![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76I have inlaws coming to visit from England over this weekend and next week, so updates may be a bit less frequent for a while.
Warning level... some cursing, m/m pairings. So don't read if that offends you. Elsewise, enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 6: Ordinary World
by K. Stonham
prereleased 23rd August 2007
Spike did not wake crying. Instead he woke, sat up, and brushed away the water that had escaped from his eyes while still dreaming. Brian watched quietly, as he'd done all night, waiting now for Spike to notice him. His teammate didn't disappoint, just turned his head unerringly to where Brian sat.
"You okay?" Brian asked.
Brown eyes looked at him. "Not really," Spike replied bluntly.
Brian hesitated, trying to figure out what to say. "Did you know you talk in your sleep?" he finally asked. Spike's eyes widened then narrowed. "You miss them."
"You think?" Spike demanded, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing.
Brian caught him as he tried to storm past to the medbay door. Spike glared at him. "I know you miss them," Brian said hurriedly. "I didn't mean it that way." Spike continued to look icily at him. "I... there's no intonation without a voice," he said frustratedly. "I just wanted to say, if you need to talk, you can. I'm here...." he finished awkwardly, feeling like he hadn't managed to communicate what he wanted after all.
Spike's anger was fading from his face, though. "Sorry," he said eventually. "I overreacted. I...." He sighed and slumped, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "I've never really had anyone to talk to about it, okay? I mean, there was the school counselor, but other than me being 'the military kid whose mom and brother are missing'... he never really knew me from Adam, if you know what I mean. And I didn't want to dump on Dad when he already had enough to deal with. And... Prowl's nice, but he's police, and busy, and I barely knew him...."
"And he doesn't seem the type," Brian added understandingly. He carefully sat down next to Spike.
"Never really had any friends, either," Spike said. "Hazards of being a military brat: you get moved from school to school, base to base, and country to country on a dime. By the time we settled here I was already in seventh grade and everyone already had their cliques. Plus it didn't seem like it was worth it to try because as soon as I'd made some friends we'd just have to move again."
"I could be your friend," Brian offered carefully. "I'm not going anywhere...."
Spike smiled a little and chuckled. "My best friend, the cyborg..." he tried out.
"My best friend the living computer," Brian replied.
Spike smiled again, but it faded. "I'm just feeling like, if only we'd checked the tax records before this, we would've found them. And now I don't know if Mom really did run off and take Buster with her." He was silent for a minute. "I was so angry the first time Prowl brought up that possibility. My mom would never have done that! Over time, though, I started to wonder if maybe she did. And... and if she did...."
"Why your brother and not you?" Brian asked.
Head bowed, Spike nodded. "Yeah," he mumbled.
Brian looked off into the distance, at one of the glass-doored cabinets Ratchet had on the walls of his recovery room. "I used to wonder why I was the one who lived," he said as solace. "Why me, and not my parents or my sister or Marissa. Why not even the guy who crashed into us."
"Ever come up with any answers?"
"Not really. Except that maybe... maybe I was needed for something. That maybe this was the plan for my life. Maybe I was the only one strong enough to take up the burden Ratchet was going to put on my shoulders." Brian shrugged. "Sometimes there are no answers, so you have to make them up for yourself."
"Do you believe in God?"
"In the quieter moments, sometimes," Brian answered. "There has to be some reason we're here."
"And being made into a cyborg soldier was the reason you were put on Earth?" Spike's tone was a bit skeptical.
Brian turned to look at him, blue eyes meeting brown. "Not the only reason. Maybe I was put here to meet you." He shrugged again. "Who knows?"
"Oh, great. I'm your raison d'etre?" Spike was smiling again. "Weak, 'Bee."
"Someone has to look after your data-downloading ass," Brian sniped back. "Would you rather have Ratchet?"
"Gods no. You're just fine, thanks."
Brian smirked. "Second to none. And don't you forget it."
*
"'M not likin' this," Jazz muttered.
Isaac smirked at him. "Just because he's your--"
Two of Jazz's fingers pressed hard against the hollow of Isaac's throat. "Don't," Jazz warned, murder in his voice.
"The two of them are the best suited for this operation," Optimus overruled their argument. "Most of us can't get past the metal detectors at the front door, Mikaela doesn't have the information necessary to identify Judy and the boy, Jack and Percy would get too wrapped up in Cybercon's tech, and Spike and Sparkplug are too emotionally involved in the case to make good operatives. It has to be Chip and Prowl."
"Still not likin' it," Jazz restated. "They've got no trainin' in this kinda thing."
"Take it up with them," Isaac replied. "They volunteered. Both of them."
Jazz hissed a breath between his teeth. "Jus' wish they were better fighters. Or had comm lines inside a' their heads. If anythin' happens...."
"You're worrying too much," Isaac told him. "Nothing will happen."
Jazz glared at him through the visor. "Does an Army grunt like ya not know th' first thing 'bout not invitin' bad luck with statements like that?"
"You want me to pound you?" Isaac demanded, cracking his knuckles, irritated now.
"Ya couldn't catch me on your fastest day," Jazz shot back. "Ya move like an elephant on Valium."
"You--"
"Gentlemen," Optimus overrode them again. "Jazz, you're still banned from fighting Ironhide. Ironhide, stop harassing Jazz." He glared back and forth between the burly ex-Army sergeant and the slighter ex-Air Force captain until they each subsided. "Jazz, I understand your concerns, but, frankly, the two of them are our best and only option. Add to that the fact that Prowl has his own stake in this investigation. The Witwickys are his case. Pulling him off it makes no sense either from the Project's standpoint or from the point of view of the police. Let it be."
Jazz bristled and glowered, but ultimately subsided. It was like watching a beta male submit to an alpha, Isaac thought, having had to watch too many of Lennox's nature specials. "Fine," he said. "So why'd ya want t' talk t' us, Prime?"
