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The public branch of the Iacon Hall of Records is surprisingly popular at midsol— certainly not as raucous as the crowds that pack themselves into the gladiatorial arenas of the Pits, but still more than expected of a library, a steady stream of patrons filing in and out. Not that Soundwave would know, not really, given that he had never visited before today. Perhaps this level of activity is common.
None entering nor exiting bat an optic at the sight of a gladiator entering those hallowed halls, thanks to the holographic disguise he currently dons, projecting the appearance of a boxy blue mech with a yellow visor and a closed silver mask obscuring where the lower faceplate would be. For all his technical prowess, holographic or otherwise, Shockwave couldn’t be bothered to model a convincing faceplate worth a shanix. All his disguise mods had faceplate coverings of some kind. Which could be problematic if ever someone wearing one was forced to retract it and could reveal only a blank void of pixels beneath, but at that point their mission was probably moot anyways.
Completing the disguise is a counterfeit ID chip declaring him to be a midcaste security guard on his sol off— which turns out to be pointless when the guard seated just inside the door just glances at him and waves him right through. Beneath the hologram, Laserbeak, currently recessed within his chassis, trills a soft laugh only he can hear.
It takes conscious effort not to be dazzled as he steps through the doors. He knows, factually, that this is only the portion of the Hall open to the public, that it represents only a small fraction of the whole, but that does not prepare him for the sheer number of datapads before him, arranged on tiered rings that stretch twelve, nay, thirteen floors above his helm. A soft peck from his companion reminds him of the mission at hand:
Locate Orion Pax.
The clerk’s ability to join them for meetings and rallies in-person was rarely ever consistent, but to be absent for over three chords was unusual even for him. He still called in to report any pertinent news from the capital, but his calls had grown shorter and more infrequent, his appearance visibly more haggard. When pressed, all he would say was that that his work was growing busier, forcing him to take on more duties. Soundwave recalls how Megatronus’ growing agitation and impatience had given way to naked concern as he recounted how more than once the librarian had fallen asleep on comm during their nightly calls.
He had not asked Soundwave to check on him. Not even a subtle hint in that direction. Yet somehow, here he is, entering the bot’s workplace to spy on him and try to find the reason for his absence. In part because, yes, he strongly suspects Pax may be compromised, but more than that, he cares for Megatronus’ well-being. And as little as he may like it, the scrawny librarian is a significant part of that, now.
Starscream had once made some crude but accurate allegory, whilst tipsy on high-grade, of course, because he never got his better ideas while sober: each of them personified as a direct extension of Megatronus’ will. He labeled himself the mouth, the one capable and willing (a little too willing) to take their leader’s message and reshape it to be more accessible to as many mechs as possible. Shockwave as the optics (or optic, he’d corrected, and you could tell he was really proud of that one), gazing steadily towards the future and devising means to most expeditiously reach it. Soundwave as the audials, of course.
What about Orion? Some tipsy grunt had shouted, and Starscream had just sneered. But he knew. All three of them knew. All of Kaon knew. The only one to not know was, perhaps, Megatronus himself.
And so, for the sake of his leader’s very spark, he reluctantly sets about his task.
The schedule he’d acquired through dubious means indicated that Orion would be in the public library building all day— hence why he’d picked this sol, as breaking into the Hall proper would have been far more difficult on such short notice. It doesn’t take very long to find him, his blue-and-red paint job painfully bright and optic-catching even among his equally garish brethren. The lanky archivist is stood rigidly by one of the tables on the ground floor, holding a stack of datapads, directly beside a harried-looking scholar typing furiously away at the console.
Soundwave tries to ping him, only to receive an error message that it hadn’t gone through. Perplexed, he tries again. Nothing. The error message on his HUD insists there is no one there. It’s as if he'd tried to ping an inanimate object.
A feeling of dread begins to settle low and heavy in his tank.
The scholar turns and says something to the clerk. Orion suddenly moves, setting down the pads and pivoting on his heel to walk into the stacks. Soundwave enters the rows of shelving nearest to him and begins moving in that direction. Perhaps direct contact would be a better approach.
He finds Orion taking several heavy-looking pads from a high shelf. He walks past him, intentionally bumping his shoulder pauldron as he passes. No response. Frustrated, he goes right up to him, pushing him roughly against the shelf to try and get his attention. “Pax”, he growls out, in Megatronus’s voice, allowing the holographic disguise to flicker for just a nanoklik.
And Orion…Orion just stares blankly, showing no signs of recognition on his faceplate. His legs are still trying to move, attempting to walk forward, as if he didn’t even register there was someone pinning him. As if…as if he didn’t see Soundwave there at all, fixated wholly on his duties and capable of nothing more.
