Mini Fic: Dark Secrets
Title: Dark Secrets
Continuity: G1
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): First Aid, Ratchet, Hoist
Warnings: mentions of euthanasia
Prompt: Ratchet/Aid - Dark secrets of being a medic
Part of the Oath and Covenant AU. Series masterpost here
I tilt my helm when Ratchet peers around the door to his office and then motions me in. “What's up?”
“Lessons.”
“But I graduated!” I protest, it isn't like Ratchet to forget important events.
“I know.” He pads into the small backroom beyond our office and I follow, curious at what lesson he could want to teach me.
Hoist nods at me from the berth where he is stretched out and I let my gaze shift between the two of them. They are up to something. I had learnt to tell that early on in my apprenticeship.
“What we need to teach you isn't something that is taught until a medic has given their oaths to Primus and fully integrated the medical coding into the base code on a spark deep level.” Ratchet says as he kneels down beside the berth. “Come here Aid.”
I can feel my plating tremble slightly as I kneel beside Ratchet, he sounds far more serious than I would like.
“You'll need to link up so you can see what I'm doing.” He opens a port in his arm, and I plug in, my systems syncing to his within a sparkbeat, long familiarity letting me follow the threads of his thoughts until I am seeing what he is seeing.
I can feel him plug into Hoist's medical access port and then the strange shift in perspective as he begins rifling through Hoist's processor, lowering the deepest firewalls that are not under a mechs conscious control, the ones that I had always been taught never to touch.
Here. Ratchet says as the last layer drops and Hoist goes limp.
What? I ask but the wave of calm from Ratchet convinces me all is well.
It's an automated reaction, the processor sends a mech into stasis as soon as these firewalls drop, the data in here is protected unless a mech consciously chooses to overwrite it.
Oh. But... How can they choose to change it if they are in stasis?
I can feel his pride at my question. Exactly the point. He skims over the coding and I recognise emotional response and trigger codes, but far more basic than I am used to seeing.
At this level most mechs are the same. Aerials and Seekers have instinctual flight systems and airflow recognition, but apart from that, nothing much changes. He finally focusses on a small section of code. An innocuous snatch of data that appears to have no clear reason for existing. Can you tell what it is?
I stare at the code string, running it through a comparison with all the other coding that I have learnt. Nothing matches. Looking at it on its own I slowly work it backwards to find that it had only two options, either on or off. But I have no idea what it controls. I don't know. I finally admit.
I want you to turn it off. Ratchet doesn't give an explanation, but then he often doesn't, preferring instead that I work through a puzzle on my own.
Are you sure? I ask just to double check, I would prefer to know what I'm changing before I do it.
I feel the confirmation that I am to go ahead, but no answer to the 'what' is forthcoming and I resign myself to finding out the hard way as I reach out to edit the code, a simple binary switch of a One and a Zero.
“Easy Aid.” I groan. Everything is aching. A strut deep ache that is only equalled by the pounding in my helm.
“What was that?” I ask as both Ratchet and Hoist lean over me and I realise I am now occupying the berth that Hoist was on moments ago.
“That was your medical codes and oath kicking in.” That was the medical coding? That meant I had tried to do something that directly contravened the oath that I took, the oath that runs to my very spark.
“What did I try and change to get such a reaction?”
“You tried to deactivate me.” Hoist says that far too cheerfully and I can only gape at him, glad of my surgical mask being in place.
That single line of code is responsible for a mechs entire functioning? I can feel my tanks churn as I realise that I had edited it to be a Zero, if it had worked...
There is a bucket under my helm before my mask has fully withdrawn.
“Why?” I manage once my tanks settle and I am able to sit back up.
Ratchet perches on the edge of the berth. “You needed to witness what would happen first hand if you tried to change it when it wasn't in a patients best interests, and you needed to know what that code is.” He vents, atmosphere gusting out of him in a rush. “There may come a time when you do have to edit that code.” I shake my helm but he holds up a hand before I can say a word. “Our oath is to end all suffering. I hope you never have to do it, but if you do, that is the quickest and most painless way for a mech to go.”
I don't answer as I turn my face into his windshield, seeking the soft pulse of his spark in a way I haven't needed since I was still a youngling. He wraps his arms around my frame, and I can feel Hoist settling on my other side, his field projecting the same calm and reassurance as Ratchets as they simply let me absorb the abrupt shift in my world.