Optimus linked his hands under his chin and smiled just a little, though his gaze seemed a empty... sad. "If something I'm suspecting turns out to be true," he said levelly, "how would the two of you feel about a demolition assignment?"
"People or places?" Jazz quipped.
"Both."
Isaac exchanged a glance with Jazz. In the tilt of Jazz's head he saw that the other agent hadn't missed Prime's odd mood either. Looking back at Optimus, Isaac spoke for both of them when he replied, "We're in."
*
One week, Michael thought as he woke in the middle of the afternoon and almost sleep-walked into his kitchen in search of something to drink. One week was all it had taken for his connection to Jazz to turn his life utterly upside down. He found the handle to his fridge and pulled the door open, staring in almost a total lack of comprehension at the contents until he managed to parse that juice equaled liquid.
One week, he thought, moving on to the step of finding a cup and then transferring the liquid from the jug into the cup. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. In that time, he'd nursemaided Jazz back into consciousness; made the most terrifying, most dangerous confession of his life; somehow been wrangled into joining Jazz's high-tech covert-ops organization; been appointed official liaison between the police and the military base and consequently had to resettle half his cases onto his coworkers' shoulders; run a probably highly illegal data theft mission; and had the possible resolution to a three-year-old cold case drop into his lap.
The phone rang and he nearly dropped the juice jug onto his toes.
He blinked at the phone as it rang again, then managed to pick it up, thumbing the "talk" button before it could shrill at him a third time. "...Hello?" he asked.
"Hey, Mikey!"
"Don't call me that," he replied automatically.
"Someone's grouchy," his sister commented. "Did I wake you? What are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day? You're not sick, are you?"
"All-nighter," he replied. "And practically one yesterday night too."
"Poor baby," she cooed. He set the jug on the counter before he managed to finally somehow drop it, and leaned back against the fridge. "Good news?"
"Might have a lead on an old case," he said, thinking of Sparkplug's pale, shocked expression. "I'm going with a CompSci guy from the military base to check it out the day after tomorrow. It was the soonest he and I could get an appointment."
"Is he cute?" she asked.
"I wouldn't know," he replied flatly.
"And Jazz? How's Jazz?"
"Jazz is fine. How are your classes?"
"They're okay. Don't change the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject. I just don't want to talk about that."
Carla was silent for a minute. "Are things not going well?"
Were they? Michael thought about it. He'd felt the bottom nearly drop out of his stomach, as much as telling Jazz how important he was... and Jazz had returned that confession as best he could in the monitored situation they'd been in. His palm itched where Jazz had drawn a heart on it. No, he wasn't okay. He would end up fighting off a panic attack if he even thought about what he'd done, but he'd done it and he was not going back on it. He'd given Jazz the power to hurt him and Jazz had rested the weight of his own feelings on Michael's shoulders in return, but that was what people did, and he'd wanted Jazz so much, had for such a long time.... Jazz kept the cold and loneliness at bay. Michael had to trust. They both did, and wasn't that how relationships were supposed to be...?
"Things are fine," Michael told Carla carefully. "Just... new."
"If you're sure," she replied, sounding dubious.
"I'm fine," he repeated with more conviction than he actually felt. "So. Your classes?"
*
Brian dreamed of sweet sun-drenched stolen kisses on top of a picnic blanket. Soft brown eyes looked into his and she smiled as he touched Marissa's cheek with gold-burnished fingers. He paused, blinking, and looked at the hand that seemed to belong to him. That hand and the person it was touching, he thought, were from different parts of his life. The hand was from After, while Marissa was from Before....
He was tackled, suddenly, and the unexpectedness of it meant she had him on his back, was straddling his stomach. Grinning, Marissa leaned in to kiss him again. Closing his eyes, Brian let her have her way with him. It was gentle, loving and deep and he could feel their entire promised future together in that one perfect kiss. He opened his eyes, smiling, as she pulled away, only to find another pair of brown eyes looking into his.
He scrambled awake in his bed, sitting up and staring into the dark. He ran a hand through his hair, swallowed.
He knew exactly what that dream had been about.
He just didn't know what to do about it.
*
"Admit it," Ironhide's voice rumbled at Richard's ear.
"Never," he retorted, a bit breathless.
"We might have to beat it out of you, then," Ironhide said.
"Empty threats get you no acquiescence," Richard told him.
In front of him Lennox shifted his position slightly. "He's not going to give you any peace until you 'fess up that he's right," he pointed out, amused. "Me either."
"Never," Richard repeated. "And I'm going to make sure it hurts the next time you end up damaged in my medbay," he threatened Ironhide.
Ironhide chuckled. "Now who's making empty threats?"
"Have to say, I'm glad you're not my team's medic," Lennox agreed.
"Oh, you get to run away from him when you've had enough," Ironhide shot at him. "Me, I'm stuck where I am."
"That's your own fault," Lennox told him.
Ironhide pressed just a little bit deeper into Richard and he shuddered involuntarily. "Say it," Ironhide murmured next to Richard's ear. "'You have the best ideas'," he coached.
"Never," Richard breathed. Just as he refused to whimper or beg for more. "Never...."
*
Peter sat in his office, only his desk lamp on to illuminate the dark, windowless pit it was. As late at night as it had become, he should have been in his quarters, sleeping. Instead he was alone in his office. Even Jazz had left the building for the evening. Jack might have still been in his lab working on a project... but somehow Peter doubted it. It was just him and the darkness and his thoughts.
In the bottommost drawer of his desk, hidden behind the unopened bottle of whiskey, he kept a thin photo album. It held less than twenty photographs. It sat on his cleared desk now. Slowly he opened it.
