Becoming - Chapter 7
Disclaimer: do not own Transformers.
Becoming
7
Past
Sonar was having a strange dream.
He was wandering down a long, meandering hall, surrounded by wall after wall of mirrors. The floor was covered in tiles of black and white and red, and the ceiling seemed to swirl with endless shadows. There was a slight breeze, though there was no exit to be seen, and indiscernible whispers pervaded in it, punctuated every so often by soft laughter. No matter how hard Sonar tried tuning into those whispers, they continued to evade him.
He didn’t have his drones with him, which was odd. They had become a part of him ever since Soundwave had created the first one, becoming as natural to him as the implants that trailed his body and the armour he wore. What was stranger was that he didn’t have his mask on; he rarely removed it, and felt naked without it, as if his armour had become very revealing and he was showing too much wire. But without his mask he saw things through visible light and not infrared.
The alien colours that seeped into his vision were bizarre, but strangely comforting.
It was the only source of comfort in this place. The mirrors were seriously creeping him out. They weren’t even mirrors, more like glimpses into…he didn’t know.
The mirrors on his right side showed beings-femmes, mechs, cassettes, and beings alien to both Cyberton and Earth-snarling at their almost-identical images in the other side. They were clad in gold and red, their blue optics ice cold. The images opposite to them mirrored every single one of their movements, but the images on the right were dark and silver copies, their optics glowing a fierce red as they made threatening gestures towards the other side. Still, there was no noise. The glass barricaded all of it, separating it from him, and separated the images from each other.
Normally such a sight would have sent him running out of there. But, of course, this being a dream, he continued onwards, his unease shown only by a passing wish that Soundwave or Ravage were there.
He reached the end of the hall, where the walls, ceiling, and floor tapered off to meet the edges of a single tall mirror in an elegant ebony frame. He neared the end, expecting to see himself there-and was surprised when the being reflecting his every movement was a human.
He was male, well into the age of sexual maturity but not yet a full grown adult, whose brown eyes mirrored Sonar’s own.
He felt very fond of this human, though he didn’t know why, as if he was one of his co-creations. He raised a hand to greet him, the human mirroring his movements, and pressed his palm against the glass. They leaned in towards each other, foreheads meeting, as though if they tried hard enough they could pass through the mirror that separated them.
“Hello,” they said softly. “Do we know each other?”
And they answered each other’s question with: “Why have you forgotten?”
And then he woke up, starting with such force that Ratbat, whose recharge berth he had crawled into, actually squawked and tumbled off the edge, wings askew.
“What was that for?” Ratbat demanded, indignant, climbing back onto the berth.
“Sorry, sorry…” Sonar muttered confusedly, trying to gather his wits. His frequencies behaved erratically, the outgoing signals lacking a distinct rhythm, and he clumsily tried and failed to connect to his drones, something that he did almost unconsciously most days.
Ratbat watched the display impassively, and then made a gesture of exasperation. He signaled to Soundwave that he’d be able to take care of this, and Soundwave’s frequencies hung back. Ratbat knew why; it had been the same with him and Lazerbeak, when they were first brought online, elevated from their disgusting technorganic status through Soundwave’s care. Even if Sonar wasn’t exactly a cassette, he was still theirs, slaggit, and it was vital that he connected well to each of them. Sonar had already connected with Ravage and Frenzy, but his connection to Rumble, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat needed to build more.
“Come here,” he said, gathering the smaller being in his wings. Sonar hesitated, as if considering pulling away, but then relaxed, his drones becoming still. Then, like what all his older co-creations used to do for him (and, Ratbat would never admit, would still sometimes do for him), Ratbat changed his outgoing frequencies, sending a soothing lullaby into Sonar’s mind.
And when Sonar next awoke, he didn’t remember the dream that startled him so. Just as well, Ratbat thought. It couldn’t have been important anyway.
Present
They would have made a strange sight to any passerby, a white femme being followed clumsily by a silver-and-black shaped, who was in turn followed by five winged quadrupeds. But Sonar didn’t really care. It felt good, to be around her.
