Between: Heads Are Redundant Anyway
Further proving my derpness and inability to write a story sequentially.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Heads Are Redundant Anyway
Verse: 2007 movie, AU
Characters: Sam, Ratchet, Bumblebee, mentions of Barricade
“What’s brought you to my med-bay, Sam?”
The young man flinched at the glare the medic levelled at him but didn’t let it stop him from sidling into Ratchet’s domain. “I was looking from Bumblebee; Ironhide said he was here-HOLY SHIT!”
The cause of the human’s distress perked and turned towards him, increasing Sam’s horror. “Oh my god, oh my god, what happened to Bee!”
Ratchet calmly slammed the errant bot back down on the medberth. “He was decapitated,” Ratchet said, watching with concern as Sam’s blood pressure and heart beat elevated, indicating rising stress. “Why are you so upset?”
“Maybe because Bee doesn’t have a HEAD! AND HE’S STILL MOVING! WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS???”
“So?” the medic turned and stared at his patient, unable to understand what the problem was. Bumblebee, as though sensing Ratchet’s scrutiny, went still.
“Shouldn’t he be, I don’t know, DEAD?”
“No,” Ratchet turned his gaze back to the human, “Why would he be?”
Ratchet’s nonchalance towards the headless bot penetrated the horrified haze surrounding Sam’s brain and he began to calm down. “Normally, not having a head is a major no-no for a healthy life,” he said, “How is it that Bee…?”
“Ah,” Ratchet leant over the scout and connected a wrist cable to Bumblebee’s shoulder port. He entered a medical override and shut down Bee’s systems into recharge. “I believe that a majority of organic life on this planet store most of their processors in their helm.”
“Er, yeah,” finally convinced Bumblebee was not about to stop functioning, Sam’s eyes wandered across the medbay and froze at the sight of the scout’s helm sitting on a repair table.
Ratchet sighed with impatience as he backed out of Bee’s systems. “Well, obviously Cybertronians don’t.”
“You don’t?” the human asked blankly.
“No, we don’t,” Ratchet affirmed.
“Why not?” Sam was having trouble coming to grips with the idea.
“You’ve already pointed out the short-coming of such a design,” Ratchet replied grumpily as he surveyed the amount of work ahead of him. “All the processors in a vulnerable and exposed place? Incredibly dangerous and stupid. Primus only knows who designed life on your planet, but they obviously did not intend for it to succeed. Have you any idea how easy it is to lose a helm? Especially in a WAR?”
“Er,” Sam said intelligently, who was a human and all too aware of human fragility since encountering giant robots and was feeling that fragility rather acutely at the moment.
“Exactly!” the bot slammed his hand next to his patient’s head and Sam flinched. “This is Bumblebee’s twelfth hundredth and fifty second time! I am tired of fixing injuries like this!”
For several long moments, the only sound in the medbay was Ratchet’s disgruntled muttering as he pulled away Bumblebee’s damaged armour. Sam carefully kept himself out of the medic’s way as he pondered over this new development.
“Cybertronians have their main processors spread out through their chassis, the actual specifics locations varied depending on what model,” Ratchet spoke up eventually. “Since the war started, most have had them relocated randomly in order to keep an enemy from knowing where they are. It’s kept many mechs alive during a combat situation and part of the reason why this war has gone on for so long.”
“Because you guys can survive pretty much anything,” Sam filled in, thinking of Jazz’s incredible survival from being torn in half.
“Can’t survive the loss of a spark,” Ratchet grunted, as he examined the exposed circuitry, “But it takes a lot of frame damage to put a Cybertronian down permanently.”
“So, what’s the point of having a head?”
“Optic sensors, primary processors for all sensors are in there,” Ratchet answered. “Getting a helm torn off doesn’t really stop a mech, it just means they can’t access their optics and most have secondary sensor processing systems somewhere else anyway.”
Sam nodded with vague understanding. Bumblebee had once mentioned that he did have infrared and ultra violet inputs and had two dedicated sub-routines that handled that information simultaneously. Wrapping his head around the fact that Bee had two sets of ‘vision’ had been hard (he later came to understand that Bee had simplified the visual thing greatly by only using those two as an example. Mechs could have as many as their sensors and processors could handle and normally just had those that they felt necessary.)
When Bee had gone to explain that most interactions between Cybertronians occurred through EM fields and on the quantum level, he had realised that there were layers to Cybertronian society he was going to miss completely.
“So, uh how did Bee lose his head?” Sam asked, realising that perhaps this should have been one of his first questions.
Ratchet’s optics darkened and he glared at Bee’s decapitated helm. “Somebot thought he could handle Barricade on his lonesome,” the medic grounded out. The sound that escaped his vocaliser was pure, distilled anger. “The Con kicked his sorry aft without blinking. It was, as Jazz put it, like Barricade had suddenly decided he was a circuit-su master and Bee had never set in a battlefield. Bee was lucky he got off so lightly, the fight had the potential to get a lot worse.”
Sam winced at the near miss, though he inwardly was still not convinced that the injury was not as serious as Ratchet seemed to believe. “But back-up got to him in time, right?”
“No. Barricade left him alone after that. Bee collected his helm in his subspace and came back to base.”
There were a few things wrong with that statement; Sam focused one that disturbed him more. “HE DROVE BY HIMSELF??”
Ratchet shot an annoyed look at the human. “He has a GPS. He knew how to get back. Barricade was glitching as per usual and wasn’t interested in finishing the job.”
“Glitching?” From what Bee had mentioned, glitching was a serious software problem for mechs, the equivalent of a mental disorder.
“Yes,” Ratchet paused and stared off into space. “Barricade was Soundwave and Shockwave’s little project; they were always trying to fix what was wrong with him because when he wasn’t glitching, Barricade was a deadly and competent opponent. But then the search for the Allspark came up and I guess Starscream deemed Barricade’s repair a lower priority and he’s completely degenerated now without the medical help he needed.”
Sam tried to reconcile the image of the crazy cop car as a rational individual and shivered. He had a feeling that neither his encounter nor would Bee’s fight with Barricade would not have gone so well.
Then Ratchet’s earlier comment about Jazz clicked and he shot the medic a strange look.
“Ratchet, what the hell is circuit-su?”
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