The first picture was old, its color faded by the years. A dark-haired woman with blue eyes blue smiled for the camera. On her lap sat a three-year-old boy with similar hair and eyes, his wide smile showing a gap in his teeth. Next to her stood a handsome man with silver-blond hair and dark eyes, also smiling. One hand was on his wife's shoulder, the other on the shoulder of his seven-year-old son who stood before him, neat and precise, his cropped hair a match for his father's. The home camera's flash had caught the son's eyes, though, for they appeared red in the photograph.
Flash forward two pages to a picture of the same two boys, over a decade further on, the younger with his arm around a pretty blonde girl as the two of them smiled at the camera, his older brother looking handsome and stern in his new Naval officer uniform.
A few more years, and the elder brother stood as best man at the younger's wedding to the blonde. The bride's hand rested on the shoulder of her flower-girl niece, as blonde as she was and even prettier.
Cameos of a new military wife around her home. The niece who had come to live with them when her parents were killed in a car accident not too long after the wedding. A brother who visited when he could and never seemed to envy the happy home life.
One more Christmas photograph, a different family. A husband and wife, their ten-year-old niece. And then nothing more.
Peter closed his eyes. He'd thought Marshall must have killed them the way he had so many others. They all had. It had been nearly a foregone conclusion, given the genetic evidence. He was only grateful his mother and stepfather hadn't still been alive by the time the... abattoir... had been discovered. By the time Marshall had disappeared. Grateful that his parents' deaths, at least, had been natural.
He closed his eyes tightly against the truth he'd seen with them earlier that very day.
In addition to the two names on Prowl's list that had held significance for other members of his team, he had been arrested by two more.
Ariel Elissa Pratchett.
And Robin Chambers.
*
"Into the lion's den," Michael muttered, looking up at the nondescript white building that housed the prosthetic research labs of Cybercon Inc., Ltd.
"Not that bad, surely," Chip protested from next to him.
"Every. Single. One," Michael reminded him. Every single cross-reference they'd pulled out of the missing persons database had pointed back to this particular division of the company. Some had gone back decades. And, when on a hunch he'd checked those employees who didn't fit missing persons profiles... well, a startling number of them had come up with death certificates matches. But it was the parent company that was covering for the prosthetics division with the IRS, so this was more than just one division director gone bad.
Human nature was an ugly, ugly thing, Michael mused to himself.
"Well, here we go," Chip murmured as he rolled his wheelchair to the front door. The double glass doors slid neatly, quietly aside for the two of them, the receptionist desk just beyond.
One of the receptionists, a beautiful, slender blonde with blue eyes, looked up at them. "Good morning," she said, "welcome to Cybercon." Her smile was pleasant. "How can I help you?"
"Michael Powell and Charles Chase," Michael introduced them. "We're here to see Doctor Reginald Arkeville."
"Oh, yes, you have a nine o'clock appointment with him." The blond opened a desk drawer and pulled out a pair of clip-on tags. "May I just see your IDs, please?" She examined briefly both of the wallets presented to her. "Here you go." She handed the tags to each of them. "Jesse," she said, turning to the other receptionist as Michael and Chip clipped the badges on, "I'm going to show these visitors up to Doctor Arkeville's lab."
"I'll hold the fort, Robin," red-headed Jesse said, just as the phone rang. "Hello, Cybercon Incorporated, how may I direct your call?" she chirped into her headset.
"This way," Robin said, standing and leading the two of them to an elevator.
*
"Oh, yes," Doctor Arkeville said. "We're quite pleased with the progress we've made... though perfection, alas, is eternally elusive."
"I have to say, I find this all amazing, Doctor," Chip said with a smile. "The camo-skin, especially, is a remarkable breakthrough. What it will do for the morale of soldiers and ordinary civilians who've had to suffer the loss of a limb... it's nearly unimaginable."
"Well, we do what we can," the doctor said modestly. "I myself was drawn to this field because of an unfortunate accident in my youth."
"Oh?" Prowl asked quietly, conveying just the right amount of polite curiosity.
"Indeed. My own left arm was lost at a young age in a childish accident," the white-haired scientist said, displaying said limb for them. It didn't look or move like a prosthetic as he turned his arm and wiggled his fingers. "After only a few days with the clumsy prostheses we had back then, I vowed that I would make things better for others. And with hard work and the support of others, I've succeeded."
"I'd be interested in learning a little bit more about how the electronic synaptic nerve relays work, if you don't mind, Doctor," Chip said, adjusting his glasses and looking admiringly at the false arm. "I never would have thought that man and machine could work so smoothly as one unit." He let the bait dangle.
"Why, yes, certainly!" the doctor beamed. "Judith," he called into the next lab.
"Yes, Doctor?" A red-headed woman emerged and Chip fought not to show that he recognized her at all. Spike's mother, Sparkplug's wife....
"Mister Chase here is interested in the synaptic relay nerve connections," Doctor Arkeville said. "You're the specialist; would you mind giving him a brief overview of your work?"
"Not at all," she said with a broad smile. Her gaze shifted to Chip. "My work station's right over here," she invited.
Chip exchanged a brief glance and nod with Prowl. "If you don't mind, Doctor," he hear Prowl say as he wheeled into Judith Witwicky's lab, "I'd like to discuss what you think your cost factors will be for mass production. Each limb will need to be custom-fitted, of course, and the camo-skin matched to the skin tone of the recipient; do you have any estimates for training time?"
The door closed behind Chip and he dutifully wheeled over to the computer terminal Judith had sat down at. "Charles Chase," he introduced himself formally to her, extending a hand. "Call me 'Chip,' though; everyone does."
"Judith Witwicky," she replied, shaking his hand. "Just call me 'Judy'."
"Witwicky," Chip said, as though sounding the name in his mouth. "We have a couple of men stationed out at Tranquility named that--Ron and his son Sam, I think. Any relation?" he asked. "Seems like a pretty rare surname."