Her frequencies still felt young, so he guessed that she was about his age, give or take a vorn. She didn’t seem to be very good at controlling them, and he could read them easily like an unlocked data pad. He could tell that she was afraid, and anxious, but determined. He hooked onto her frequencies in what he hoped came across as a comforting manner. He had done it for all the New-cons who came over to the base, connecting him with them and them with each other. She seemed grateful, and again he felt a surge of pity.
In general, Decepticons were models built to be alone, but the New-cons still craved each other’s company. And no matter how many times they divided for the hunt, they would always find a way back to each other, to keep each other warm at night.
They were a unit, in all their dysfunctional glory, which meant that she was unit now too, and that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. He hoped that the femme knew that.
And, for some reason, it felt important that she…she approved of him.
It was a very strange feeling. He had never sought anyone’s approval except Soundwave’s and for those of his co-creations. And yet, here was this femme who he had just met barely a breem ago, and already it was important to him that she didn’t see him as a glitched, bumbling, second-rate technopath.
The snow came down harder now. Sonar could barely see his drones; the normally warm humming of wires and gears and processing chips was overridden by the coldness that permeated their exterior armour. The femme was more easily seen in his viewing screens, but even she was fading against the cold backdrop. He was relying more on frequency pattern than sight, but he was hesitant to make his frequencies reach out more. The drones could still find them.
The femme stopped, and he came up behind her, getting his drones to surround them in an attempt to shelter both of them against the wind. “We should stop for a bit,” the femme suggested, and he realized that she was probably having trouble seeing as well. “Until things lighten up a bit. We can’t see what we’re hunting.”
“Alright,” he said.
“There’s a niche-thing over there,” she gestured, and he’d have to take her word for it. Then she moved again, his drones parting for her, and they followed.
She entered into the crevice first, shaking the snow off her. “Whew,” she said, and he remained silently puzzled as to what the word meant. “Nice to get out of the freezer for a while.”
She settled down as far as she could from the entrance. Sonar hesitated, and then, realizing with incredible slowness that he had an opportunity, settled down beside her. She looked at him, her frequencies feeling inquisitive. “We’ll stay warmer if we’re together,” he said evenly.
“Alright,” she said, leaning closer against him. That felt really good, although Sonar didn’t know why. There was a pause, and then she remarked lightly, “Smooth move.”
He flushed, and then grinned from underneath his mask.
It felt pretty good, lying next to her like this, even in the raging storm. And, even though he had planned to stay awake, he drifted to sleep, the two Ravens on either side of them sheltering them with their wings.
X x X
Now that she had settled down and had time to just think, Mikaela reflected that navigating into the place wasn’t nearly as hard as navigating out. She had weaved in and out of the rocks and jagged peaks, trying to quickly make their way to Bumblebee, but Sam wasn’t helping progress much, going off on time-consuming side-quests. It kind of made Mikaela want to say, “To hell with this,” scoop him up and just go. But to be fair, he was still hunting the pre-programmed drones, and she couldn’t afford to drop her New-con disguise just yet, but still…
And then she had had to make sure that they were not seen by any passing New-cons. Even though Sam seemed to be perfectly accepting of her presence, there would be those that were slightly more street-savvy and would ask pesky questions like: Where the heck did you come from?
They had once tried to save the New-cons. “No being is sparked evil,” Optimus had said. But they were too late, and though she felt guilty about taking Sam only and leaving the others behind to what would certainly be a grim fate, an all-out New-con rescue was out of the question. They were too far in, some already seen on the battlefield next to their mentors, and many already so loyal to Starscream that they already bore the Decepticon insignia. The Autobots had not acted soon enough.
But she was surprised to see how…how happy they seemed. They didn’t seem starved or neglected, and they certainly weren’t cowering lumps of fear. Even some monsters, it seemed, were good to their babies, if only because said babies would grow up to be loyal and unquestioning minions.
