sakon76

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
part 9: Dangerous
by K. Stonham
released 24th March 2009

"Right." Ember pulled out what looked like a cross between a ricer's tailpipes and a double-barrel shotgun, swaying slightly with the turn as the Bulkhead SWAT truck pulled around a corner. "Item one: handcuffs."

Figueroa blinked and said something Spanish that sounded decidedly dubious.

The Project mechanic just grinned at him. "Let's see if you say that after they save your ass. And you just volunteered to be my demonstration dummy."

"No way, man!" he replied.

"Oh yes," Lennox replied, grinning himself, his hand among all the others pushing Fig to stand and stagger toward the teenage knockout.

"Unless you've got a problem with letting her get her hands on you," Springer added with a smirk.

"It ain't her hands I'm worried about, it's her handcuffs," Figueroa retorted.

"How can I resist a man who sweet-talks me like that?" Ember asked, and slapped the cuffs on.

The dull silver metal casts reached from Fig's wrists to his elbows, locking them together and heavily restricting his motion.

"Well?" Lennox asked.

Fig paused for a second, then shrugged as much as he could with his arms bound before him. "I've been in less comfortable situations." That earned him hoots and wolf whistles.

Ember rolled her eyes but was smiling a little. "These are made out of the same metal our Project boys are. The exterior is the skeletal compound, while the interior is the malleable skin metal. It can and will shape to the contours of the prisoner. According to Ratchet and Wheeljack, these are nigh-unbreakable. Meaning 'Jack hasn't managed it yet."

"Why isn't Wheeljack the one briefing us?" Springer asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall behind him.

"We flipped for who got you guys and who got S7," Ember replied. She smirked. "He lost."

A low ripple of laughter spread through the team.

"So how many cuff sets are we getting?" Casey asked, looking at the boxes stacked behind the lithe engineer.

"The building houses nearly a hundred employees. We'll need to restrain all of them," Ember replied. She pulled what looked like a small silvery circuit board out of one of her back pockets. "This is the master key. There are three in existence. You get one, Captain." She handed it to Lennox. "Don't lose it."

"You realize his hands are still free," Hansen pointed out. "Fig could reach out and grab someone. Or a gun."

"Already covered." Ember grinned and dipped a hand into the box. Almost quicker than anyone could follow, she slipped a small tube onto each of Figueroa's index fingers.

There was silence for a minute before Epps broke it with a whoop of laughter. "Chinese finger cuffs!" he chortled. "Man, that's genius right there!"

"So says you, Lieutenant," Figueroa grumbled, now well and truly trapped. He cast a pleading look at his captain. "Capitan, get me out of these?"

"Oh, sure, why not." Grinning broadly, Lennox held up the key. "So how's this work?" he asked the mechanic.

Mikaela guided his hand. "Down the center, like a zipper." As if through magic, the seemingly-whole metal melted away and unlatched.

"Simple and stupid," Lennox commented as Fig, his fingers still trapped by the woven child's toy, shook the handcuffs off his arms. They fell down onto the floor, where they didn't so much clang as thud.

"KISS principle's the best. Next toy," Ember continued. "Chip sensor."

"Hey, man," Fig whispered to Casey as Ember continued her introduction to their new tools, "some help?" He held up his hands. The bald man rolled his eyes and wordlessly pressed the ends of the finger cuffs in. Breathing a sigh of relief, Figueroa shook out his hands and nodded his thanks.

*

What they could never collectively be accused of, Peter decided, was subtlety. Between his small squad, Lennox's men, and the S7 team, they were clad in body armor and camo and looked precisely like what they were: elite military strike teams. Not exactly discreet. The only way they could be less discreet, in fact, was to have ninjas with them. It was probably just as well that that team had been out of the country on their own mission, he mused.

"We ready?" he asked quietly.

A flurry of nods met him around the mobile command unit as Prowl quietly slipped on a headset. "Ready whenever you are, Prime," he said, already fine-tuning the monitor screens.

Peter sighed. "Everyone, roll out."

It was a short jog across the parking lot to the front doors. His men fell in double lines behind him, Ratchet and Ironhide side-by-side, followed by Bumblebee paired with Spike, with Jazz guarding their rear. The large glass doors slid open before them, and without hesitating Peter strode through them, he and the five following them setting off the metal detectors. Both receptionists looked up, red-haired Jessica Saunders and blonde Robin Chambers. Not breaking stride, Peter walked up to their desk, catching and holding Robin's gaze. Her mouth was slightly open, brow furrowing as she looked up at him.

