Chapter Text
Shockwave tilted his helm. “So. This is what has you so distracted.”
“Jeeezus,” said one of the hominids, looking up, and up. Shockwave was a fairly large mech, and his appearance was, admittedly, somewhat unusual.
His hands full of humans, Perceptor dripped on the floorplates. Had he actually forgotten to codelock the front doorway? It appeared he had.
Oh dear. Perceptor hurried to put all his humans back in their little cage, and almost tripped over the disassembled parts of the metal printer for his trouble. “Oh, I -- do come in, Shockwave. I was just....” he could not for the spark of him recall what he’d been about to do. The humans protested as their tank came into view; the Trent human rapped its little fists against his fingers vigorously.
“This is neither the time nor the place for shenanigans of any sort!” Perceptor hissed, depositing the organics with care into their cage, and keying the repulsion field that covered it. He wheeled to face Shockwave’s unforgiving bulk. He started to speak, paused, and reset his vocalizer. “Would you care for a seat?”
“No.” Shockwave surveyed the small room, single magnificent optic seeming to study absolutely everything, taking the full measure of Perceptor’s predicament. “These organics appear to have distracted you.”
“Not so,” Perceptor protested, despite his sinking sensation. “I have been accomplishing a great deal of theoretical and computational work while engaging with the humans.”
“Theoretical. Hn.” Shockwave clasped his hands behind his back, considering for a long, long moment. “Advanced evasion behaviors.”
Perceptor blinked. He most certainly wasn’t using the humans to evade his duties in the laboratory! At least, he didn’t believe he was. But what if he was wrong? “Shockwave, I am perfectly capable of directing my own laboratory in the manner I see fit, so if you--”
“Not you. The creatures.”
That sinking sensation had become a block of cast iron in the pit of Perceptor’s spark. He couldn’t stop himself from turning. Oh Primus. They’d used the steel pin from earlier to interrupt the containment field again, and had all climbed out. The Trent human was already rappelling down to the floor on the string of tied-together polishing cloths.
Perceptor straightened himself deliberately. “I hypothesize... that they are built for that function. Among others,” he said bravely.
Shockwave stared at him. Then, abruptly, he turned away and began to pace, deep in calculations. Perceptor tamped down the sudden nauseous convulsion of his fuel tanks. Shockwave was of the same rank as Perceptor, to be sure. Both headed very large, very successful laboratories. Both were celebrated in their fields. But Shockwave, Perceptor was all too aware, hadn’t confined himself to his workbench all these vorn. He had allies, connections -- most particularly among the military. Instead of letting his credits all pile up, as Perceptor had, he’d used his income to barter influence. And, while a dear colleague, Shockwave could also be overbearingly meddlesome. If he believed that Perceptor was truly better off without his small hominids....
“So what’s this one’s name?” piped the Sam-human, climbing over his pedes, as brave as a hatchling.
Perceptor blinked down. “Shockwave,” he said, glancing back to where the taller scientist paced in agitation across the small room. He switched to the hominids’ language. “It means.... Radiating Electric Ripple, Which Influences Minds and Turns Them Towards Truth, Knowledge, and Discovery, Despite Possible Shock and Resistance.”
Just as they had with his name, the humans seemed inclined to shorten this one. “Truth ripple?” asked Sam, aghast.
“Hm. A poor translation, I fear. The magnitude is greater than a ripple, perhaps. A wave? But the italicization is on the surprise and dismay that new theorems often entail, and on the irresistible act of sweeping away closely held, but false, beliefs.”
“Aftershock? Or shockwave?” said the Trent-human, shrugging. Then added, “I don’t even see why it’s gotta have a name.”
“Or Tsunami!” said Miles, trotting over to join the other two.
Trent snorted in disdain. “Dude. It look Japanese to you?”
“Well, he is sorta lilac....”
“What, so lilac is Japanese, now?”
“Don’t think even the Japanese would have built a giant eyeball robot. Girly colors or no girly colors.”
“Hey, he’s not that girly!”
“Bunny ears are pretty girly. And you gotta admit, this thing’s got....”