But even though she knew that the Decepticons didn’t love these newly-sparked, a strange feeling of familiarity threw her for a loop. At a distance, she saw how the New-cons stalked and hunted the drones, little predators perfecting their hunting techniques. And she remembered, from not-so-long ago, how the New-bots would be in the simulation room with Jazz, at the shooting range with Ironhide, training in a terrain environment with Hound and learning to distinguish illusion from reality…
The nostalgia gave Mikaela a strange, unpleasant feeling, and she pushed it away. There were more important things to think about. Getting out of this stupid, snowy, rocky maze, for one.
The Decepticon base was located deep inside a mountain ridge. The locale certainly went along with the Decepticons’ superiority complex, as they had set up their base where the all would have to look up to see them. She had seen, from a distance, that the base itself was made out of some sort of alien metal, looking like it was made of ice and glass. Sam would have said that it was like the Decepticons were heavily inspired by Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
She’d have to tell him that comparison later, when he was alright again.
She hadn’t recognized him at first, so she had been caught off-guard when he had approached her after she finished off her attacker. He was lightly equipped, his armour made for espionage rather than for battle. His face was hidden from her, underneath a black mask dotted with circular light receptors, three going down vertically on one side and three on the other, filtering the field of view to Sam’s viewing screens.
She knew what lay beneath all that armour-vein upon vein of metal implants, fully integrated into the body underneath, metal veins and organic flesh becoming one. Ratchet never suggested taking them out, and, knowing her mentor, he probably never even considered it. It was just too dangerous.
The scars, both physical and psychological, that Soundwave gave him would stay with Sam long after he left the homicidal ‘Con who kidnapped and brainwashed him in the first place.
She kept reminding herself that underneath it all, he was still Sam. Still a dork, still eager to show off only to fall flat on his face as soon as he started running, still nice and decent and…
And comforting. Even now, his frequencies gently hooked up with hers, as if she was a newly-sparked that needed guidance. He had assumed she was. She had been surprised. None of the Autobots had ever been so…well, she didn’t want to say forward, because that would sound oversensitive, but she couldn’t think of any other word.
It was nice.
But what the hell was it with his “equipment?” Were those “Ravens” (as he called them) seriously miniature purple griffins? Honestly, who the heck thought up that sick shit?
She shook her head. ‘Cons were either real crazy or real bored.
The griffin-drone on her left side hummed, warm and strangely soothing. And then, gradually, its optics faded, and its system seemed to shut down. Its metal started getting colder.
Then she felt Sam slump against her shoulder, and realized that, in true Sam fashion, he had fallen asleep when he shouldn’t have had.
She had to take advantage of this situation.
Carefully, moving so that she wouldn’t rouse him, she took off his mask.
She froze when she saw, up close, exactly what Soundwave had done. If she had been physically human, she would have felt like throwing up. His face…he barely looked like the Sam she remembered. The metal implants tracked across his face, some as thick as her wires and others as fine as thread, tracking over his lips and cheeks and into the sockets of his eyes…
Mikaela shook her head sharply. He’s still Sam. That’s all that matters. She looked at his temples, and, to her surprise, there was already a halo in place. Soundwave must have put it there as a method of control.
Gently, very gently, she replaced his halo with the one that Blaster had made. The halo quickly integrated with his implants. Unlike the other one, this one was custom-made and password-locked, and it wouldn’t come off without that password, which pretty much consisted of a distinct frequency pattern that only Blaster knew.
She had a brief moment of regret that she hadn’t learned as much about technopathy as she could before this incident. It was certainly a fascinating subject; the psychology of a Cybertronian was almost as interesting as the physiology. She berated herself for her ignorance, but in her eagerness to reclaim Sam…
She shrugged it off. There would be time for such things.
After making sure that Sam was still out of it-he was still the same heavy sleeper, thank goodness-Mikaela connected her frequencies with Bumblebee’s. He’s asleep, Mikaela privately. Are we close enough?
Almost. We’re out of the Decepticon scanning area, so you won’t have to worry about your frequencies getting picked up anymore. Blaster’s protection can start just a breem or so of walking distance ahead.