Like a drone.
“Pax?” Soundwave hears the voice of the snooty-looking researcher call out, impatiently, sounding very close by, and flees.
Kliks later, after petting Laserbeak for a bit to calm himself down, he approaches the front desk. The one bot seated there, a slim orange bot with two-wheeler kibble, glances at him with thinly-veiled irritation. “Yes?”
“I want to speak to one of your clerks regarding a translation.” He says, using Starscream’s voice, as he finds it yields the best results when speaking to (read: terrorizing) civilian workers. It helps that Starscream talks so damn much that Soundwave can easily splice together his voice with minimal cracks. “Orion Pax. He should be working in this building today.”
The other librarian glances down at their console. “Can’t help you there, bot, he’s been checked out for the sol. But if you’re here to do research, I can find you another automated assistant with similar language packs.”
“… Very well.”
The two-wheeler, whose ID badge spells out Flask in formal Iaconian (translated using a language patch Orion himself had helped procure), leads Soundwave towards a section of wall not too far from the entrance. Lining the wall are about two dozen niches, about half of which hold bots. All of them standing, all of their optics open, but showing no sign of awareness or sapience, just like with Orion. Beside each niche is a small wall-mounted touch screen. Flask goes down the line one by one, tapping a few times on each screen, muttering to himself, and then moving to the next. Soundwave glances at a few as they go by; each seems to hold a basic profile of the nested mech’s archival skills.
Halfway down the row, Flask curses as he finds a mech laying crumpled in a heap in front of a niche. “Fraggin’…just how lazy can some people be?” He mutters, hefting up the other mech, but he doesn’t seem to be talking about them. He pulls them up and shoves them into the nearest wall cradle, muttering to himself about careless patrons.
Finally, he seems to find what he’s looking for, stopping in front of a purple-plated submersible. “Alright, you look new here, so let me just go over the rules for you real quick. You’ll have the standard forty exabytes of data storage, no more, no less. Any hacking attempts WILL be penalized. You can dictate notes, get essay and thesis writing help, synthesize texts, download files, et cetera. Just be mindful that you’ll have to transfer everything to a personal drive before you leave library premises. You may NOT check one out of the Archives unless you are a level Theta researcher or higher…”
Soundwave filters out the rest, his entire frame numb with anger. He can feel Laserbeak trembling, and diverts his focus to soothing her instead.
After assuring the librarian very firmly that no, he will not be needing an assistant for the sol, he takes some time just to wander, taking full advantage of his disguise to explore the stacks. While many of the available tomes have scans available on the Grid, a good number of others do not, and he takes note of several titles to request Orion to borrow whenever the other is off from work. As he explores, he notices more of the assistants, some following around scholars and students as Orion had been; others, he sees left standing by empty desks, seemingly for hours, strewn carelessly alongside piles of datapads their patrons also hadn’t bothered to properly put back.
At the very least, he thinks, watching from afar as a student uses an automated assistant as a footstool to reach a tall shelf, Megatronus would be pleased to know his precious Orion wasn’t being harmed, not in the traditional sense. He wouldn’t be pleased to know the rest.
As if having read his processor, Megatronus chooses that exact moment to comm him.
::Soundwave. Where are you?::
::Iacon Hall of Records.::
A pause, and then, sounding almost hesitant, ::Is he… alright?::
Soundwave glances over the balcony of the tier he’s on to look down at where Pax is still standing with his stack of datapads, reciting an essay. ::Fine. Alive. Very busy.::
::Good::, Megatronus responds. He sounds tired, strained, but the relief in his tone is palpable. ::That is very good to hear, Soundwave.::
::Matches today: difficult?::
::Not difficult, merely excessive. A new strain of malware has swept the barracks. I have had four matches thus far, with six left to go.::
Not for the first time is he grateful that both he and Megatronus had moved out of the barracks beneath the arena long ago. ::If I return now, I can serve as your second for the latter half.::
::No need, my friend. Enjoy your sol off. Starscream may be an irritating crankshaft, but he can wield a welder just fine.:: A groan and a hiss. ::Though I may need you to dislocate and reset my arm in the correct position upon your return. Starscream, you oaf. ::
::Very well,:: he says, not hiding his amusement.