Oh dear. Perceptor was suddenly very glad he hadn’t yet shared the humans’ language file with Shockwave. “Small hominids!” Perceptor hissed. “Please refrain from drawing any objectifying or gendertyping comparisons! Those statements are highly inaccurate, especially the reference to the Leporidae family.”
“Lep-what?” His humans eyed him. “Dude,” whispered the Miles-human, patting the side of Perceptor’s pede, as if in sympathy. “That is seriously weird.”
Shockwave came to a halt before Perceptor. The purple scientist studied him for a moment, and then regarded each of the small organics in turn, causing them to warily shrink back behind Perceptor’s pedes. “Organic studies is a sufficiently well-regarded field of inquiry,” he allowed at last. “However, your absence from the laboratory remains problematic --”
Perceptor slumped a little in relief. “Well now, I do intend...”
“--therefore, I will have the drones prepare quarters and laboratory space in my tower.” Shockwave studied Perceptor’s expression. “The location contains adequate space for both housing and studying your organics. And transport to your physics facilities will take only 1.2 kliks longer than traveling from here. These are the access codes, directions, drone directive codes, chemical stores inventory, equipment list, the....”
Perceptor nearly fumbled the file transfer, scattering bits in his startlement. “Shockwave, I have been to your -- I don’t need directions -- wait, please. *What*?"
Shockwave fixed him with an intense gaze. “It is the only logical solution. Your organics would deactivate in the smallest accident, if stored at your physics laboratory. And this is not a suitable space for study.” Shockwave turned his helm to critically examine the three little organics, who had turned to poking through the remains of their risky game using long trillythium rods. “My facility, on the other hand, is quite large and fully stocked. I will have one of the private wetwork laboratories prepared. All its work surfaces are seven-alpha-crosslinked metalmesh, very suitable for organics, and very easy to clean. I project that you will find this useful; the internals of organics are typically even more damp and odorous than their externals.”
Alarmed, Perceptor turned several of his optics on the humans. No, they had not purged their fuel or waste tanks; neither were they exerting themselves enough to activate their wasteful evaporation cooling systems. He had just cleaned, them, quite thoroughly, in fact. Shockwave must not have had the company of many organics if he already thought their current state displeasing. But to be talking about their insides... “You are referring to dissection?”
Some of his dismay must have shown in Perceptor’s field, because the other scientist tilted his head curiously. “You do plan on committing to a second branch of study centering around this species of organics, do you not?”
Perceptor hastily vocalized a glyph of affirmation. “Certainly. But... dissection? Shockwave, I do not intend to dissect any of them. Of course I will study them, but dissection is not necessary. My interests lay mainly in their social interactions, both between themselves and with mecha. And... I am considering returning them to their native environment.” Perceptor looked up quickly, steeling himself before his field could show his conflicted state. “As a further experiment in their psychology.”
Shockwave tilted his helm a little, optic flickering as he switched between spectral layers. “Very well. Nevertheless, there is sufficient space to set up a wet-environment workspace should you change your mind. At what point in your inquiry do you wish to return them to their planet?”
“I... do not know,” admitted Perceptor, feeling very much as if he’d lost control of this whole situation. Control, he reflected, had probably been a hopeless cause ever since the humans arrived. “I have not yet formulated my experimental methodology.”
“A small transport vessel can be commissioned when you need it, however --” Shockwave considered. “--such vessels typically lack sufficient scientific equipment. You may wish to consider waiting to join a larger scientific mobilization. A colleague at the Vosian sciences academe recently confided that he was dismayed by the recall of several of the mobile scientific crews on Arquitex. Transporting one of the large aegis-mecha, like Oceanus, and all his distillers, is no minor matter. I know of only one recently-discovered world with significant aqueous seas and resources worth the trouble of occupying.”
Perceptor thought that over. “How soon do you anticipate that Vos will move?”
“Within the decivorn. Perhaps even within the next fifty orn.”
Two to eight years, by the humans’ reckoning. It was little more than the flicker of an optic. Vos must want a slice of the trade on Earth very badly, indeed. A transport large enough to move one of those aquatic mecha -- vast scientific platforms, all on their own -- would have to pass very near Cybertron, as no other space bridges were large enough for such vessels. It wouldn’t be difficult to wheedle a place aboard such a ship...