Mikaela closed her optics, leaning back. So close, so very, very close…
Are we close enough to you? she asked after a moment of silence. You know what Ratchet said…about re-memorizing and all that…
Ratchet was one of the many Autobots to neither openly oppose nor support their opinions about “Sonar.” However, he had been telling Mikaela (in passing, of course, and always relevant to the lesson of-the-day), some things about reprogramming. Sometimes he and Ironhide would be having conversations about the subject, and either Mikaela or Bumblebee would be close enough to overhear it. Regardless of where Ratchet and Ironhide stood on the subject, Mikaela was grateful for the information.
Among other, pessimistic viewpoints, they had learned that sometimes, if they were very, very lucky, the Autobots could reclaim a reprogrammed youngling and fix him, putting an end to the Decepticon farce and freeing the youngling. If the youngling became too old and his frequencies already established, there was no hope of reprogramming. The youngling wouldn’t remember anything from the day he was captured and reprogrammed, with the forgotten memories coming back slowly, if they came back at all. Scientists theorized that it was the processor’s method of coping, by deliberately corrupting the files that would surely drive the youngling insane.
What would happen next depended on the youngling involved.
However, they were told that the memories tended to come back in a less traumatizing manner if the patient woke up to familiar faces, familiar places. Ideally they would have liked Sam to wake up at the base, waking up to Optimus and Ratchet and Ironhide and Jazz and…
But they would work with what they got. They always did.
It would be a long road ahead, but what mattered was that they would have Sam back.
At her question, she wasn’t sure, but she did feel that Bumblebee was amused. You’re a few clicks away from me, he said.
Well, get your aft over here, Cybertronian! Mikaela said in a mock-condescending tone.
Will do, Earthling, Bumblebee said affectionately, shutting off the communication line. Mikaela could feel him coming as quickly as discretion would allow.
She settled back, and watched the form, silver and black against the rocks and thin layer of snow and ice, both of them sheltered by the wings of the drones.
Hopefully, when he woke up, Sam would be Sam again.
~ Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 ~
Becoming
7
Past
Sonar was having a strange dream.
He was wandering down a long, meandering hall, surrounded by wall after wall of mirrors. The floor was covered in tiles of black and white and red, and the ceiling seemed to swirl with endless shadows. There was a slight breeze, though there was no exit to be seen, and indiscernible whispers pervaded in it, punctuated every so often by soft laughter. No matter how hard Sonar tried tuning into those whispers, they continued to evade him.
He didn’t have his drones with him, which was odd. They had become a part of him ever since Soundwave had created the first one, becoming as natural to him as the implants that trailed his body and the armour he wore. What was stranger was that he didn’t have his mask on; he rarely removed it, and felt naked without it, as if his armour had become very revealing and he was showing too much wire. But without his mask he saw things through visible light and not infrared.
The alien colours that seeped into his vision were bizarre, but strangely comforting.
It was the only source of comfort in this place. The mirrors were seriously creeping him out. They weren’t even mirrors, more like glimpses into…he didn’t know.
The mirrors on his right side showed beings-femmes, mechs, cassettes, and beings alien to both Cyberton and Earth-snarling at their almost-identical images in the other side. They were clad in gold and red, their blue optics ice cold. The images opposite to them mirrored every single one of their movements, but the images on the right were dark and silver copies, their optics glowing a fierce red as they made threatening gestures towards the other side. Still, there was no noise. The glass barricaded all of it, separating it from him, and separated the images from each other.
Normally such a sight would have sent him running out of there. But, of course, this being a dream, he continued onwards, his unease shown only by a passing wish that Soundwave or Ravage were there.
He reached the end of the hall, where the walls, ceiling, and floor tapered off to meet the edges of a single tall mirror in an elegant ebony frame. He neared the end, expecting to see himself there-and was surprised when the being reflecting his every movement was a human.
He was male, well into the age of sexual maturity but not yet a full grown adult, whose brown eyes mirrored Sonar’s own.
