Trinkets 7A/?
Title: Trinkets 7/?
By: gilded_orchid
Rating: PG-13
Universe: G1/Alignment-verse AU
Characters: Jazz, Mirage, Tracks, Blaster, Cassetticons, Soundwave, Knock Out. Mentions of Sentinel Prime, Prowl, Starscream and D-16/Megatronus/Megatron
Content & Warnings: Pre-War/Exodus AU, non-explicit violence, mentions of mass bodily injury (mostly non-graphic, too). Sentinel Prime being...Sentinel Prime. x__x
Words: 11,004 ( 0_0 )
A/N: This chapter exists because Taralynden is a goddess among betas who helped me through my writer's block (Soundwave was an uncooperative tool, fyi), then looked it over for me. It would have been another two or three months before you guys saw this otherwise. Thank you!! My computer is still being funny about coding and keeps dropping changes I made, so anything wrong falls squarely on my shoulders and not Taralynden. ^_^ Anyway, there's too much discrepancy between the Aligned novels/War & Fall of Cybertron/the Prime cartoon, so I'm going to take a pass on following the timeline and just make sure I hit the major events. Anyway, Trinket's is still pre-war, but the end is beginning!
Jazz had worked himself up to a fine sulk by the final cycle of Sentinel Prime's Games. He'd all but retreated from the public except when strictly necessary, sequestering himself in the small office that had been granted to him while he was at the Coliseum.
Blaster wasn't even sure of what had actually pushed Jazz over the edge; there were so many options. It could have been the mere fact that the gladiatorial pit had been reopened, which was enough to frustrate any thinking bot. It could have been the fact that Jazz's protest by blotting out all his rank and award decals had been misconstrued as a fashion statement and was currently being mimicked by most of the upper castes in attendance. Blaster could understand that; he shared the sentiment, for Pit's sake. Their ensemble had actually had to reverse their paintjobs once the trend took hold, simply to avoid being categorized with the other idiots sporting the look. It was insulting to think that a clever, subtle little protest had been so horribly taken out of context.
The final indignity had been Sentinel Prime congratulating Jazz on a "masterful" performance.
"Commanding" he called it.
"Excellent."
It had been the most dreary performance of Jazz's career-of all of their careers-and no doubt of it, but Sentinel's staff and attendants had been quick to heap their own praises upon them after Prime's example.
All of them!
Oh, some they could forgive; there were some who just didn’t have a discerning audial, perhaps having never heard anything close to their skill level before. There might even be a few who just plain didn’t know good music anyway,and based their appraisals upon the proverbial mob. Sad, but somewhat forgivable.
But the ones who knew? That was the true horror. However uncultured Sentinel Prime might be, the sycophants around him weren’t, and no doubt a few of them knew that Jazz’s performance had been lackluster. Oh, it was technically precise and flawlessly played, but the Alpha Maestro put more spark and flair into tuning instruments than he did that performance. Not one of them had the audacity to say anything contrary to their Prime’s opinion, however, spineless cowards that they were. The only ones not bleating recycled praise at them were Prowl-who was smart enough to just keep quiet on the entire issue-and Sentinel's chief bodyguard Starscream, whose comments about Sentinel's discerning tastes had been laden with some distinctly mean-spirited barbs, subtle though they might have been. It would be decacycles before Sentinel even suspected he'd been so cruelly mocked by the flier, and by then far too late to actually do anything about it lest the mech admit he’d been made a complete fool of.
He and Jazz had quickly caught on to the digs, as had Tracks and most of their fellow musicians. One didn't survive the notoriously complex (and vicious) realm of Protihexan social interactions without learning how to detect-or deliver-a scathing verbal assault within the layers of a well-crafted back-handed compliment early on, to say nothing of outright verbal assassinations. (Many, many eons later Tracks would look upon the monstrous horror that was Earth’s realm of celebrity gossip with fond nostalgia).