Perceptor looked down to his humans. The Miles one had taken it upon himself to inspect Perceptor’s pede more closely, examining his plating up to the knee joint for signs of abrasion. The Trent-human had placed Sam in a ‘headlock’, as retribution for some imagined slight. Exotic planets were hazardous places, even for fierce little organics. But Miles and the rest would live another only half a vorn, or perhaps a little more -- Perceptor could certainly take that much dedicated leave. If he could stay with them.... “That seems as if that would meet my experimental requirements quite adequately,” Perceptor found himself saying, before he could dwell upon that last thought too long.
“Very well.” Shockwave nodded. “I shall see that a driller undergoes final modifications and is prepared for the journey.”
Perceptor cycled all his optics. “*What*?”
“A driller would provide both rapid transport, and protection against hostile native species or inclement conditions.”
Perceptor rubbed at his helm. “The most dangerous natives are these humans. The planet has extensive road remnants. And you can’t... what would it consume? Shockwave, this is an organic planet. How would I even get it there?”
“Thus the modifications. Earth’s projected ore and mineral deposits can sustain a small specimen.” Shockwave paused. “I can commission an additional space vessel to transport it there. Additionally, I am eager to test the beast’s suitability as a common transport mount.”
Primus below. What mad mech would willingly climb aboard a *driller*, especially one only partially controlled by Shockwave’s system of prods and circuits? But -- “You... you wish to accompany us?” Perceptor asked, startled.
“It seems only logical, especially if you plan to set our joint ventures aside for a half-vorn in order to pursue this new course of study,” Shockwave said, unfazed.
“I’m honored, Shockwave, but surely--your other projects, they--”
“Additionally, I find myself curious as to how mechanoid life forms might adapt their forms to an entirely organic world. Mimicry would be difficult at best, and static structures are unsuitable. It would be interesting to devise an experiment series to determine if Cybertronian life forms would be able to pass undetected in such a world. Perhaps through the evolution of a pseudo-organic exterior shell? It will require test subjects, of course, but transporting a few glitchmice, as well as a selection of other cyberfauna, should be easy to arrange.”
“I--” It was obvious Shockwave would not be dissuaded, though such an impulsive decision was unusual, given Shockwave’s usual methodical approach to such things. Had the other mech also been intrigued by the humans? Or were there other reasons behind Shockwave’s sudden desire to journey beyond the confines of his lab? “I ... would welcome your assistance,” Perceptor finally said, setting his questions aside--for now. Then, hearkening back to Soundwave’s original proposal, added firmly, “but no drillers.”
Shockwave’s field reflected his disappointment. “Perhaps a stasis-locked immature endospore--”
“No drillers, whether immature or adult, active or spore. None. Zero.” Perceptor’s tone left no room for argument, his field unyielding.
Shockwave’s single optic regarded the smaller mech. Then he inclined his helm. “--as you prefer. I still believe, however, that we should take precautions. Alien worlds can be lethally unpredictable.”
Perceptor vented. “Very well. Reasonable precautions do seem justified, if not entirely warranted. But they must be *reasonable*,” he stressed.
Shockwave nodded, though it seemed more an expression of thoughtfulness than proper agreement. He considered his left hand, seven fingers flexing. “Certain chassis modifications could be in order. Additional weaponry, perhaps.”
Perceptor relaxed a little. Chassis mods certainly weren’t too extreme -- for the most part. An internal multi-purpose laser, which could also be deployed as a small weapon, might be quite useful. A scientist could not support large ones, given the power-consumptive assay equipment already lodged in his limbs, but then, they hardly needed powerful weapons on this little planet. Perceptor looked over his three small, wiggly, slippery charges, and realized that there was, however, something he needed more than a laser. “Now that you mention it, Shockwave, there is one modification which I could use.”
“Oh?” The purple scientist asked.
“I need to have an extra pair of arms installed.”
Shockwave inclined his helm in a solemn nod. “I’ll comm the medics. What kind would you like?”