He felt very fond of this human, though he didn’t know why, as if he was one of his co-creations. He raised a hand to greet him, the human mirroring his movements, and pressed his palm against the glass. They leaned in towards each other, foreheads meeting, as though if they tried hard enough they could pass through the mirror that separated them.
“Hello,” they said softly. “Do we know each other?”
And they answered each other’s question with: “Why have you forgotten?”
And then he woke up, starting with such force that Ratbat, whose recharge berth he had crawled into, actually squawked and tumbled off the edge, wings askew.
“What was that for?” Ratbat demanded, indignant, climbing back onto the berth.
“Sorry, sorry…” Sonar muttered confusedly, trying to gather his wits. His frequencies behaved erratically, the outgoing signals lacking a distinct rhythm, and he clumsily tried and failed to connect to his drones, something that he did almost unconsciously most days.
Ratbat watched the display impassively, and then made a gesture of exasperation. He signaled to Soundwave that he’d be able to take care of this, and Soundwave’s frequencies hung back. Ratbat knew why; it had been the same with him and Lazerbeak, when they were first brought online, elevated from their disgusting technorganic status through Soundwave’s care. Even if Sonar wasn’t exactly a cassette, he was still theirs, slaggit, and it was vital that he connected well to each of them. Sonar had already connected with Ravage and Frenzy, but his connection to Rumble, Lazerbeak, and Ratbat needed to build more.
“Come here,” he said, gathering the smaller being in his wings. Sonar hesitated, as if considering pulling away, but then relaxed, his drones becoming still. Then, like what all his older co-creations used to do for him (and, Ratbat would never admit, would still sometimes do for him), Ratbat changed his outgoing frequencies, sending a soothing lullaby into Sonar’s mind.
And when Sonar next awoke, he didn’t remember the dream that startled him so. Just as well, Ratbat thought. It couldn’t have been important anyway.
Present
They would have made a strange sight to any passerby, a white femme being followed clumsily by a silver-and-black shaped, who was in turn followed by five winged quadrupeds. But Sonar didn’t really care. It felt good, to be around her.
Her frequencies still felt young, so he guessed that she was about his age, give or take a vorn. She didn’t seem to be very good at controlling them, and he could read them easily like an unlocked data pad. He could tell that she was afraid, and anxious, but determined. He hooked onto her frequencies in what he hoped came across as a comforting manner. He had done it for all the New-cons who came over to the base, connecting him with them and them with each other. She seemed grateful, and again he felt a surge of pity.
In general, Decepticons were models built to be alone, but the New-cons still craved each other’s company. And no matter how many times they divided for the hunt, they would always find a way back to each other, to keep each other warm at night.
They were a unit, in all their dysfunctional glory, which meant that she was unit now too, and that she didn’t have to be alone anymore. He hoped that the femme knew that.
And, for some reason, it felt important that she…she approved of him.
It was a very strange feeling. He had never sought anyone’s approval except Soundwave’s and for those of his co-creations. And yet, here was this femme who he had just met barely a breem ago, and already it was important to him that she didn’t see him as a glitched, bumbling, second-rate technopath.
The snow came down harder now. Sonar could barely see his drones; the normally warm humming of wires and gears and processing chips was overridden by the coldness that permeated their exterior armour. The femme was more easily seen in his viewing screens, but even she was fading against the cold backdrop. He was relying more on frequency pattern than sight, but he was hesitant to make his frequencies reach out more. The drones could still find them.
The femme stopped, and he came up behind her, getting his drones to surround them in an attempt to shelter both of them against the wind. “We should stop for a bit,” the femme suggested, and he realized that she was probably having trouble seeing as well. “Until things lighten up a bit. We can’t see what we’re hunting.”
“Alright,” he said.
“There’s a niche-thing over there,” she gestured, and he’d have to take her word for it. Then she moved again, his drones parting for her, and they followed.
She entered into the crevice first, shaking the snow off her. “Whew,” she said, and he remained silently puzzled as to what the word meant. “Nice to get out of the freezer for a while.”