::Delighting in my suffering, I see. I have such loyal companions.:: His oldest friend says, dryly. ::I will see you later this sol. And, Soundwave…:: His voice sounds strained once again, though not with pain this time, but a hurting of an entirely different kind. ::...Tell Orion I look forward to the sol he returns to his place by my side.::
Slag. ::I will.::
::Thank you.::
He closes the commlink and once again glances down, only to see both the scholar and Orion are gone. A quick glance at the pilfered schedule indicates the clerk’s shift is very nearly over. Good, he thinks, using his thrusters to lower himself to the ground floor when no one is looking. He can deliver Megatronus’ sappy well-wishes and get out.
Only, when he checks, Orion has not been returned to one of the wall niches. The sound of a familiar raised voice draws his attention to the front desk, where he sees the scholar arguing with Flask.
“Esteemed patron, I understand, but unless you have Theta clearance or higher, you cannot take a—”
“And I keep telling you, my work is simply too important not to finish! I guarantee you, I will return this assistant within the decacycle, in perfect condition.”
“If you could just return two sols from now—”
“I will not be in Iacon at that time. If you could just—”
They continue to argue, back and forth, throwing the same points back at each other. All the while Orion just stands there, expression blank, seemingly completely unaware of anything happening in his vicinity.
The scholar seems to grow impatient, bodily shoving Flask aside and attempting to leave the building with Orion in tow. Soundwave starts to move in their direction, when suddenly, to his shock, a small mech whose presence neither his own sensors nor Laserbeak had alerted him to slips past him and scurries towards the pair, timing it perfectly so that they “accidentally” collide with Orion as they do so. Soundwave sees a flash of something shiny disappear into an elbow port as the newcomer announces, loudly, “Oh, hey, Orion, didn’t see you there! Just getting off work?”
Orion’s optics reset once, twice, the drone-like demeanor slipping away. “Ah, hello, Jazz. I thought you were visiting with friends in Nova Cronum?”
The scholar stares for a moment, then turns and very quickly walks away. Orion begins turning to look, but “Jazz” grabs his elbow before he can do so, steering the taller mech away with a practiced ease, loudly stating, “I bet you must be starving, huh? C’mon, let’s getcha a cube or three. You still owe me for last time, remember?”
As they pass, the small car transformer glances over his shoulder to look at Soundwave, the LEDs of his aqua visor lighting up to give him a dazzling wink. Soundwave watches them go, dumbfounded.
He isn’t surprised when the other bot finds him later. He’s making up his report to Megatronus, typing and retyping in the message box to try and find something that won’t end in spilled fuel, when the other sidles up to him, somehow having picked him out in the shadows of the corner of Maccadam’s bar, and slides him a drink.
Something in his hand gleams. A data cable snakes out from under the table and grabs his wrist before it can retreat. The grin beneath the visor widens, and Jazz turns his wrist to hold up a silver chip between two digits. Soundwave takes it, scanning it for viruses before opening it in his code editor. The hardware is marked as property of the Hall of Records, but it’d been jailbroken and its native software heavily edited.
“Just a little wakeup program I wrote in my off-joors,” the other mentions casually. “That’s my spare copy. Hang onto it, okay?”
Soundwave tucks it away, not letting go of other’s wrist lest he manage to slip away; Jazz doesn’t protest, letting the servo rest on the table.
The shorter mech takes a sip from his cube. “Only ever usually gets this bad around exam season, but the IIH has been getting stingier about grants, so everyone’s been scrambling to get their data cleaned up before the deadline. Bots get desperate. Like the one you saw. When that happens, and it does happen, the staff usually steps in, but I like to be prepared in case they can’t.”
His black-and-white plating seems to glitter even in the dim light, somehow even more so than when he was in the Hall earlier. For a moment Soundwave entertains the idea that the other might have buffed and polished just to meet with him, before excising the thought from his processor. He isn’t given to fantasizing in that way. He’s not Megatronus.
Soundwave plays a short audio clip over his speakers— Orion’s voice, breathless and nervous, the sounds of Kaon nightlife in the background, saying, “—I mostly work in organization, processing new entries and sorting them correctly into the system. The hours are long, but—” He stops the clip.
“Like I said, it’s not normally this bad. Visitor demand means that more of the staff gets pulled away from their regular work. Obviously he’d rather be an archivist than an autobot, but everyone does it at some point, so he probably just didn’t see it as anything worth mentioning.”
“Au-to-bot?”
“Well, yeah, “automated archival assistance bot” is kind of a mouthful, don’tcha think?” Jazz grins.
He composes another sentence, choosing to sample specifically from audio of various fight promoters and other gladiators, cramming together as many harsh-sounding syllables together as he can. “PAX. COMPROMISED.”