With Prime's commendation making the rounds among the nobles and upper castes, the mid-ranked bots had been quick to extoll Jazz's performance and none of the lower castes were willing to counter the praise being flung around by their “betters” or seemingly disrespect Jazz’s own high rank. It was all flattery and insincere praise; Blaster honestly didn’t think any of them had really listened with a critical audial; they were too busy reveling in the violence and pandering to pay attention.
Rather than risk losing his temper at the wrong bot at what was most definitely the wrong place and time, Jazz had simply removed himself from the public at large (only to subsequently be lauded as "mysterious" and "elusive", though Blaster hadn't the spark to reveal that little tidbit to Jazz just yet).
"This is intolerable."
Blaster simply passed Jazz a cube of high-grade and leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, but what can you do? It’s all social power-plays and political maneuvering anyway. Every two-bit social climber here is going to do whatever’s necessary to fit in and move into the right circles; right now, that apparently means regurgitating whatever you do."
"How wonderful. I’ve always wanted to be a figurehead of idiocy." Jazz's voice was ripe with disdain.
"It's how the oil-cake jells, my mech."
"Apparently." Jazz's fans whirred in agitation. "I think part of the reason this frags me off so much is that...slag, I don't know. I think I just expected better out of everyone."
"You should know better. Our society isn’t exactly geared towards bettering anything lately, unless it’s the lives of the ones in power."
"......you're about to make this a full-on political thing, aren't you?" Jazz speared Blaster with a weary look.
"Only because it is."
"Nah, I'm pretty sure this is firmly a "bots are stupid thing". Jazz let himself slouch down in his chair, arms dangling back and over the sides as he titled his head up to stare at the ceiling. Whether or not he wanted this discussion, it was coming. For vorns now, any hint of social debate would see Blaster leaping into the fray. It was almost like clockwork, right down to the astrosecond. As a matter of fact…
3…
2...
1...
"You're right; bots are stupid, but they're a product of their environment. These castes we're forced into stagnate thought and social conscience. Everyone wants to be free to reach for something beyond what they’re sparked as, but it just doesn’t happen. You either end up with bots that don’t even bother trying to achieve anything more than what they began as, or with bots so desperate for any chance at change that they seek it by any means necessary.”
Blaster reached for the cube of energon Jazz had been apathetically nursing and took a drink. “Like right now. Right now, everyone is scrambling trying to mimic our earlier paint jobs because the Prime liked it; they didn’t even care about the whys or wherefores. Prime likes it, so they follow that trend in hopes that they might be accepted into higher social circles, and eventually raised to a better rank.”
Jazz briefly wondered if he might not be better off kicking Blaster out of the office as well, decided that it would probably be more than trouble than it was worth, and resigned himself to the topic at hand.
Unaware (or uncaring) of Jazz’s inner turmoil, Blaster continued to speak, on a roll. “…and you can bet that it’s going to keep going until you end up with some poor laborer blowing their credits on a repaint that's already out of style by the time it reaches them instead of on something useful, like upgrades or more advanced function protocols. The castes are bad business, my mech. Bad business all around. We need to destroy the system, start with something fresh."
Jazz sighed, actively entering the conversation with a shrug of his shoulders. “You make a point, but that doesn’t mean that castes are a bad idea. They aren’t just assigned randomly; you are sparked into where you belong, and Cybertron as a whole is better for it. A mech might dream of something more, but rarely do they have the capacity to actually do it.”
Blaster shook his head in disbelief. “How can you say that!? You’re Protihexan, guild-raised through and through. That guild system is the antithesis of the castes!”
“Hardly.”
“What?”
Jazz straightened up, a solemn expression falling over his face. “Everyone thinks that the guilds are a meritocracy and that they can advance through it as they please, but that’s not the case. Each ranking can be viewed as its own caste. You, as a Savant, are part of the upper caste of the guild. You have the better skill, so get access to better training and more perks because it’s better to invest in you than a low ranked initiate or acolyte. We expected that out of you, however, because you were sparked to it; you were created to make music. Your natural talent reflects that, and it’s worth it to the guild to make the deeper investment in you.