------------
"I haven't given them a nanoklik of even tertiary processing, with the rust plague on Chaar and the outbreak of code-resistant scraplets in the Stillax quadrant." Ratchet snapped. Frag it, First Aid had been showing so much potential, too, but was proving to be thoroughly distractible by minutia during his Towers residency, and far too controlled by his emotion centers. "First Aid, they are a fad that will be out of fashion in twenty vorn. Likely less. So long as the Towerlings don't get them stuck in their internals like they used to with those fragging stim beatles -- why any mech would want a technorganic parasite crawling all through his conduits is beyond my ability to process -- I could care less what sort of perversions they practice."
First Aid compressed his armor even more tightly. "Stim beetles couldn't communicate above basic binary."
"And you are saying these organics are something different?"
"Yes! Yes, Ratchet. They are capable of complex, intuitive thought. They exhibit compassion, commitment, higher level social interactions -- Ratchet, I saw a chronicler cohort practically courting one, its mannerisms were so familiar and compelling to the carrier's coding. Their intelligence puts them in a completely different category than a stim beetle, or anything we've imported from organic or technorganic worlds. And they are being used as interface toys against their will."
Ratchet paused, grumbling and blurting a comm-command to his terminal to call up and forward some of the relevant data. He finished scanning and integrating the summary in a few nanokliks. "Well, they are a higher order organic species, but it appears the legal agreements for their indentured status are all in order. They *volunteered* for this, First Aid, in exchange for fuel, shelter, and a function for themselves along with economic aid for those back on their homeworld. Incidentally, it appears they had doomed themselves to extinction, and that these trade compacts have saved them from that fate."
"Do *volunteers* extinguish themselves in despair over repeatedly being raped in captivity?" First Aid countered, his field flaring and clashing briefly with his mentor's own before he controlled himself and pulled it appropriately tight.
"Unsparked beings do not extinguish, First Aid, they die, and they do so all the time while replicating themselves even faster. You are cybertromorphosizing them, and assigning feelings and motivations that are beyond them."
"Ratchet, have you ever even met a higher level organic?" First Aid said softly, not daring to reach out with the sad interference patterns that were rippling through his electromagnetics. Not when Ratchet had, time and again, made it so clear that First Aid’s overclocked empathy was more often a weakness than a strength.
"When would I have time to? I'm up to my chevron in the medical issues of the empire. Real medical issues, First Aid. The psychological health of interface novelties, no matter how well the creatures can copy a mech’s behavior, are not high on that list."
First Aid shuttered his optics briefly. “If I bring one to you, will you meet with it? Look at it, at the very least?”
Ratchet shuttered his optics and rubbed his chevron. First Aid had been an unquestionably good student, self-possessed, impeccable in every way. It would be a loss to them all, if the young medic continued down this obsessive path. “Very well. But only if, once I examine it, you abandon these ridiculous notions.” Ratchet pinged his staffing control, sorted through a few files. “There is an open position on the millitary base of Termis 3. I will have you transferred there to complete your residency.”
First Aid hesitated. The holding was a distant one, the planet thoroughly irradiated by a dying sun. It was no place at all for soft-bodied organics. “You will interact with one of the humans, first?”
Ratchet ground his gears in irritation. “I will.”
“Then... yes. Agreed.”
---------------
In just a few short orn, Perceptor and the humans arranged one of the large laboratories in Shockwave’s manor very much to the organics’ liking.
An expanse of soft metalmesh rug had become a miniature gambado pitch of sorts, where all three often raced and sported. A mid-sized storage cube, hardly a mechanometer in every dimension, became their preferred resting place. The humans insisted upon an opaque one, citing a need for ‘privacy’ - a bunker, according to them. It was a place to retreat to, where they considered themselves unobserved by mecha. The cube blocked some wavelengths of light, but did nothing to prevent most scanning, a fact which Perceptor had not yet found the spark to tell them. They’d been so pleased with the simple thing...
The humans were pleased with other things, as well. They seemed to enjoy the small pede guards, which Perceptor had managed to synthesize with some trial and error. They employed the devices with relish, treating bits of scrap or some of the hatchling playthings as crude balls of sorts, which they threw or kicked between one another.
But they loved -- adored, even hoarded -- a handful of the hatchling playthings most of all.
Hatchling toys were hardly machines at all. They were all very simple, and usually coded to prevent newsparks from inadvertently incorporating them. Some used tiny, crude engines to harness the electromagnetic field of Cybertron and move about on simple wheels. Others produced a steady current when exposed to light, or created interesting datascapes when initialised in the correct sequence, or projected softlight hologram games that tested a hatchling’s dexterity.
