads up, Prowl."
Obedient, he lifted his head from the table but didn't open his eyes. Jazz set something down before him and Michael wished the world would just all go away. Then Jazz stepped behind him, his hands spidering across Michael's shoulders for a minute, searching. And then Jazz pressed down hard with his thumbs.
Pain splintered, shattering along his spine as Michael hissed, his eyes flying open. "Jazz--!"
"Give it a second," Jazz advised. "Trust me. You're strung tight as a wire."
Breathing through his teeth, Michael did as asked. Slowly, under the ministration of Jazz's hands as he rubbed tiny circles, the pain began to throb itself away. His shoulders slowly relaxed as an articulated touch worked across them, massaging, relaxing. Jazz chased the pain away down his spine and then went back up it to the knot at the base of his skull. Warm fingers rubbed there for a minute, then migrated forward and around to his temples. Michael closed his eyes as the touch, soft circles, worked its way slowly back through his hair, down his neck, and out across his shoulders again.
"Better?" Jazz asked quietly.
"Yes," Michael said, opening his eyes. "Thank you."
"M' pleasure," Jazz replied with a smile, taking his own seat. "Now, eat an' get your blood sugar up 'fore ya have a relapse."
"What's in it?" Michael asked, picking up his fork and looking at the omelet on the plate before him.
"Garbage omelet," Jazz replied. "Little bit a' everythin' I found in your fridge, so nothin' you'd have an excuse not t' eat."
Warned, Michael made a wary first cut at the innocent-looking meal and was cautious when taking his first bite.
It was... not bad, he found. Quite good, actually. And Jazz was looking at him, smiling as if he knew exactly what was running through Michael's head. Without saying anything, he turned back to his own meal and began to eat. Though that pleased little smile of his lingered around the corners of his mouth for several minutes.
At least it did until he froze, stared off into nowhere for several seconds, then started swearing colorfully in several languages. Michael lost track after Jazz cycled through English, German, Spanish, French, and what sounded to his ear like Japanese. Surprised, he waited. Eventually Jazz's tirade wound down and he glowered at Michael's wall like it had personally questioned the marital status of his parents at his time of birth.
"Do I want to know?" Michael asked.
Jazz bit his lower lip and looked ready to spit out another round of curses, but he kept control of himself. "Prime jus' contacted us all over comm lines," he said, picking up his fork and stabbing it vengefully into his omelet. "Th' data we grabbed last night? False, every last bit an' byte a' it." He tilted his head to one side, appearing to listen again to things Michael couldn't hear. "When're ya outta th' court?" he asked.
"With luck, by three," Michael answered. "Why?"
"Prime's contactin' your boss, then, an' buyin' ya th' rest a' th' day off," Jazz relayed. "He wants ya in on this meetin'." He grinned, a sudden flash of light in his dark mood. "I think ya impressed him with th' way ya ran th' mission last night. Cleanest we've ever been in an' out on that type a' job."
The conference room was nearly full, bodies crowded around the table to discuss what was at best to be considered a worrisome development.
"This is not right," Peter said, disquieted. "Ideas?" he asked, turning his team loose. They were all here for a reason, and he let them have free reign for the most part.
"They're falsifying their own classified data," Ratchet agreed, letting a stack of printouts fall from his hand.
"The entire damn operation was worthless," Ironhide grumbled.
Not entirely, Bumblebee wrote. We did take out one of their lab facilities.
"Yeah, but they got others, B'," Jazz replied.
"The question is, where're they hiding the real info?" Spike said, glaring at the screen before him like it was implying that the false data he'd grabbed was his fault.
"No it isn't," Prowl disagreed. He looked up from where he'd been scrolling through pages of redundant specifications and schematics. "The question is, why are they bothering to falsify their own already highly-classified records?"
"You think they're on to us?" Ratchet asked, looking taken slightly aback.
"Maybe they're just that paranoid?" Jazz suggested.
"Cybercon's got at least three layers of obfuscation going on here," Chip said. "First, this information is already classified away from the public and lower-level employees. Second, it's encrypted so that only running it through certain programs on certain computers, physically restricted to access by a handful of individuals, will render it legible. And third, it's false. They've got to be hiding the real information somewhere...."
But why hide it, though? Bumblebee asked.
"Who gains what from hiding the information?" Prowl remarked, tapping the cap of his pen against his mouth.