On the other hand, take…Trill. Trill has been chasing after you since you both were initiates, but he’s still an adept, though not necessarily through any fault of his own. He works just as hard as any bot in the guild, but for all of his effort he’s just not cut out to be a Savant; eventually he’ll make master rank by sheer virtue of experience, but it’ll be a long and hard journey until then. He’s better than the common breed of musician-good enough to gain acceptance to the guild-but he just doesn’t have that innate genius that my Savants or Masters have. That doesn’t mean he won’t advance, just like it doesn’t mean a bot of a lower caste can’t eventually rise up. The guild doesn’t just reward talent; we also reward hard work. It’s just that hard work alone only gets you so far.”
Blaster frowned, unnerved to think that Protihex wasn’t too unlike the rest of Cybertron after all. “If it’s so much like a caste, how do you explain the constant influx of initiates? Most of the petitioners aren’t even Protihexan, and are all over the place in terms of the castes they’re originally from.”
Jazz’s somber expression deepened. “For every one initiate Choragus accepts, the Patroness, maestros and I turn away thousands more. Thousands,Blaster. You can’t fault them their enthusiasm, but they just aren’t good enough. The auditions aren’t there for the 99% that come from guild ancestry; they have the ancestral coding and innate talent for the arts; the auditions are there for the 1%; the prodigies and natural talents that we haven’t previously discovered or produced ourselves. The guilds are not that different; the outsiders looking in just don’t realize it.”
“That’s seriously fragged up.” Blaster scowled down at his energon-well Jazz’s energon-and after a long moment pushed it back across the table. Jazz took a long drink himself, then set it aside to continue making his point.
“Don’t be so quick to knock it-you were that 1%, once upon a time. If you hadn’t been put through our auditioning board, you’d be sitting at some terminal in Altihex right now, monitoring deep space signals or comm chatter or Primus-knows-what because that’s what your base coding is best for. Your creators wanted better for you, however, so they indulged your musical inclinations and arranged for you to audition. You weren’t all that good-a rare few auditioners actually are-but you had incredible potential. Your situation alone defeats your argument; there is no stagnation because the castes reward effort and evolution, just like the guilds reward hard work as well as innate talent.”
“In theory, maybe. When was the last time it actually happened, though?”
Jazz had to concede the point on that one. There was a lot of class tension on Cybertron-this whole ridiculous display was actually born of the attempt to offset some of it, sadly enough. A bot was assigned a caste and duty from the moment they emerged from the Well of All Sparks, and that was almost always the end of it. Scientists were allowed to choose their field of study after an extensive primary education, and Prime allowed Protihex to function under its guild system so long as things remained orderly. But what was a 5% chance of some sort of freedom versus the other 95%-an assigned place and life. It might be fine for the early stages of a bots life, but The-Powers-That-Be didn’t seem to understand-or care-that beings changed, especially ones as long-lived as they were.
“Fine. The system would work, if it weren’t for the elite sticking their helms so far up their afts they don’t know whether to speak or backfire. Fix that, Cybertron goes back on track. No need to wipe out the entire system, though.” Jazz declared with an airy wave of his hand.
Blaster paused over the cube of high-grade they’d been passing back and forth. “…you are the elite.”
Jazz boggled. “…I’ve got some clout here and there, but I’m hardly one of the elite.”
“Really?” Blaster began to tick each point off on his fingers. “You move across any social circle you want as if you belong there: only the extremely arrogant, extremely entitled, or extremely stupid do that. Two: you don’t have a base function; you were guild-born and bred, and if you ever decided to leave the guild, your only problem would be figuring out what you want to do. Bots kill for that sort of opportunity. Three: being a guild master in Protihex is pretty much the equivalent of being a senator or council mech. You wield more functional authority than some nobles. Four, you’re a celebrity. You could get away with slag that would have a lower ranked mech in line for the smelter.” Blaster smirked. “Need I continue?”