"I'm sorry for the trouble," he said quietly, pulling a badge and a warrant out of his breast pocket, showing them both to her, "but can you turn the alarm off?"

*

The phone rang but Robin barely heard it for staring at the man before her. He was dead. That's what Uncle Marshall had told her and Mama when they'd woken up from being sick for so long. Her left arm began to ache, the way it hadn't in a long, long time. Ever since the amputation.

"Papa... Peter...?" she asked slowly, hesitantly, her eyes never leaving his.

"...Robbie," he replied, just barely nodding.

Uncle Marshall hated that nickname, saying it wasn't ladylike. But once upon a time she'd been a tomboy, been allowed to be a tomboy, and that had been her name....

*

Robin's mouth opened again for a second, then closed before she could say anything. Deft fingers clattered across a keyboard and the alarm from the metal detector stopped. The phone rang again and she let the other receptionist answer it again. "He said you were dead," she said sotto voce, her voice harsh. "He told Mama and me that we had to stay with him, that he would protect us--"

He laid his hand over hers. Over the right hand that was still natural. It silenced her quiet rush of words. "We'll have time to talk later, Robbie," her promised her even as Prowl issued orders over the comm and Lennox's men came trouping in through the door, carrying cases full of cuffs. "Right now I need both of you to go with these men."

"But--"

"Trust me," he pressed, heart aching. His little girl--!

She nodded. "Let me forward the phones." Typing in another set of commands, she stood and pulled the other receptionist up with her. "C'mon, Jessie." She walked forward willingly, and two of Lennox's men shackled the young women.

"Spread out. Twenty-three more to go on the first floor," Prowl's quiet voice came over the comm line.

*

Most of the computers and servers Sam didn't even need a hardline connection to, going wireless and skimming through their contents at the speed of thought. His thought. Files and drives slipped through the filter he'd set up, nothing catching regarding the controlware chip.

His head jerked up at the sound of gunfire on the floor above them.

Keep working, 'Bee told him. Trust Lennox's people to know their jobs.

There's nothing here, Sam replied the same way, silently. Let's move on to the next set. And somewhere up there was his mom and maybe his brother but he couldn't be there, couldn't see them until all this was done and they were cleared....

And, a small part of him knew, he might not want to see them. Not if they were being controlled the way Prowl had been. There were things he didn't want to, couldn't stand to hear from them. That was the reason he and 'Bee were working a floor behind everyone else, to keep him away just in case.

That was the reason his dad was back at the base, probably getting absolutely no work done in the experiments he was helping Percy and 'Jack with....

The next set of computers opened to his mind and Sam dove into them, wanting that data. Needing to find it.

For his mom. For his brother.

*

Damn it.

Michael allowed himself the rare luxury of the curse within the confines of his own mind. There was no sign of Marshall Travers. Worse yet for Prime, though his niece was present in the building (and already secured), there was no physical match for Ariel Pratchett on the premises. Doctor Reginald Arkeville, however, was definitely present, and directing Ironhide and Jazz to subdue the man's bodyguards--neither of them, unfortunately, Barrett Cade--and capture him was a definite spike of satisfaction.

Not that Michael would ever admit to that, of course.

Only about a quarter of the building's occupants put up any struggle, less than he'd expected given that half of them were kidnapees, supposedly with control chips in their head. Those who did, though... it was just as well they were all going in for medical evaluation anyway. Once the building had been locked down and cleared out, the employees were placed in groups of ten and taken under armed escort to the S7 SWAT vans for scanning. Those who were simple daily employees, not missing persons and not chipped, were to be debriefed and released pending further investigation. The rest were to be taken to detainment facilities back at the base, where it would be up to Prime's team (all of them, not just the combatants) to sort through them and deal with the fallout.

He directed Spike and Bumblebee to Arkeville's office after the floor was cleared. The information on the chips was probably there--ah.

On the monitor, Spike abruptly sat down cross-legged and pulled out an earring plug, physically jacking himself into the computer.

"Data transfer's coming through," Chip's voice murmured over the line from his position back at the base. "Hoo boy. It's big. This is going to take some going through."

"Is it what we're looking for?" Michael inquired. He'd probably require the teen to do a thorough sweep of all remaining machines, just in case, but--

"Schematics, trial data, manufacturing information... yup, this is it," Chip confirmed.

Enough to send the good Doctor to prison for a good long while, Michael hoped. And to provide funding for the counseling his victims were likely to need.

It was sad, seeing the mind that had come up with such brilliant prosthetic advancements turn to something so low and criminal.