She tilted her head to one side, as if trying to remember, then shook her head no. "Not that I know of," she replied, smiling. "There're actually a lot of Witwickys back East where my late husband grew up. Maybe they're distant relatives." She shrugged.
"Anything's possible," Chip agreed, smiling. "Now, how do you deal with the electronic impulses from the nerves breaching the skin layer at the end of the limb?" he asked, turning his attention back to her screen.
He knew she was lying to him.
He'd seen a brief flicker of something--panic?--in her eyes.
This was going to kill Sparkplug and Spike....
*
"So," Michael asked as they made their way down the crowded freeway back to Tranquility, "what do you think?"
"It's her," Chip said without a doubt. "I don't know if she did do a parent abduction or what, but something's not right with her."
Michael nodded absently, braking slightly as the car in front of him did so as well, and rubbed at his right ear. It had been aching and he'd had a pain creeping down to the nape of his neck since they'd left the building. He hated these type of cases, where it looked like there wasn't going to be any clean closure at the end of things. "Their numbers added up. It looks like they're a legitimate branch of the company."
"Just one staffed by missing and dead persons," Chip agreed grimly.
"And your opinion of their product?"
"Pretty good," Chip admitted. "Almost on par with what we're working with. Maybe better in one or two aspects, with that artificial skin."
"Mmm." For some reason Michael found that vaguely disturbing. He could see how it would be psychologically comforting to be able to pretend that nothing had happened after an amputation, but he preferred honesty. He preferred knowing that Jazz's skin was artificial, strange as that might seem to some people. He rubbed absently at the nape of his neck again.
"Something wrong?" Chip asked.
"Just a slight headache," Michael answered. "It's nothing."
Warning level... some cursing, m/m pairings. So don't read if that offends you. Elsewise, enjoy!
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 6: Ordinary World
by K. Stonham
prereleased 23rd August 2007
Spike did not wake crying. Instead he woke, sat up, and brushed away the water that had escaped from his eyes while still dreaming. Brian watched quietly, as he'd done all night, waiting now for Spike to notice him. His teammate didn't disappoint, just turned his head unerringly to where Brian sat.
"You okay?" Brian asked.
Brown eyes looked at him. "Not really," Spike replied bluntly.
Brian hesitated, trying to figure out what to say. "Did you know you talk in your sleep?" he finally asked. Spike's eyes widened then narrowed. "You miss them."
"You think?" Spike demanded, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and standing.
Brian caught him as he tried to storm past to the medbay door. Spike glared at him. "I know you miss them," Brian said hurriedly. "I didn't mean it that way." Spike continued to look icily at him. "I... there's no intonation without a voice," he said frustratedly. "I just wanted to say, if you need to talk, you can. I'm here...." he finished awkwardly, feeling like he hadn't managed to communicate what he wanted after all.
Spike's anger was fading from his face, though. "Sorry," he said eventually. "I overreacted. I...." He sighed and slumped, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "I've never really had anyone to talk to about it, okay? I mean, there was the school counselor, but other than me being 'the military kid whose mom and brother are missing'... he never really knew me from Adam, if you know what I mean. And I didn't want to dump on Dad when he already had enough to deal with. And... Prowl's nice, but he's police, and busy, and I barely knew him...."
"And he doesn't seem the type," Brian added understandingly. He carefully sat down next to Spike.
"Never really had any friends, either," Spike said. "Hazards of being a military brat: you get moved from school to school, base to base, and country to country on a dime. By the time we settled here I was already in seventh grade and everyone already had their cliques. Plus it didn't seem like it was worth it to try because as soon as I'd made some friends we'd just have to move again."
"I could be your friend," Brian offered carefully. "I'm not going anywhere...."
Spike smiled a little and chuckled. "My best friend, the cyborg..." he tried out.
"My best friend the living computer," Brian replied.
Spike smiled again, but it faded. "I'm just feeling like, if only we'd checked the tax records before this, we would've found them. And now I don't know if Mom really did run off and take Buster with her." He was silent for a minute. "I was so angry the first time Prowl brought up that possibility. My mom would never have done that! Over time, though, I started to wonder if maybe she did. And... and if she did...."
"Why your brother and not you?" Brian asked.
Head bowed, Spike nodded. "Yeah," he mumbled.
Brian looked off into the distance, at one of the glass-doored cabinets Ratchet had on the walls of his recovery room. "I used to wonder why I was the one who lived," he said as solace. "Why me, and not my parents or my sister or Marissa. Why not even the guy who crashed into us."
"Ever come up with any answers?"
"Not really. Except that maybe... maybe I was needed for something. That maybe this was the plan for my life. Maybe I was the only one strong enough to take up the burden Ratchet was going to put on my shoulders." Brian shrugged. "Sometimes there are no answers, so you have to make them up for yourself."
"Do you believe in God?"
"In the quieter moments, sometimes," Brian answered. "There has to be some reason we're here."
"And being made into a cyborg soldier was the reason you were put on Earth?" Spike's tone was a bit skeptical.
Brian turned to look at him, blue eyes meeting brown. "Not the only reason. Maybe I was put here to meet you." He shrugged again. "Who knows?"
"Oh, great. I'm your raison d'etre?" Spike was smiling again. "Weak, 'Bee."
"Someone has to look after your data-downloading ass," Brian sniped back. "Would you rather have Ratchet?"
"Gods no. You're just fine, thanks."
Brian smirked. "Second to none. And don't you forget it."
"'M not likin' this," Jazz muttered.
Isaac smirked at him. "Just because he's your--"
Two of Jazz's fingers pressed hard against the hollow of Isaac's throat. "Don't," Jazz warned, murder in his voice.