The humans seemed to care little for this last kind of sparkling devices, which they could not trigger, and treated the playthings as seats, or used them to prop up other objects. But the perpetual motion engines, solar panels, cold fusion canisters, constant light emitters -- these, they promptly stashed away as avidly as a lileth bird might hide a shiny object.
In addition to the bunker, the humans had rebuilt their original habitation cube, too, so that they could come and go as they pleased. They insisted on having two sources of water -- a cold one to drink from, and a body-temperature one to shower in. They fashioned tiny suits of armor for themselves out of carefully-stitched microfiber, and wore the leg sections almost all the time. And, after much work, they even assembled musical instruments of a sort, on which they seemed to enjoy banging and plucking in odd little discordant rhythms.
Perceptor soon grew grateful indeed that he had separate recharging chambers.
With plenty of playthings and activities, all three of the humans developed significantly happier, calmer demeanors -- even the Trent human, to some extent.
It was only then that Perceptor had felt it prudent to leave them to their own devices long enough to undergo the surgery for the secondary pair of arms. Of course, Shockwave had offered to visit them several times an orn, and they were constantly being monitored by surveillance cameras, drones and lab assistants, but Perceptor liked to think that they had formed a special attachment to him.
He was curious as to how they would receive him, seeing that he had been away for nearly two orn. He had done a full shift at his physics laboratory, spent his down-time getting the necessary frame modifications, and then done another shift so that Shockwave had no reason to intimate he was neglecting one branch of study in favor of the other.
It was high time that he checked up on his humans.
Perceptor entered the laboratory containing the hominids, taking care for how the shift in his primary arm placement had changed his action radius.
His shoulder assemblies had been retooled to contain second sockets, including the tensor cables and the fuel lines necessary to support another arm on each side. The primary joints had needed to be shifted forward a bit to make way for the secondary ones, placed slightly lower and towards his back. His entire torso had been thickened with additional support struts so that the new pair of arms would be able to lift nearly the same amount of weight as the old one, reaching a combined load of nearly 1.7 times his current maximum. He was very satisfied with that outcome.
The only negative was that the arm assemblies themselves had not been mounted yet. The strut-deep modifications of his frame had to settle first for an orn or two before any stress could be placed on the welds, and so his equilibrium was a bit out of focus. Not only because of the gravimetric imbalance due to the shift in mass center, but also because of additional programming.
The code for his new appendages was already nestled in his motion cortex, just waiting to unfold fully as soon as he had the necessary hardware. It was uncomfortable to have an unopened package like that in his processors, a constant reminder that there was something off, something awaiting his attention.
Thankfully, it would not take long until the second half of the surgery. It was highly aggravating to be so disbalanced -- Perceptor very nearly tripped over one of the hatchling toys the humans had left scattered about on the floor of the laboratory.
A cursory visual scan for the small hominids revealed nothing. Had he arrived during one of their startlingly frequent down-times? They recharged several times an orn, so they might have withdrawn to rest. And indeed, upon adjusting the wavelength of his scans to include infrared, he discovered that they were clustered together in their favorite recharge spot. Their elevated heart-rate showed they weren’t recharging; however, they didn’t seem to have noticed him enter the room, either.
“Greetings, directed unto Trent-Sam-Miles,” he vocalized, in an attempt to draw the humans out of their bunker.
A few nanokliks later, Perceptor could hear rustling coming from the unit. “Hi! Good morning!” warbled the Miles-human, from within the bunker. The Sam human poked his helm out first, blinking, rubbing at his wet little optics. The Trent human barreled his way out behind. “Outta the way, asshat,” he said, pushing at Sam’s shoulder in a way that, Perceptor hypothesised, indicated both dominance and a rough kind of affection. But, in his own way, Trent seemed pleased to see Perceptor as well. “Where the hell you bee....”
Upon spotting him, the organics abruptly aborted their reciprocating greetings and stared up at Perceptor with opened fuel intakes. The Trent human was the first to recover, shaking his head, olfactory unit wrinkled. “The universal constant of geek-dom: hunchbacks.”