*

It was the waiting that was the worst.

Ron barely kept himself from pacing, or from going down the hall to where Chip and Perceptor waited in the command center, analyzing whatever data was coming through.

He hated waiting for his son to come back from missions, always having that fear in the back of his mind that something had happened to Sam. It never helped, the knowledge that Bumblebee had more or less been appointed as his son's guardian. It didn't help knowing that Prime would sacrifice himself before seeing either of the teens harmed. Because there was always that chance....

And now... Judy and Buster.

What if they were there?

What if they weren't?

Did they have chips in their heads? What would they be like without them?

What was going to happen to his wife, his sons, his life?

Ron didn't know, and he was helpless to do anything that might affect his future, his family's future.

He hated being helpless....

Ron looked up as the door to the laboratory opened and Perceptor came in.

"I thought you might wish to know," the soft-spoken scientist said, "that your wife and son have been detained by S7."

The strain was almost too much.

"And Sa... Spike?" Ron asked.

"Perfectly fine," Perceptor replied. "He was never in any physical danger."

Hands shaking, Ron set down the power converter he'd been fruitlessly fiddling with all morning. "Thank God," he whispered, voice trembling. You'd never think he was military, he reflected, the way this all had him shook up so badly, but he was human. Only human. His elbows rested on the tabletop and his hands covered his face as he leaned against them. "Thank God...."

*

Springer and Hansen stood alert at the back of the truck, keeping an eye on the ten detainees as they were all transported back to base. They were all theoretically subdued and restrained... but anyone who'd ever been in a combat situation knew that things could change in an instant. For the most part they were being silent, in varying states of shock, Matt suspected.

The receptionist looked up at him from where she was murmuring comfort to one of the other employees. She was a pretty slip of a thing, with crystal blue eyes and a puff of platinum blonde hair that had to be as soft as it looked. As far as Matt was concerned, though, she was as hands-off as plutonium at the moment, given that not only had she scanned true for cyborg implants, but was also some kind of relation/under the implied protection of the Autobot unit leader.

...Roddy wasn't as smart, and smiled at the pretty girl when he noticed her looking at him.

Matt jostled him with an elbow.

"What?" Roddy demanded, all injured innocence.

"Can I ask," the girl spoke up, "what's going to happen to us?" The other detainees silenced, looking at her.

"You'll be individually examined to assess threat levels," Roddy replied, leading Matt to sigh inwardly. His friend was never going to make rank at this rate. "Determining on what the experts find, you'll either be released, receive medical treatment, or undergo counseling, as far as it's been explained to me." His eyes met Matt's. "What, it's not like we weren't allowed to talk, or tell them anything."

"You think too straight," Matt griped. "And too low."

"Life is not a wheel. I am not a hamster," Roddy retorted.

The girl laughed, just a little. The smile lighting up her face... transformed her. She went from pretty to gorgeous in the space of a breath. "My name's Robin," she said. "Robin Chambers."

"Private Rodney Hansen," Roddy introduced himself. "And this is my best friend, Corporal Matthew Springer."

*

Isaac craned his neck to the side until vertebrae cracked and popped, then shook his shoulders back and resumed parade rest.

Before him, ignoring him, his unit commander sat at a desk bare of everything but a phone, a computer monitor, and reams of white paper.

"Paperwork," the Prime muttered. "Why did it have to be paperwork?"

Isaac smirked, not bothering to hide the expression. "That's what you get for having rank... sir."

The glare leveled at him was nothing less than baleful.

It was, by Isaac's internal clock, two minutes and thirty-four seconds later when Optimus finally gave up and threw his yellow #2 pencil down on the desk in frustration. The Prime's head dropped immediately into a waiting hand, fingers massaging temples and bridge of the nose in an all-too-human gesture. "Why am I doing this?" Optimus murmured sotto voce, too soft for human ears to hear. "Why do I have to do this?"

A question to which the answer was dangerous... for any of them.

"Have Prowl do it," Isaac suggested. Optimus stopped and looked at him, clearly startled by the suggestion. "The paperwork. He ran the mission. He's also better at doing paperwork than you are."

"I couldn't--"

"Are we or are we not paying him a salary?" Isaac demanded.

There was no response and he smirked again, knowing he'd made his point.

"Stop muffing this and go do something productive," he commanded his commander. "Find out the processing status of Sparkplug's wife and son. Interrogate some prisoners. Maybe even go have that talk with your niece you're avoiding by hiding in here."