Jazz glared. “Give me my fragging cube back.”
Blaster laughed as Jazz snatched his cube of energon out of his hands, enjoying Jazz’s unease. “Face it, Alpha Maestro, you can protest all you want, but all you’re doing is railing against the vagaries of your own class.”
Blaster grinned as Jazz studiously said nothing, just took a calm drink of his energon while no doubt envisioning himself beating Blaster about the helm with his cyber-cello. Well...probably not the cyber-cello; Jazz would just as soon as kill himself as harm a musical instrument.
Blaster had to admit, however, that Jazz was nothing like other bots of his rank. For all that Jazz did possess power and authority, he much preferred the passive route. He asked instead of ordered, ignored rank in favor of ability, and was always willing to give opportunities to bots that would be absolutely unheard of anywhere else. Jazz was the ideal for what the castes could be, but ideals didn’t get one very far at all on Cybertron. Jazz was a rarity, when he should have been the standard.
After a few breems of companionable silence, Jazz slid his cube of energon back over to Blaster and pulled out a blank pad of manuscript paper. Might as well get *some* work during this travesty of a celebration. “What we need is for the council to get knocked back into shape, get a better Prime. We replace the upper ranks with bots that are deserving of the rank. With the heads of state back in order, the castes will start operating properly. We need to clean house, not scrap the whole system.”
Blaster shook his head vehemently. “The whole system is inherently flawed because there is no freedom of choice. Why should my only options in life be a specific set of duties just because my coding is suited to it? The caste system teaches that freedom is the ability to contribute to the tasks that are appropriate and necessary to the caste you were born into. That’s not freedom; that’s organized slavery.”
Jazz frowned. “You’re missing the point; every bot is free to pursue what their coding allows; the castes merely organizes that into a coherent system. If you put forth unlimited choice, you would have chaos; bots would do whatever they wanted, whether they were suited to it or not. There would be no quality control, no standards. Some cut-rate keyboardist could waltz right in to the Harmonium and demand a spot in the orchestra! Two or three generations, it’ll be impossible to weed out the talent from the crushing mediocrity.” Jazz pointed sharply at Blaster as he reached for his energon. “I won’t stand for it.”
“What about those gladiators out there? You want them to just accept their fate?”
Jazz’s expression soured as he thought about the carnage occurring in the Coliseum.
“I think a mech should simply make the most of their lot, and strive to excel. Work their way out of their situation. It’s not impossible to advance oneself, provided you have the skills or savvy to pull it off. Besides, this is just stupidity at its gruesome best. If Sentinel had his processors completely up to spec, he wouldn’t be doing this anyway. I hate that he’s out there making a fool of everybody from senators to concession bots, and nobody seems to care that he’s having mechs killed in the process.”
“Sentinel’s thrown open the energon stores and entertained the mob. The masses are now well-fueled, having fun, and complacent with their lot in life. What’s there to complain about?”
“My, you’re full of vitriol.”
“I’m sorry, which one of us barricaded themselves away in a huff?”
“…go away.”
There it was-that playful tone sneaking back into Jazz’s voice that indicated the mech’s sulk was finally breaking! A little longer and he might actually get the mech into something resembling a good mood before they had to venture back out into that pathetic farce of a celebration. Blaster pretended to consider for a few moments before “Nah…you know you love my company. Besides, you’ll need my superb innovation to freshen that piece there up a bit.”
Jazz scoffed. “If you’re referring to that Shock Pop trash that’s been making the rounds, forget about it. I will never understand your fascination with raucous dance-club tunes, or why you insist on trying to corrupt otherwise fantastic compositions with it. ”
“Hey! I-“
“Jazz!”
Jazz and Blaster jumped as Tracks burst into the room, obviously agitated. A few astroseconds later, Mirage appeared, shoving Tracks through the door so that they were both in the room and he could close the door before anyone else could start eavesdropping.