"Do you have a theory, Prowl?" Peter asked.
"Not so much a theory as a set of questions," Prowl replied. "What does Cybercon make?"
"Computer chips and hard drives," Ratchet answered him.
"They have some government contracts, supply some of the components for satellites and for our unmanned aircraft," Ironhide supplemented.
"Their R&D department is working on an A.I.," Spike added. "Doing about as well as anyone, given their press releases."
"So what in all that is so important they need to conceal it at this level?"
Jazz sat up straight. "Ya think they're workin' on somethin' else entirely an' th' rest a' it's just a cover?"
"It's a possibility." Prowl didn't commit to anything in particular.
"Their products are real enough," Sparkplug interjected. "We have some samples over in Jack's lab."
"Prime," Prowl said, "permission to borrow Spike and Chip to do some research from the ground up?"
"Gentlemen?" The two looked at one another, then each nodded. "They're all yours, Prowl," Peter told him. "Do you think you can find something?"
"There's always something to find," the detective replied. "It's just a question of what."
It was second nature by now to guard Spike when he was 'Net-diving, so even though Brian wasn't actually assigned with the other three men in the comm room, he was there anyway, sitting quietly in a chair in the corner, monitoring Spike. Spike lay on a black reclining chair, both of his neural interface plug "earrings" jacked into the computer bank next to him. His eyes were closed and his breathing slow. If Brian didn't know better, he might have thought Spike was just asleep. But on the main window of the monitors data streamed continuously, with a scrolling line of text beneath that was peppered with familiar sarcasm.
Spike was right, Brian thought. It really was kind of funny that, being government employees themselves, they were hacking the IRS.
The change of font to red caught Brian's eye and he looked up to see several of the cruder terms from Ironhide's vocabulary describe the firewall Spike was hacking. Then the text went white-on-blue again with the word "Clear."
"Right. Cybercon was formed in 1984," Prowl said into his headset, the words transmitting to Spike's consciousness. "I want their tax records going back that far, as well as all their employee data, please."
You don't ask for much, do you? Spike texted.
"He's asking for less than Prime did last night," Chip pointed out.
"And hopefully this information is more correct," Brian added.
"It's the IRS. The government hates letting go of money," Prowl said.
Fine, fine. Spike was quiet for a minute, working. Right, found the taxes. Sending copies to Teletran. Employees... you want their tax records too?
"Sure," Prowl replied. "It's been a while since I played data analyst."
Gimme a few minutes. There're tons of them.
"So what are you looking for in the tax records?" Chip asked Prowl.
"Discrepancies," he replied. "And... history. Who worked for them, when, why, what did they develop, why and how were they let go. Specialties and specialists."
Listening to the conversation between hacker and detective, Brian almost missed the first signs of distress, a sudden spike of energy in Spike's CPU. The teen's breathing audibly quickened, his heart rate suddenly doubling. "Spike!"
"Spike, what's wrong?" Prowl demanded.
Gibberish scrawled across the screen in response.
Chip's fingers flew across keys in response. "His signal's breaking down--Spike, are you being attacked?"
More gibberish. "Get out of there!" Prowl commanded. "Forget the data, pull back!"
Dead silence. A frozen screen. An error message.
Brian stared unbelievingly at the frozen screen.
"...Prowl..." a hoarse voice grated. Three pairs of eyes whipped around to stare at Spike whose own eyes were open, staring into nothing.
The screen suddenly flared back to life, data downloading into the mainframe almost faster than it seemed possible through the thin cables that were attached to Spike, wired into his CPU. Two names bored white into the screen.
Judith Ann Witwicky.
Benjamin Irving Witwicky.
Prowl stared at the screen, then stared wide-eyed at Spike, who slipped into unconsciousness.
"They've been missing for three years," Prowl, as the case's investigating officer, explained to the others. "They were at the mall. His mother handed Spike some money to get lunch at the food court while she took his brother to get a new backpack, and that's the last anyone saw of them. They never got to the store to get a backpack. The family van was found three hundred miles away, abandoned at the side of the road and out of gas." His fingers drummed on the counter. His expression was tense, drawn. "Forensics couldn't find a thing. The vehicle was completely clean. No bloodstains, no suspicious fingerprints, not even a hair inside that didn't belong there. The security cameras in that quadrant of the mall and parking lot were mid-replacement at the precise time they vanished. We've never been sure whether it was a homicide, a double kidnapping, or a parental abduction. There were no traces, absolutely no clues to go on."