"The two of them are the best suited for this operation," Optimus overruled their argument. "Most of us can't get past the metal detectors at the front door, Mikaela doesn't have the information necessary to identify Judy and the boy, Jack and Percy would get too wrapped up in Cybercon's tech, and Spike and Sparkplug are too emotionally involved in the case to make good operatives. It has to be Chip and Prowl."
"Still not likin' it," Jazz restated. "They've got no trainin' in this kinda thing."
"Take it up with them," Isaac replied. "They volunteered. Both of them."
Jazz hissed a breath between his teeth. "Jus' wish they were better fighters. Or had comm lines inside a' their heads. If anythin' happens...."
"You're worrying too much," Isaac told him. "Nothing will happen."
Jazz glared at him through the visor. "Does an Army grunt like ya not know th' first thing 'bout not invitin' bad luck with statements like that?"
"You want me to pound you?" Isaac demanded, cracking his knuckles, irritated now.
"Ya couldn't catch me on your fastest day," Jazz shot back. "Ya move like an elephant on Valium."
"You--"
"Gentlemen," Optimus overrode them again. "Jazz, you're still banned from fighting Ironhide. Ironhide, stop harassing Jazz." He glared back and forth between the burly ex-Army sergeant and the slighter ex-Air Force captain until they each subsided. "Jazz, I understand your concerns, but, frankly, the two of them are our best and only option. Add to that the fact that Prowl has his own stake in this investigation. The Witwickys are his case. Pulling him off it makes no sense either from the Project's standpoint or from the point of view of the police. Let it be."
Jazz bristled and glowered, but ultimately subsided. It was like watching a beta male submit to an alpha, Isaac thought, having had to watch too many of Lennox's nature specials. "Fine," he said. "So why'd ya want t' talk t' us, Prime?"
Optimus linked his hands under his chin and smiled just a little, though his gaze seemed a empty... sad. "If something I'm suspecting turns out to be true," he said levelly, "how would the two of you feel about a demolition assignment?"
"People or places?" Jazz quipped.
"Both."
Isaac exchanged a glance with Jazz. In the tilt of Jazz's head he saw that the other agent hadn't missed Prime's odd mood either. Looking back at Optimus, Isaac spoke for both of them when he replied, "We're in."
One week, Michael thought as he woke in the middle of the afternoon and almost sleep-walked into his kitchen in search of something to drink. One week was all it had taken for his connection to Jazz to turn his life utterly upside down. He found the handle to his fridge and pulled the door open, staring in almost a total lack of comprehension at the contents until he managed to parse that juice equaled liquid.
One week, he thought, moving on to the step of finding a cup and then transferring the liquid from the jug into the cup. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. In that time, he'd nursemaided Jazz back into consciousness; made the most terrifying, most dangerous confession of his life; somehow been wrangled into joining Jazz's high-tech covert-ops organization; been appointed official liaison between the police and the military base and consequently had to resettle half his cases onto his coworkers' shoulders; run a probably highly illegal data theft mission; and had the possible resolution to a three-year-old cold case drop into his lap.
The phone rang and he nearly dropped the juice jug onto his toes.
He blinked at the phone as it rang again, then managed to pick it up, thumbing the "talk" button before it could shrill at him a third time. "...Hello?" he asked.
"Hey, Mikey!"
"Don't call me that," he replied automatically.
"Someone's grouchy," his sister commented. "Did I wake you? What are you doing sleeping in the middle of the day? You're not sick, are you?"
"All-nighter," he replied. "And practically one yesterday night too."
"Poor baby," she cooed. He set the jug on the counter before he managed to finally somehow drop it, and leaned back against the fridge. "Good news?"
"Might have a lead on an old case," he said, thinking of Sparkplug's pale, shocked expression. "I'm going with a CompSci guy from the military base to check it out the day after tomorrow. It was the soonest he and I could get an appointment."
"Is he cute?" she asked.
"I wouldn't know," he replied flatly.
"And Jazz? How's Jazz?"
"Jazz is fine. How are your classes?"
"They're okay. Don't change the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject. I just don't want to talk about that."
Carla was silent for a minute. "Are things not going well?"
Were they? Michael thought about it. He'd felt the bottom nearly drop out of his stomach, as much as telling Jazz how important he was... and Jazz had returned that confession as best he could in the monitored situation they'd been in. His palm itched where Jazz had drawn a heart on it. No, he wasn't okay. He would end up fighting off a panic attack if he even thought about what he'd done, but he'd done it and he was not going back on it. He'd given Jazz the power to hurt him and Jazz had rested the weight of his own feelings on Michael's shoulders in return, but that was what people did, and he'd wanted Jazz so much, had for such a long time.... Jazz kept the cold and loneliness at bay. Michael had to trust. They both did, and wasn't that how relationships were supposed to be...?
"Things are fine," Michael told Carla carefully. "Just... new."
"If you're sure," she replied, sounding dubious.
"I'm fine," he repeated with more conviction than he actually felt. "So. Your classes?"
Brian dreamed of sweet sun-drenched stolen kisses on top of a picnic blanket. Soft brown eyes looked into his and she smiled as he touched Marissa's cheek with gold-burnished fingers. He paused, blinking, and looked at the hand that seemed to belong to him. That hand and the person it was touching, he thought, were from different parts of his life. The hand was from After, while Marissa was from Before....
He was tackled, suddenly, and the unexpectedness of it meant she had him on his back, was straddling his stomach. Grinning, Marissa leaned in to kiss him again. Closing his eyes, Brian let her have her way with him. It was gentle, loving and deep and he could feel their entire promised future together in that one perfect kiss. He opened his eyes, smiling, as she pulled away, only to find another pair of brown eyes looking into his.
He scrambled awake in his bed, sitting up and staring into the dark. He ran a hand through his hair, swallowed.
He knew exactly what that dream had been about.
He just didn't know what to do about it.