“We’ve been trying to reach you, but you wouldn’t answer!” Tracks accused.
Blaster glanced back and forth between his occasional berth-mates and groaned inwardly as he picked up on the distress they were radiating. So much for trying to lighten Jazz’s mood. “My fault; I’ve been blocking our comm lines except for priority communications.”
“We’re not priority contacts!?”
Leave it to Tracks to fixate on something so trivial. “One, I didn’t even know Mirage was here, so I wouldn't think to patch him in. Two? There's obviously nothing preventing you from tracking us down when you're so inclined. Like now."
"I think I'm insulted..." Tracks started, preparing to lay into the younger musician, but was interrupted by Jazz casually rapping on the side of his desk with his foot.
"I'm taking it this isn't just a brief social call; what's wrong?"
Jazz braced himself--he'd already expected less than pleasant news given the way Tracks and Mirage had descended on them. Mirage and Tracks were not prone to histrionic displays unless they were playing to a crowd-entirely unnecessary outside of Protihex’s complex web of social maneuvering-so it had to be bad for them to appear so obviously unsettled.
Tracks and Mirage shared a long, somber glance before Mirage stepped forward to speak.
Definitely bad news if Mirage was doing the talking. Whenever bad news was broken to him, Mirage would be the one deliver it if the noblemech were around. Mirage was one of his oldest friends-the oldest-and as such, had long experience with handling his fouler moods. Blaster and Tracks, while no less cherished, simply preferred to avoid setting him off as best they could.
"We found Soundwave."
“What?!” Jazz startled, half rising out of his seat in shock and worry.
He’d spent a whole meta-cycle looking for his apprentice with nothing to show for it. He’d gone through with the decision to expel both Soundwave and Downbeat from the guild, but had actually set provisions in Soundwave’s dismissal for the mech to appeal the expulsion. He’d expected Soundwave’s petition for re-admittance within joors of the official ban, and had in fact already drawn up the documents for the reinstatement. There was no way in the known universe he’d seriously consider permanently casting out Soundwave for a first offense; he’d intended to make an example to the rest of his guild that none of them were above the rules, and to hopefully scare Soundwave straight.
Soundwave had never returned.
The first two mega-cycles he’d been sure that the mech was off somewhere in seclusion indulging a bad mood, the third mega-cycle he’d begun to worry that maybe Soundwave hadn’t received the terms of the ban and that he’d have to drag the Savant back to the guild in what promised to make for a fine spectacle.
The fourth mega-cycle had seen Tracks at his door with the latest gossip, chief amongst it that Soundwave had been carted off by the Enforcers. The Enforcers in turn informed him that Soundwave was en route to Iacon for questioning and judicial review. Prowl had been extremely helpful in clearing channels to find out what the charges were-it had to have been serious, for the mech to not be dealt with locally. Just as Protihex had been allowed to essentially self-govern themselves, so too had their legal proceedings been handled internally, usually through the guilds, or through the Protihexan Senate for only the most extreme incidents. That Soundwave had been removed from Protihexan authority was telling.
It had taken almost a full deca-cycle before he’d been able get into contact with anyone regarding Soundwave, and it had proved impossible for him to even so much as speak with the mech. In the end he’d submitted letters of reference and pleas for leniency on the matter, then attempted to at least have Soundwave’s case handled under Protihexan jurisdiction, all to no avail. Soundwave had vanished into the Iaconian legal system and he’d been left in the dark, always wondering in the back of his processor what had happened to his apprentice.
And now Tracks and Mirage were here, saying they’d found him…
Jazz forced himself to calm down and he straightened up, meeting Mirage’s gaze as he steeled himself. The news certainly wouldn’t be anything remotely close to good, he already knew that-there wasn’t a more callous or corrupt entity that passed for a legal system than what existed in Iacon-so it seemed it was time to see just how bad it was.
On to Part 2