“Oh my God, Percy! What happened to your arms - back - shoulders?”
“They are essentially unchanged, Miles,” Perceptor stated, a little confused. The humans were so often confounding -- truly a delight, because it meant there were always new things to learn about them. “Their positioning has been altered slightly for optimal load-bearing efficiency, and in order to align the strut triangulation for the new pair.”
“The new pair of *what?*”
“Oh, fuck, there are holes in him. Right there in the side!” The Trent human had circled to Perceptor’s left, apparently for the purpose of gaping at the new attachment sockets. “He looks like he was fucking mauled by a bear!”
Sam looked up, biting his lip in concern. “Did you get in a fight?”
"Of course not. I am not a warframe scientist. I have neither the build nor the coding for such proclivities. I spar with hypotheses and data. Not, mind, that my armor or defensive capabilities are in any manner substandard, small hominids," Perceptor added. Perceptor’s and Shockwave’s laboratories jointly produced new prototype armor materials every few vorn, some of which Perceptor later integrated into his own plating. For experimental purposes, of course. "I am certain even your now-extinct Ursus spelaeus or Ursus maritimus would be capable of inflicting only very minor damage that the three of you could buff away in just a few bream. And as to your aforementioned inquiry, my frame has been modified to have a second set of arms installed, in order to more capably convey the three of you in jeopardous circumstances, such as when members of the Ursidae family are present."
The humans’ optics shuttered several times to signal that their slow wet-ware processors were busy parsing his sentence. Language buffer overflow. Perceptor was used to that reaction by now; that was why he tried to keep to short and concise statements. Every now and then he forgot himself, though. After all, the humans had no trouble following longer monologues in real-time when conversing amongst each other. He was still busy determining the reason for that dichotomy. He was already trying to articulate himself in the manner usually reserved for sparklings with their literal and inexperienced processors -- very high precision in glyph and statement choice, so that the conversion to machine-level understanding had to deal with as few ambiguities as possible. What else could he do to simplify his speech?
Finally Sam completed his parsing process. “You are getting another pair of arms so that you can *babysit* us better?”
"Your language is astonishingly imprecise. I fail to comprehend how you care for your infant offspring by sitting upon them, considering the size difference and the lack of an exoskeleton in your spawn. Perhaps you refer in a metaphorical sense to those species that sit upon embryo incubation vessels in order to keep them warm and protected. But if you mean to better protect and care for you, then, yes."
The organics exchanged glances, a way of silent communication Perceptor had already flagged for further study. They seemed to understand one another without wireless contact or even a meshing of fields.
The Trent human scrunched up his face and stomped off, while Sam smiled weakly up at Perceptor. “Ok. We get it. Just... please don’t grow any more, ok?”
Miles nodded emphatically. “Yeah, another pair, and there’s no way we can call you anything but Bugzilla.”
-----------
"Either of you dickwads ever do any hard stuff? I mean, more than just a joint at a party." Trent sounded unusually thoughtful as he posed the question into the darkness of their bunker cube. "Not that you two ever got invited to parties," he added as an afterthought.
"Nope," Sam said quickly.
"I had this aunt who did shrooms, and I tried them once. I became a psychedelic mermaid with hentai-size tits and got screwed by these octopus creatures," Miles admitted easily.
"You know, Miles, as much as I already fucking know about you, I didn't need to know that," Trent said, smacking Miles in the head, making him yelp. "I'm talking dope or meth or oxycots. Shit like that," he added.
"Why you ask?" Sam
"I think we're addicted to the fuckers. I go as long as I can without it, and it's like the worst fucking shakes ever. Feel like my skeleton is trying to crawl out of my skin."
A kind of near-silence settled over the cube, the sound of three very-much awake young men blending with the odd electronic noises of Shockwave's tower.
"I'm going to fucking quit," Trent announced after several minutes. "Not gonna be some fucking alien junkie. Either of you joining me?"
"Maybe," Sam said quietly, knowing that he probably wouldn’t.
"I'm not giving it up," Miles added. "It's way better than being a mermaid."
"Yeah, I didn't think you would," Trent said bitterly.
"But I'll help you, dude. Whatever you need. Okay?" Miles added earnestly.
"Whatever. Go the fuck to sleep."