Continuity: G1
Rating: PG-13
Character(s): First Aid, Ratchet, Hoist
Warnings: mentions of euthanasia
Prompt: Ratchet/Aid - Dark secrets of being a medic
Part of the Oath and Covenant AU. Series masterpost here
I tilt my helm when Ratchet peers around the door to his office and then motions me in. “What's up?”
“Lessons.”
“But I graduated!” I protest, it isn't like Ratchet to forget important events.
“I know.” He pads into the small backroom beyond our office and I follow, curious at what lesson he could want to teach me.
Hoist nods at me from the berth where he is stretched out and I let my gaze shift between the two of them. They are up to something. I had learnt to tell that early on in my apprenticeship.
“What we need to teach you isn't something that is taught until a medic has given their oaths to Primus and fully integrated the medical coding into the base code on a spark deep level.” Ratchet says as he kneels down beside the berth. “Come here Aid.”
I can feel my plating tremble slightly as I kneel beside Ratchet, he sounds far more serious than I would like.
“You'll need to link up so you can see what I'm doing.” He opens a port in his arm, and I plug in, my systems syncing to his within a sparkbeat, long familiarity letting me follow the threads of his thoughts until I am seeing what he is seeing.
I can feel him plug into Hoist's medical access port and then the strange shift in perspective as he begins rifling through Hoist's processor, lowering the deepest firewalls that are not under a mechs conscious control, the ones that I had always been taught never to touch.
Here. Ratchet says as the last layer drops and Hoist goes limp.
What? I ask but the wave of calm from Ratchet convinces me all is well.
It's an automated reaction, the processor sends a mech into stasis as soon as these firewalls drop, the data in here is protected unless a mech consciously chooses to overwrite it.
Oh. But... How can they choose to change it if they are in stasis?
I can feel his pride at my question. Exactly the point. He skims over the coding and I recognise emotional response and trigger codes, but far more basic than I am used to seeing.
At this level most mechs are the same. Aerials and Seekers have instinctual flight systems and airflow recognition, but apart from that, nothing much changes. He finally focusses on a small section of code. An innocuous snatch of data that appears to have no clear reason for existing. Can you tell what it is?
I stare at the code string, running it through a comparison with all the other coding that I have learnt. Nothing matches. Looking at it on its own I slowly work it backwards to find that it had only two options, either on or off. But I have no idea what it controls. I don't know. I finally admit.
I want you to turn it off. Ratchet doesn't give an explanation, but then he often doesn't, preferring instead that I work through a puzzle on my own.
Are you sure? I ask just to double check, I would prefer to know what I'm changing before I do it.
I feel the confirmation that I am to go ahead, but no answer to the 'what' is forthcoming and I resign myself to finding out the hard way as I reach out to edit the code, a simple binary switch of a One and a Zero.
“Easy Aid.” I groan. Everything is aching. A strut deep ache that is only equalled by the pounding in my helm.
“What was that?” I ask as both Ratchet and Hoist lean over me and I realise I am now occupying the berth that Hoist was on moments ago.
“That was your medical codes and oath kicking in.” That was the medical coding? That meant I had tried to do something that directly contravened the oath that I took, the oath that runs to my very spark.
“What did I try and change to get such a reaction?”
“You tried to deactivate me.” Hoist says that far too cheerfully and I can only gape at him, glad of my surgical mask being in place.
That single line of code is responsible for a mechs entire functioning? I can feel my tanks churn as I realise that I had edited it to be a Zero, if it had worked...
There is a bucket under my helm before my mask has fully withdrawn.
“Why?” I manage once my tanks settle and I am able to sit back up.
Ratchet perches on the edge of the berth. “You needed to witness what would happen first hand if you tried to change it when it wasn't in a patients best interests, and you needed to know what that code is.” He vents, atmosphere gusting out of him in a rush. “There may come a time when you do have to edit that code.” I shake my helm but he holds up a hand before I can say a word. “Our oath is to end all suffering. I hope you never have to do it, but if you do, that is the quickest and most painless way for a mech to go.”
I don't answer as I turn my face into his windshield, seeking the soft pulse of his spark in a way I haven't needed since I was still a youngling. He wraps his arms around my frame, and I can feel Hoist settling on my other side, his field projecting the same calm and reassurance as Ratchets as they simply let me absorb the abrupt shift in my world.