"Admit it," Ironhide's voice rumbled at Richard's ear.
"Never," he retorted, a bit breathless.
"We might have to beat it out of you, then," Ironhide said.
"Empty threats get you no acquiescence," Richard told him.
In front of him Lennox shifted his position slightly. "He's not going to give you any peace until you 'fess up that he's right," he pointed out, amused. "Me either."
"Never," Richard repeated. "And I'm going to make sure it hurts the next time you end up damaged in my medbay," he threatened Ironhide.
Ironhide chuckled. "Now who's making empty threats?"
"Have to say, I'm glad you're not my team's medic," Lennox agreed.
"Oh, you get to run away from him when you've had enough," Ironhide shot at him. "Me, I'm stuck where I am."
"That's your own fault," Lennox told him.
Ironhide pressed just a little bit deeper into Richard and he shuddered involuntarily. "Say it," Ironhide murmured next to Richard's ear. "'You have the best ideas'," he coached.
"Never," Richard breathed. Just as he refused to whimper or beg for more. "Never...."
Peter sat in his office, only his desk lamp on to illuminate the dark, windowless pit it was. As late at night as it had become, he should have been in his quarters, sleeping. Instead he was alone in his office. Even Jazz had left the building for the evening. Jack might have still been in his lab working on a project... but somehow Peter doubted it. It was just him and the darkness and his thoughts.
In the bottommost drawer of his desk, hidden behind the unopened bottle of whiskey, he kept a thin photo album. It held less than twenty photographs. It sat on his cleared desk now. Slowly he opened it.
The first picture was old, its color faded by the years. A dark-haired woman with blue eyes blue smiled for the camera. On her lap sat a three-year-old boy with similar hair and eyes, his wide smile showing a gap in his teeth. Next to her stood a handsome man with silver-blond hair and dark eyes, also smiling. One hand was on his wife's shoulder, the other on the shoulder of his seven-year-old son who stood before him, neat and precise, his cropped hair a match for his father's. The home camera's flash had caught the son's eyes, though, for they appeared red in the photograph.
Flash forward two pages to a picture of the same two boys, over a decade further on, the younger with his arm around a pretty blonde girl as the two of them smiled at the camera, his older brother looking handsome and stern in his new Naval officer uniform.
A few more years, and the elder brother stood as best man at the younger's wedding to the blonde. The bride's hand rested on the shoulder of her flower-girl niece, as blonde as she was and even prettier.
Cameos of a new military wife around her home. The niece who had come to live with them when her parents were killed in a car accident not too long after the wedding. A brother who visited when he could and never seemed to envy the happy home life.
One more Christmas photograph, a different family. A husband and wife, their ten-year-old niece. And then nothing more.
Peter closed his eyes. He'd thought Marshall must have killed them the way he had so many others. They all had. It had been nearly a foregone conclusion, given the genetic evidence. He was only grateful his mother and stepfather hadn't still been alive by the time the... abattoir... had been discovered. By the time Marshall had disappeared. Grateful that his parents' deaths, at least, had been natural.
He closed his eyes tightly against the truth he'd seen with them earlier that very day.
In addition to the two names on Prowl's list that had held significance for other members of his team, he had been arrested by two more.
Ariel Elissa Pratchett.
And Robin Chambers.
"Into the lion's den," Michael muttered, looking up at the nondescript white building that housed the prosthetic research labs of Cybercon Inc., Ltd.
"Not that bad, surely," Chip protested from next to him.
"Every. Single. One," Michael reminded him. Every single cross-reference they'd pulled out of the missing persons database had pointed back to this particular division of the company. Some had gone back decades. And, when on a hunch he'd checked those employees who didn't fit missing persons profiles... well, a startling number of them had come up with death certificates matches. But it was the parent company that was covering for the prosthetics division with the IRS, so this was more than just one division director gone bad.
Human nature was an ugly, ugly thing, Michael mused to himself.
"Well, here we go," Chip murmured as he rolled his wheelchair to the front door. The double glass doors slid neatly, quietly aside for the two of them, the receptionist desk just beyond.
One of the receptionists, a beautiful, slender blonde with blue eyes, looked up at them. "Good morning," she said, "welcome to Cybercon." Her smile was pleasant. "How can I help you?"
"Michael Powell and Charles Chase," Michael introduced them. "We're here to see Doctor Reginald Arkeville."
"Oh, yes, you have a nine o'clock appointment with him." The blond opened a desk drawer and pulled out a pair of clip-on tags. "May I just see your IDs, please?" She examined briefly both of the wallets presented to her. "Here you go." She handed the tags to each of them. "Jesse," she said, turning to the other receptionist as Michael and Chip clipped the badges on, "I'm going to show these visitors up to Doctor Arkeville's lab."
"I'll hold the fort, Robin," red-headed Jesse said, just as the phone rang. "Hello, Cybercon Incorporated, how may I direct your call?" she chirped into her headset.
"This way," Robin said, standing and leading the two of them to an elevator.
"Oh, yes," Doctor Arkeville said. "We're quite pleased with the progress we've made... though perfection, alas, is eternally elusive."
"I have to say, I find this all amazing, Doctor," Chip said with a smile. "The camo-skin, especially, is a remarkable breakthrough. What it will do for the morale of soldiers and ordinary civilians who've had to suffer the loss of a limb... it's nearly unimaginable."
"Well, we do what we can," the doctor said modestly. "I myself was drawn to this field because of an unfortunate accident in my youth."
"Oh?" Prowl asked quietly, conveying just the right amount of polite curiosity.
"Indeed. My own left arm was lost at a young age in a childish accident," the white-haired scientist said, displaying said limb for them. It didn't look or move like a prosthetic as he turned his arm and wiggled his fingers. "After only a few days with the clumsy prostheses we had back then, I vowed that I would make things better for others. And with hard work and the support of others, I've succeeded."
