Work Text:
The mnemosurgeon is winning.
I am being swallowed whole, altered, s u p p r e s s e d.
I am retreating, throwing up firewalls, installing partitions as fast as I could, trying to separate what is left of me from the monstrosity that is bearing down on me.
The mnemosurgeon is too strong. I am not strong enough. I am being changed. The mech I will be once the mnemosurgeon is done will no longer be me.
<<<no>>>
<<<i want>>>
<<<to go>>>
<<<H o m 00101>>>
The mnemosurgeon catches my thought and examines it.
<<<Home>>>
<<<what is Home>>>
<<<can i destroy it>>>
He follows the paths to my main memory storage and sifts through at his leisure as I ram against the firewall he has constructed, screaming, keening. Begging. I am already half-destroyed. What is pride in the last few seconds of my life as I know it?
<<<p1 00101 as 00101>>>
<<<d 01111 n 01111 t>>>
<<<but i can>>>
<<<n 01111 n 01111 n o 01110 o>>>
There are no physical bodies here in the digital space of my processing cores, but the mnemosurgeon manages to give the impression of a smile all the same.
I had been kept awake and aware as surgeons had amputated my helm and servos so that I could experience the horror of being physically remade. They had removed the hardware components of my physical interface system and soldered shut the holes left behind so that I could experience the humiliation of being physically unmade. My coat of soothing blue and white with green accents had been painted over with a sickening purple – my least favorite color, which I am sure was the reason for its choice – and so completed the process of making me a stranger to myself.
In the mirror held out gleefully to me, I had seen a bot even I could not recognize. It had been disorienting to hear myself screaming in agony and grief, and yet none of it was reflected in the large, steady optic and tall finials that had stared back at me. It had been awful to look across the room and see my face, my face, thrown into a hazard bin – knowing that it was to be carted off and smelted, never to be seen again, never to be worn by me again. It had been disgusting to see a surgeon stroking my dismembered spike and admiring it before tossing that into the hazard bin as well.
It had been horrific to look down at myself and see pincers where my servos had been, awful pincers, heavy and clunky and clumsy pincers, pincers that could never splay lovingly across the armor of my mates.
The physical alterations forced upon me had already been more than I thought I could bear. But I would sooner have my brain module and spark chamber housed in a dirty, rusted oil sump for the rest of my existence than experience this.
This is the truest violation, the most unbearable crime, the rape of my true self and everything I stand for.
I try to regroup. I beg,
<<<p l e a s e 10000 l e a s e p 01100 e a s e>>>
The damage to my processing cores is spreading. Character encoding was breaking down fast. Fighting the mnemosurgeon is causing me to overheat, to glitch, to lag, to falter, to fall apart. I can't stop fighting, but I can't win.
The mnemosurgeon doesn't respond to my broken pleading. He burrows through my files, searching for Home.
He finds it. Of course he does. My main storage is where my most important memories are copied to and those of Home are the most vitally important to me.
The mnemosurgeon sends me codes of laughter, of mocking laughter, of terrible laughter.
He asks
<<<is this Home>>>
He says,
<<<i am going to enjoy this>>>
I scream and throw myself at the cloud of his avatar, but he is untouchable as he touches my memories. As he leaves his filthy, unwanted signatures all over my memories of Home, as he views them and takes enjoyment from them, as he sends me outputs from his own pleasure system, and his pleasure is building –
I scream and scream, but he's louder than me as he delights in Home. He routes fragments of Home to me only after he corrupts them. It's not unlike shattering a priceless, beloved artifact, dousing them in poison, and then tossing the sharpest shards at me, letting them cut into the protomesh between the segments of my digits and infect me.
Even though it hurts, I hold them. I ingest them. I hide these last fragments of who I am, of what I fight for, of who I fight for, deep within the operand storage of my logic unit. They try to rot (they are not formatted as operands, I cannot reformat that, they are corrupted, they are losing shape) and I patch them up and they try to rot and I patch them up and they try to rot and I –
The mnemosurgeon is satisfied in ways that disgust me, in ways that fill me with helpless rage, in ways that cause me unbearable grief.
He follows the paths of my grief to my neural network and jumps from node to interconnected node until he's holding my grief in the virus of his digitized servos.
He has found the source files for my emotion coding. I feel the impression of another smile pressed against me, as if he's grinning against the back of my neck right before he bites down.
<<<you do not need this anymore>>>
<<<1 n00101 ne00101 n e e d t h a a a a t >>>
I am burning down around me. He's spamming my open processing space with garbage code to distract me, to weaken me, to subdue me, and it's working. My processor is running hot, he's buried in me all the way to the smallest transistor, his malware is bruising every part of my architecture.