Jazz just shrugs. “It’s all basic archival work. Everything he reads, records, and transcribes gets automatically transferred to the personal drive of whoever signed him out for that period. If you want to scan him for spyware every time he comes to Kaon— as if you haven’t been doing that already— feel free.” The smile tightens, mouth flattening into a thin line. “But I’d know before you did.”
The cable tightens around the other’s wrist. “Who. Are. You?”
He pouts. “Aw, he doesn’t talk to his cool new activist friends about his good ‘ol buddy Jazz?”
“NOT. FRIENDS.”
”Whatever you say. You’re the one that came looking for him.” He downs the rest of his cube and stands. ”Do us all a favor and hold off on telling Meggy. I’ll talk to Big O.” He walks out, calling over his shoulder, “Keep in touch!“
Soundwave looks at the cable he could have sworn was restraining the other, baffled, only to see it’d somehow been tied into a pretty bow without him noticing. Sticking out of the bow is a slip of hardcopy with a string of digits and the glyphs CALL ME ;) scrawled underneath.
Soundwave stares at it for a long moment, then saves the number.
Orion clearly hadn’t told him, Soundwave thinks grimly, chords later, as he hurries through their current hideout in the direction of where Megatronus is bellowing his name.
The gladiator is holding onto the archivist, looking utterly distraught; said archivist has gone completely rigid, reciting in cheery monotone a pre-recorded message that loops over and over. “The loan period for your Automated Archival Assistance Bot has ended. Please return all borrowed equipment to your nearest branch location by the end of the sol or late fees will be applied. Thank you for your patronage. The loan period for your Automated Archival Assistance Bot has ended. Please return all borrowed equipment to your nearest branch location by—”
He cuts himself off as Soundwave jams the chip none-too-gently into the access port at the base of his helm. Immediately the recording stops, and Orion blinks a few times, body going lax in the gladiator's arms. “Ah, apologies for that. I must have forgotten to renew. Where were we, Megatronus?”
Soundwave plugs his audials just as Megatronus starts yelling.
“That dumbaft,” Jazz curses, having had the incident recounted to him later that sol over video call. “Soon as we’re both back in Iacon, I’m giving him a piece of my processor. I told him to tell him!”
“Ignoring your advice: may not have been an active choice on his part.” Soundwave says, dryly. “Archivist Pax: very distracted whenever he and Megatronus are together.”
“Oh, distracted is what they’re calling it these cycles, huh?” The bot on the comm screen sounds like he’s rolling his optics behind his visor.
“Jazz: has any similar programming?”
He shakes his helm. “Not that I know of. And believe you me, Soundy, I’ve looked.”
Soundwave presses on, unconvinced. “Would like to check. To be sure.”
Jazz shivers at that, for some reason. “Y-yeah. Yeah, alright.” He clears his vocalizer, regaining some of his usual confident demeanor. “But don’t you think you should take me out to dinner, first?”
Dinner? Well, a deep code scan did expend a lot of fuel. “Where. When.”
“How’s about the Halite Bar in South Helex? I know the owner, and they’ve got a good dinner menu.”
He pulls up a map on his HUD, confirming that it was less than a two-joor flight from their current base in Kaon and that the dinner menu was, indeed, quite good. “Fine.”
“Seeyaaa!”
The comm shuts off, and Soundwave realizes, a little belatedly, that he has a date.
“Once again, I understand your not mentioning what you perceived to be one of your usual duties,” grumbles Megatronus, “but nonetheless, you should have told me this could happen.”
Orion glances up from his datapad, having at least the grace to look sheepish. “I know, I know. It shouldn’t have happened at all. The employee portal was down for maintenance, so I couldn’t officially start my approved vacation time, and I thought checking myself out would keep me from being called in for shifts…” He trails off. “I’m sorry.”
“I should think so,” the gladiator huffs.
They resume their reading for a few peaceful kliks, before Orion speaks again, sounding very much like he’s trying not to laugh, slowly taking something from his subspace, “I suppose this makes my gift of a library card for the anniversary of our acquaintance quite inappropriate.”
“ORION!”
The laughter spills over, the clerk very nearly falling out of his chair. Megatronus snatches the card from one flailing servo, holds it up, and frowns. “This is a terrible image capture. I’m very nearly cross-eyed.”
“It is my very favorite image capture of you,” Orion says, sweetly.
“Ridiculous,” he harrumphs, subspacing the card. “If ever I wished to “check you out”, as you say, I could do so without the need for some flimsy card.”
He takes great satisfaction in how the archivist’s laughter suddenly cuts off with a loud bleat of his horn.