"I am not hiding--"

He just leveled a look at Optimus, and it cut the Prime off mid-sentence.

"With all due respect, sir, you are. Now knock it off."

*

Perceptor, Chip, and Wheeljack (despite it not being his specialty) had dived into the specs and stats Spike had pulled the minute they came across the wire, apparently. Ember joined them the minute she got back to base. Only Sparkplug abstained (understandably) from reveling in the contents of the technological heist. After catching him shredding another cafeteria napkin, Jaysen wondered if it might not be kinder to slip either alcohol or a knock-out drug into the mechanic's next cup of coffee. He doubted Sparkplug would even notice.

"Hey, Sparkplug," he said, reaching a hand across the table. The man started when Jaysen touched his shoulder, looking up. "Chill, man. We got 'em."

"I... it's been three years," Sparkplug said, looking down at his hands and the torn-up napkin. "What if--"

"What ifs don't matter," Jaysen advised. "Family does. Now, I'll tell you this: no matter what the chips did to their heads--and I gotta tell you, by the by, your lady has a mean right hook--you're still family, and I know you and I know Spike. You two ain't lettin' Judy and Buster go without a fight."

Sparkplug sighed. "If only it was that easy."

Jaysen shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "Life's never easy. It's just better than the alternative."

"We got it!" Wheeljack burst into the room waving a fistful of printouts, his eyes aglow with triumph. "Sparkplug, you gotta see these results--they're incredible! I wouldn't believe them if they weren't so heavily documented--"

Sparkplug straightened up, looking interested in spite of himself, and reached for the sheaf. "What results?" he asked, already starting to look at the first page as Perceptor and Ember followed Wheeljack into the conference room, the latter holding the door open for Chip's wheelchair.

Smiling to himself as the jargon level rapidly increased beyond his understanding, Jaysen slipped silently from the room.

*

Michael sat alone in the command center, watching the screens shift between individual cameras as the detainees were sorted and taken care of. Ratchet and the two medics he had drafted as assistants were swamped, of course, with the examinations, and only Captain Lennox being in charge of the flow of patients seemed to be keeping Ratchet's infamous temper in check at all.

No, the good doctor did not suffer fools lightly, and it was intriguing that Agent Simmons, head field agent of S7, seemed terrified of the medical officer. There was undoubtedly a history there to be prised out of someone at a future date.

In the meantime, Optimus sat in a private interrogation room with his niece. Her hands were still bound but she seemed rather calmer about it than most of the other augments and be-chipped individuals. It was tempting to turn the volume on that video feed up, or lip-read, but Michael let the two of them have their privacy. The equipment was recording it all anyway. He merely kept an eye on the monitor in case anything happened and the guards outside the room needed to be alerted.

What was going on in that room was undoubtedly... private.

The door behind him opened and closed and the lack of tread gave Jazz away before he'd even taken two steps forward.

"Anything interestin'?" he asked, taking the seat next to Michael.

"Not per se," Michael replied. "Are you picking up any interesting broadcasts?"

Jazz shook his head. "Not sure Cybercon HQ's aware of our little shenanigans yet."

The door opened again, and Michael identified the heavier tread as Ironhide, again without turning his head. "Is Prime still talking with her?" he man asked, taking the seat on Michael's other side.

"He ain't seen her in ten years," Jazz pointed out. "I think they have more than just a little catching up to do."

Ironhide's rumble was noncommittal. He leaned back in his chair and ran a careful hand over the bruise that blossomed on his cheek. "Stupid punk kid," he growled, wincing as he pulled his hand away.

Michael raised an eyebrow in inquiry.

"Those two guarding Arkeville?" Jazz asked in response. "One of 'em landed a hit on 'Hide here."

"He got lucky," Ironhide growled.

"You were slow and forgot to duck," Jazz batted back at him.

Ironhide growled. "You--" he said, half-rising.

"I take it he didn't break his hand on your head, then," Michael interjected coolly.

Ironhide subsided only slightly, sitting back down. "Oh, he did that all right."

"Ratchet must be pleased," Michael commented mildly, looking back at the medical bay monitor, where not Ratchet but one of his assistants--Alex Forsythe, Michael thought his name was--was indeed examining the damaged hand of a restrained man.

Michael blinked, and half-rose to get a closer look at the monitor.

"Prowl?" Jazz asked.

"Sidney...?" Michael asked disbelievingly.

*~*~*

Author's Notes: ...I really don't want to look up how long it's been since I last posted a piece of this. I hope it doesn't disappoint those who've been waiting. Still continuing on from the prompt by