She settled down as far as she could from the entrance. Sonar hesitated, and then, realizing with incredible slowness that he had an opportunity, settled down beside her. She looked at him, her frequencies feeling inquisitive. “We’ll stay warmer if we’re together,” he said evenly.
“Alright,” she said, leaning closer against him. That felt really good, although Sonar didn’t know why. There was a pause, and then she remarked lightly, “Smooth move.”
He flushed, and then grinned from underneath his mask.
It felt pretty good, lying next to her like this, even in the raging storm. And, even though he had planned to stay awake, he drifted to sleep, the two Ravens on either side of them sheltering them with their wings.
X x X
Now that she had settled down and had time to just think, Mikaela reflected that navigating into the place wasn’t nearly as hard as navigating out. She had weaved in and out of the rocks and jagged peaks, trying to quickly make their way to Bumblebee, but Sam wasn’t helping progress much, going off on time-consuming side-quests. It kind of made Mikaela want to say, “To hell with this,” scoop him up and just go. But to be fair, he was still hunting the pre-programmed drones, and she couldn’t afford to drop her New-con disguise just yet, but still…
And then she had had to make sure that they were not seen by any passing New-cons. Even though Sam seemed to be perfectly accepting of her presence, there would be those that were slightly more street-savvy and would ask pesky questions like: Where the heck did you come from?
They had once tried to save the New-cons. “No being is sparked evil,” Optimus had said. But they were too late, and though she felt guilty about taking Sam only and leaving the others behind to what would certainly be a grim fate, an all-out New-con rescue was out of the question. They were too far in, some already seen on the battlefield next to their mentors, and many already so loyal to Starscream that they already bore the Decepticon insignia. The Autobots had not acted soon enough.
But she was surprised to see how…how happy they seemed. They didn’t seem starved or neglected, and they certainly weren’t cowering lumps of fear. Even some monsters, it seemed, were good to their babies, if only because said babies would grow up to be loyal and unquestioning minions.
But even though she knew that the Decepticons didn’t love these newly-sparked, a strange feeling of familiarity threw her for a loop. At a distance, she saw how the New-cons stalked and hunted the drones, little predators perfecting their hunting techniques. And she remembered, from not-so-long ago, how the New-bots would be in the simulation room with Jazz, at the shooting range with Ironhide, training in a terrain environment with Hound and learning to distinguish illusion from reality…
The nostalgia gave Mikaela a strange, unpleasant feeling, and she pushed it away. There were more important things to think about. Getting out of this stupid, snowy, rocky maze, for one.
The Decepticon base was located deep inside a mountain ridge. The locale certainly went along with the Decepticons’ superiority complex, as they had set up their base where the all would have to look up to see them. She had seen, from a distance, that the base itself was made out of some sort of alien metal, looking like it was made of ice and glass. Sam would have said that it was like the Decepticons were heavily inspired by Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
She’d have to tell him that comparison later, when he was alright again.
She hadn’t recognized him at first, so she had been caught off-guard when he had approached her after she finished off her attacker. He was lightly equipped, his armour made for espionage rather than for battle. His face was hidden from her, underneath a black mask dotted with circular light receptors, three going down vertically on one side and three on the other, filtering the field of view to Sam’s viewing screens.
She knew what lay beneath all that armour-vein upon vein of metal implants, fully integrated into the body underneath, metal veins and organic flesh becoming one. Ratchet never suggested taking them out, and, knowing her mentor, he probably never even considered it. It was just too dangerous.
The scars, both physical and psychological, that Soundwave gave him would stay with Sam long after he left the homicidal ‘Con who kidnapped and brainwashed him in the first place.
She kept reminding herself that underneath it all, he was still Sam. Still a dork, still eager to show off only to fall flat on his face as soon as he started running, still nice and decent and…
And comforting. Even now, his frequencies gently hooked up with hers, as if she was a newly-sparked that needed guidance. He had assumed she was. She had been surprised. None of the Autobots had ever been so…well, she didn’t want to say forward, because that would sound oversensitive, but she couldn’t think of any other word.
It was nice.