"I'd be interested in learning a little bit more about how the electronic synaptic nerve relays work, if you don't mind, Doctor," Chip said, adjusting his glasses and looking admiringly at the false arm. "I never would have thought that man and machine could work so smoothly as one unit." He let the bait dangle.
"Why, yes, certainly!" the doctor beamed. "Judith," he called into the next lab.
"Yes, Doctor?" A red-headed woman emerged and Chip fought not to show that he recognized her at all. Spike's mother, Sparkplug's wife....
"Mister Chase here is interested in the synaptic relay nerve connections," Doctor Arkeville said. "You're the specialist; would you mind giving him a brief overview of your work?"
"Not at all," she said with a broad smile. Her gaze shifted to Chip. "My work station's right over here," she invited.
Chip exchanged a brief glance and nod with Prowl. "If you don't mind, Doctor," he hear Prowl say as he wheeled into Judith Witwicky's lab, "I'd like to discuss what you think your cost factors will be for mass production. Each limb will need to be custom-fitted, of course, and the camo-skin matched to the skin tone of the recipient; do you have any estimates for training time?"
The door closed behind Chip and he dutifully wheeled over to the computer terminal Judith had sat down at. "Charles Chase," he introduced himself formally to her, extending a hand. "Call me 'Chip,' though; everyone does."
"Judith Witwicky," she replied, shaking his hand. "Just call me 'Judy'."
"Witwicky," Chip said, as though sounding the name in his mouth. "We have a couple of men stationed out at Tranquility named that--Ron and his son Sam, I think. Any relation?" he asked. "Seems like a pretty rare surname."
She tilted her head to one side, as if trying to remember, then shook her head no. "Not that I know of," she replied, smiling. "There're actually a lot of Witwickys back East where my late husband grew up. Maybe they're distant relatives." She shrugged.
"Anything's possible," Chip agreed, smiling. "Now, how do you deal with the electronic impulses from the nerves breaching the skin layer at the end of the limb?" he asked, turning his attention back to her screen.
He knew she was lying to him.
He'd seen a brief flicker of something--panic?--in her eyes.
This was going to kill Sparkplug and Spike....
"So," Michael asked as they made their way down the crowded freeway back to Tranquility, "what do you think?"
"It's her," Chip said without a doubt. "I don't know if she did do a parent abduction or what, but something's not right with her."
Michael nodded absently, braking slightly as the car in front of him did so as well, and rubbed at his right ear. It had been aching and he'd had a pain creeping down to the nape of his neck since they'd left the building. He hated these type of cases, where it looked like there wasn't going to be any clean closure at the end of things. "Their numbers added up. It looks like they're a legitimate branch of the company."
"Just one staffed by missing and dead persons," Chip agreed grimly.
"And your opinion of their product?"
"Pretty good," Chip admitted. "Almost on par with what we're working with. Maybe better in one or two aspects, with that artificial skin."
"Mmm." For some reason Michael found that vaguely disturbing. He could see how it would be psychologically comforting to be able to pretend that nothing had happened after an amputation, but he preferred honesty. He preferred knowing that Jazz's skin was artificial, strange as that might seem to some people. He rubbed absently at the nape of his neck again.
"Something wrong?" Chip asked.
"Just a slight headache," Michael answered. "It's nothing."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:35 pm (UTC)And, next chapter. I promise. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 04:02 pm (UTC)Also: I adore your Prowl, and these amusing early-morning scenes you keep coming up with.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 05:49 am (UTC)*heart*heart*heart*
no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 07:53 pm (UTC)Is a headache just a headache here? And haha to Brian's oh-so-normal teenage lover-switch dream <3
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:37 pm (UTC)Glad that the dream wasn't too cliche'd.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 11:23 pm (UTC)And, yes, there are a few Chekov's Guns in this story. ^_^ It's a wonderfully fun writing technique.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:19 pm (UTC)can't wait for the next chapter :)
*hugs*, bye, Blackie ^^..
no subject
Date: 2007-08-24 08:46 pm (UTC)I'm hoping he won't, in fact--the Mary Sueness of that scenario would be painful. Half of the Project outruns the rest physically and the other half outruns the first half mentally. Prowl can plan circles around the rest of them, and that's what he's there for, what he's needed for.
That and keeping Jazz sane. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 07:52 pm (UTC)Thanks!
(Is to lazy to go through all the backpages at beexsam)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 08:17 pm (UTC)Comment pt. 1!
Date: 2007-08-25 10:06 pm (UTC)Ch. 1a) Love Prowl being so totally not in the 'closet' having made up his mind. Deductive little bastard. (Re: the sex scene - there is definitely, definitely something to be said for the methodical approach...)
b) ...that... that was a Sideswipe and Sunstreaker mention, wasn't it. Prowl, what are you not telling us about your wild college days?
Ch. 2a) Optimus's thing with the whiskey - might that be evocative of possibly one Commander Vimes?
b) It really sucks that despite the fact that there really is absolutely no way any of them could be dropped from the program just because of certain liasons (or maybe they could; hell if I know), it's still a definite given that you Do Not So Much As Mention That. It strikes me as very true-to-life, whether or not anybody would be stupid enough to get rid of them just because of that.
c) The line about Brian keeping his death certificate in a frame on his wall is so creepy that I have no words for it. Also, Ratchet's version of compassion could use a little work. I don't blame him for using what he had to do to save Brian, but neither do I blame Bumblebee for hating him for it.
3a) Damn but I love Ratchet's method of, er, instruction re: Ironhide and his foibles. Who else would care to demonstrate that certain things were no longer an issue by kneeing someone in the groin as hard as they could?
b) Also, I LOVE B, Sam, and the pool. Everything about it, I love.
c) Prowl, Jazz, and the nonexistent "game" = full of win. Such a lovely, 'guy' excuse to just go and actually relax.
d) I also love B, Sam, and the skateboard! B seems to be taking to it quite well...