"It should be safe to disconnect him," Ratchet said, finishing his scan of Spike. "He's been told before not to let his emotions get the best of him while he's diving."
"It's not exactly his fault this time," Bumblebee pointed out.
"Whadda we tell Sparkplug?" Jazz wanted to know.
Peter raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Prowl.
"It's the middle of the night," Prowl said. "He's probably asleep right now. Let me look over Spike's data heist and see what's in there first." His lips compressed into a line. "What I want to know is why the use of her SSN didn't set off any bells with the missing persons report. And I'd also like to know why Benjamin is listed as an employee... he was twelve. He'd be fifteen now. That's legal only with parental consent in California, and, again, his SSN should have tripped some wires, especially given his age."
"That's assuming they're real employees, not just falsified records," Ratchet said, carefully unplugging Spike from the computer and tugging the cable slightly to trigger its recoil.
"Even if they're not, it does raise interesting questions about why Cybercon would be using the identity of a missing woman and her son as employees," Peter said thoughtfully. He nodded once. "We'll hold off on telling Sparkplug until he reports in in the morning. Prowl, are you okay to go through that data tonight?"
The detective nodded. "Just set me up with a pot of coffee."
"I'll help," Chip added. "Just tell me what to look for," he asked Prowl. Prowl nodded.
"Right, up we go," Ratchet said, lifting the unconscious teenager into his arms. "Prime, I'll be in the medbay with Spike."
Peter nodded.
"I'm going too," Bumblebee sent. He turned blue eyes on Peter. "This is my fault. I should have been watching him closer."
"In this type of situation, Bumblebee, there was nothing you could have done," Peter told him. "But stay with him."
The blond nodded and disappeared out the door after Ratchet.
Peter sighed softly.
"What is it, Prime?" Chip asked.
He turned to look at the computer whiz. "Spike got into the Project to look for Judy and Buster," he said quietly. "I don't believe he was really expecting he'd ever actually find anything, though. This will be hard on him. Especially if it turns out to be a false hope."
"Well, we'll just havta cross our fingers, then," Jazz opined.
The day was bright and fair and as Ron entered the Project's main building he was in a good mood. He wasn't surprised at Sam not having come home the night before; the late-night data heist had probably gone on longer than intended and his son had probably just opted to grab some shut-eye on one of the beds in Ratchet's medbay. It was a fact that his boy was coming home later and later some nights. Ron counted himself more fortunate than some parents; his son might've been growing up and away, but he knew where the boy was and that he was doing good work. He had a son he could trust. Judy would have been proud.
He wasn't expecting Ironhide to take him by one shoulder, though, barely five feet after he'd entered the building, and steer him toward the conference room where they'd all been just yesterday afternoon. "There's another meeting about Cybercon," Ironhide told him. "You need to be in on this one."
Nodding amiably, Ron ended up in his usual seat. Looking around the conference table he found most of the usual suspects present, and all the usual vacancies absent. Mikaela seldom came to the meetings, considering them a waste of time when she could be working, and Jack and Percy tended toward the same attitude. For the most part, unless their particular specialties were required, Prime let them slip.
Sam was absent, though. As was Bumblebee.
"Spike discovered some disturbing information in last night's retrieval," Optimus started. He looked directly at Ron. "He's currently still unconscious in the medbay."
"He let his emotions overwhelm his CPU and crashed out of the system hard," Ratchet explained. "He's fine, he just needs to sleep it off. Bumblebee's with him."
"He did get the data, though," Ironhide emphasized with something that sounded like grudging pride.
"Prowl?" Optimus asked
The detective looked drawn and weary but alert, as did Chip. Ron suspected they'd both pulled all-nighters. "Cybercon has several missing persons listed among their employees," Prowl started. "Their initial dates of employment are routinely two days after their disappearances. Yet somehow this has never set off any state or federal investigations."
"It looks like they've set up some very specific network routing in the IRS's network that intercepts queries to their data centers and lets them alter the results," Chip expounded. "Guess who has the contract to supply network upgrades for the IRS?"
"Are you saying...?" Ron started, almost not believing what he thought he was hearing.
Optimus' tone was very gentle as he said, "Sparkplug, we may have found your wife and son."