But what the hell was it with his “equipment?” Were those “Ravens” (as he called them) seriously miniature purple griffins? Honestly, who the heck thought up that sick shit?
She shook her head. ‘Cons were either real crazy or real bored.
The griffin-drone on her left side hummed, warm and strangely soothing. And then, gradually, its optics faded, and its system seemed to shut down. Its metal started getting colder.
Then she felt Sam slump against her shoulder, and realized that, in true Sam fashion, he had fallen asleep when he shouldn’t have had.
She had to take advantage of this situation.
Carefully, moving so that she wouldn’t rouse him, she took off his mask.
She froze when she saw, up close, exactly what Soundwave had done. If she had been physically human, she would have felt like throwing up. His face…he barely looked like the Sam she remembered. The metal implants tracked across his face, some as thick as her wires and others as fine as thread, tracking over his lips and cheeks and into the sockets of his eyes…
Mikaela shook her head sharply. He’s still Sam. That’s all that matters. She looked at his temples, and, to her surprise, there was already a halo in place. Soundwave must have put it there as a method of control.
Gently, very gently, she replaced his halo with the one that Blaster had made. The halo quickly integrated with his implants. Unlike the other one, this one was custom-made and password-locked, and it wouldn’t come off without that password, which pretty much consisted of a distinct frequency pattern that only Blaster knew.
She had a brief moment of regret that she hadn’t learned as much about technopathy as she could before this incident. It was certainly a fascinating subject; the psychology of a Cybertronian was almost as interesting as the physiology. She berated herself for her ignorance, but in her eagerness to reclaim Sam…
She shrugged it off. There would be time for such things.
After making sure that Sam was still out of it-he was still the same heavy sleeper, thank goodness-Mikaela connected her frequencies with Bumblebee’s. He’s asleep, Mikaela privately. Are we close enough?
Almost. We’re out of the Decepticon scanning area, so you won’t have to worry about your frequencies getting picked up anymore. Blaster’s protection can start just a breem or so of walking distance ahead.
Mikaela closed her optics, leaning back. So close, so very, very close…
Are we close enough to you? she asked after a moment of silence. You know what Ratchet said…about re-memorizing and all that…
Ratchet was one of the many Autobots to neither openly oppose nor support their opinions about “Sonar.” However, he had been telling Mikaela (in passing, of course, and always relevant to the lesson of-the-day), some things about reprogramming. Sometimes he and Ironhide would be having conversations about the subject, and either Mikaela or Bumblebee would be close enough to overhear it. Regardless of where Ratchet and Ironhide stood on the subject, Mikaela was grateful for the information.
Among other, pessimistic viewpoints, they had learned that sometimes, if they were very, very lucky, the Autobots could reclaim a reprogrammed youngling and fix him, putting an end to the Decepticon farce and freeing the youngling. If the youngling became too old and his frequencies already established, there was no hope of reprogramming. The youngling wouldn’t remember anything from the day he was captured and reprogrammed, with the forgotten memories coming back slowly, if they came back at all. Scientists theorized that it was the processor’s method of coping, by deliberately corrupting the files that would surely drive the youngling insane.
What would happen next depended on the youngling involved.
However, they were told that the memories tended to come back in a less traumatizing manner if the patient woke up to familiar faces, familiar places. Ideally they would have liked Sam to wake up at the base, waking up to Optimus and Ratchet and Ironhide and Jazz and…
But they would work with what they got. They always did.
It would be a long road ahead, but what mattered was that they would have Sam back.
At her question, she wasn’t sure, but she did feel that Bumblebee was amused. You’re a few clicks away from me, he said.
Well, get your aft over here, Cybertronian! Mikaela said in a mock-condescending tone.
Will do, Earthling, Bumblebee said affectionately, shutting off the communication line. Mikaela could feel him coming as quickly as discretion would allow.
She settled back, and watched the form, silver and black against the rocks and thin layer of snow and ice, both of them sheltered by the wings of the drones.
Hopefully, when he woke up, Sam would be Sam again.
~ Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 ~