Re: Comment pt. 1!
Date: 2007-08-26 05:01 am (UTC)Mwahaha! Someone actually caught that! ^_^ Yes, that was totally Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. And according to the Prowl voice in my head, he's not telling us "rather a lot" about his college days.
Huh, hadn't thought of that... haven't read any of the Guards books in rather a long time. I was taking my inspiration there from the original prompt and the limiting line I'd set in the first chapter about Jazz not being allowed alcohol.
I'm glad that worked. It was something I noticed from the new movie on my second or third viewing: Sam is a skater. He's got multiple boards and a blackboard in his room with a drawing labelled "My Half-Pipe." Unfortunately I am not a skater (tried it once as a kid, stuck to bikes and blades thereafter) so my entire knowledge of the sport came from Wikipedia and the skating sections of the videos they play at Islands restaurants. Good to know the scene works.
Comment pt. 2!
Date: 2007-08-25 10:07 pm (UTC)b) There's our Prowl, applying direct solutions. (I love how nobody else would even think to take Jazz's vision away.)
c) ...the writing in the hands... the heart... ...I'll be on the floor, melted into a puddle for the near future. The phrase that comes to mind is 'completely bittersweet.'
d) That said - I have no idea about Air Force training, but Jazz seriously managed to escape the academy without basic tactical cross-fire training? That's so wierd. I mean, I don't know the first thing about Air Force training, so if you say so, I'll bite, but... In any case. Yeah, I was about as thrown as Prowl was, there, though I like Optimus's "hmm! an excuse-slash-reason! Excellent. MINE."
e) ...that's... yes, that is what I think it is. Duuude. I wanna know how that happened. They seem alarmingly stable, or so they sound...
5a) Ooh! I love how well Prowl takes to tactitianing. (Yes, that's not possibly a word.)
b) ...and I also love his complete lack of morning-person-ness. And how apparent it is that he's working way too hard, not that he's ever going to do anything else. Also, much enjoyment of Prowl's, er, dubiousness re: Jazz's cooking. *snickers*
c) HOSHIT PROWL BEING A DETECTIVE Optimus this is like the best investment you've ever made in a tactician ROCK.
d) hee. Hacking the IRS = good, good plan. Show Me The Money. I love how you're really - making everyone be competent, really competent, and bringing out that Prowl is going to approach this like the detective that he is.
e) Curiouser and curiouser. I wonder why they didn't at least falsify the names, if nothing else; I mean, I'd think that'd be an unnecessary thing to do, keeping their real names...
6a) Oh, man - Sam, Bee... Come here and have hugs, y'all. Whether or not you want them.
b) Ironhide and Jazz are never, ever going to stop violently bickering, are they. ...naaah.
c) I repeat. I love that Prowl is Not A Morning Person, Ever, Even When It's The Afternoon. Yes, honey, juice is liquid. (He's totally running on nothing, isn't he. He's had a damn rough week.)
d) SUCKS TO BE BRIAN. Enough said. Yes.
e) ...on the other hand, it does not suck to be Ratchet. No, no it doesn't. Thaaaat's a mental image that will be lingering for a while, oh my yes... (Lennox is totally the sane one.)
f) ...oh, man, Optimus, you also get hugs. C'mere. Lots of hugs.
g) They're just walking in there? Real names and all? *blinking* I mean, I know they've got to get in somehow, but isn't this going to set off alarms that they're Looking Into Matters?
h) Hm. I'm sort of not trusting Prowl's 'headache,' there...
Random observations: How're you working in the Autobot names? They sort of seem to come out of nowhere, for most of them. Prowl and Jazz, sure, but the rest --? I mean, I'll accept a 'just roll with it' answer, but I want to know if there's something I'm missing, which is entirely possible...
Also, you know a fic is good if you find yourself spinning off little AU-ish possibilities and stuff. *snickers* (Background check on Our Favorite Whiniest Ex-Scientist Decepticon shows a former research-partnership/association with a foreign astronomer... Well! If you want to take it, run with it. If you don't, then it shall merely continue to entertain my backbrain and hopefully yours as well.)
Re: Comment pt. 2!
Date: 2007-08-26 05:20 am (UTC)I think it's not so much that he /didn't/ have classes in that as that he chose to ignore them. Jazz's instincts were saying "protect the brats" to the detriment of his training.
Part of the point is, /everyone/ on this team is there for a reason and pulls their own weight. Some of them have the physical prowess via cyborg mods, but those who don't are not to be discounted in the least. Prowl didn't get inducted just because he's sleeping with Jazz; Prime actually investigated him and saw his "best in state" arrest and conviction record before deciding to draft him.
I find it amusing that everyone loves that scene so much, since it really was a throw-away that just popped into my head and got written very quickly. And, yes, Lennox is /totally/ the sane one in that relationship.
Not really. They've got a cover story I didn't really go into about how the military is looking into improved prostheses for veterans and those injured in combat.
*whistles innocently*
There actually is an answer of sorts which Jazz has told me but hasn't managed to work its way into the narrative yet. Basically, they get their codenames somewhat arbitrarily picked for them based on something not too far off of their real names unless they request specific designations. Jazz requested his codename specifically as an emotional reminder of Prowl, even though he never expected to see Prowl again. Bumblebee's is actually a joke on his coloration, Spike's is for his short, spiky hair... things like that.
I'm not seeing my way clear to sidestories yet, but who knows. If I do, I'll definitely credit you with the idea. ^_^ Glad you're enjoying the story.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-07 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 07:29 pm (UTC)And Judy is acting creepy.
And I love Chip and Prowl and the Brain-Team!!!
And Bee's dream
And Prowl's headaches have me worried.