I know he doesn't need to do this. He doesn't need to torture me. He doesn't have to defile my memories and taunt me. He is choosing to. He is getting some kind of sick enjoyment all this. He wants me to feel him as he fills me, as he hurts me, as he changes me. He drags the last bit of my consciousness along like a slave on a leash. I can't stop him and I can't escape him.
And he loves that.
<<<beg again>>>
<<<maybe i will be gentle>>>
I beg again with everything I have left.
He deletes the source file for my grief. But the source code for grief is sad, and sad is the source of many emotions.
I stop begging. Instead, I am angry. I rage against the cloud of his avatar, I rage!
He deletes my anger. I am afraid now. I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid. I am trapped. He is so much stronger than me.
He deletes my fear. I am at peace now. There is peace where there is no sadness, no rage, no fear. I cradle the fragments of Home in my poisoned memory storage where he cannot see them and I am overjoyed to still have this, I love that Home, even so reduced, is still with me.
I want to always have Home with me. I reorganize my task domain so that Home comes first. I want to keep Home happy and safe always, no matter what. Home is where my spark is. I assign numerical values to Home so that it will always come first in my task domain. Home will always be my primary objective.
I cannot wait to go Home. I love them so much. I do not even care that my mind is on fire and that they will likely find me very ugly. I am sure it will be no issue.
He deletes my love.
He deletes my joy.
I watch contentedly as he deletes my peace.
Now I simply watch.
I have these fragments of what has been keyworded as Home, but they mean nothing. Contextual clues tell me that they cannot mean nothing. Home is my primary function according to my task domain. I assigned Home as my objective. They must mean something.
The mnemosurgeon retreats back to my main storage area and I am obligated to follow. I observe as he locks down certain memories, deletes others, and then cuts out several for his own personal use. He rubs his signature all over the files of my mates and their bared physical interface systems. He encodes that he might visit them next after he is done inside my helm. He might cut me out of their memories and paste himself in. He thinks I have very beautiful mates and they will look lovely choking on his spike.
But I have these fragments of Home and even if they mean nothing to me now, they must mean something because they are my function. They are my objective. They hold higher value than the planet I live on the resources that keep me alive. He is threatening Home. Security risk assessment suggests that any threat against Home is a threat against me. I must eliminate all risks that endanger Home or else I will cease to have a function.
I stop fighting. I allow his garbage codes clog up my programs and I move to the evacuated processing space of my neural network where there are no emotions and no ability to recognize emotions and no ability to express emotions and no ability to respond to emotions.
He has, whether he realizes it or not, created an optimal battle ground for me.
I reach through his cloud and grab him by his programming scripts.
<<<what>>>
<<<let go>>>
<<<how are you doing that>>>
<<<stop>>>
<<<i can kill you>>>
He attempts to quarantine me, to squash the last remnant of my self. Suddenly, I am no longer worth mocking or teasing or humiliating. Suddenly, I am dangerous. He is afraid of me. I have acted without his permission, as I have acted against self-preservation.
But my function is Home and Home is in danger. It is more important that I protect Home than that I protect myself.
Fear stopped me from destroying my own architecture in a last bid for freedom. It hadn't been a conscious decision, but a reflexive one. Now there is no fear. Now I partition off my ruined neural network from the rest of my infected mind and I let it burn down as I push through his cloud and bear down on him. He is fast. He tries to escape.
I am not as fast, but I am relentless. I still have a hold on his programming. He tries to flee and I drag him back. I choke him on his own garbage code.
There is no desire to cause him harm. There is no want to. There is only the task of protecting Home and he endangers that them with his threats, with his touch, with his abilities. Because he is a threat, I will destroy him.
I bite into his programming. I tear apart his scripts and chew on them. I swallow him bit by bit as he becomes smaller and smaller. He screams and offers to fix everything. He begs. He pleads. He will give me back my emotions if I just let him go. He will restore my main memory storage, my RAM, my caches, if I stop hurting him.
I do not require emotions. I do not require reparations.
I dig through his codes and find the memories of Home that he smeared himself on, that he dirtied with his signature, that he cropped to his specifications. They are now images of my mates, close-ups of their physical interface systems and their faces, their servos, the postures of their pleasure and submission, of their dominance. They are now sensory files of their kisses, of their valves, of their digits, of their spikes. They are now audio files of their pleading, of their laughter, of their groaning, of their whining, of their honking, of their alarm systems.
The mnemosurgeon attempted to remove me from my own memories for his own wants and needs. I cannot repair my memories, they have been permanently removed/damaged/altered/deleted. I have only the fragments tucked into the storage of my logic unit and the perverse remnants I carve out of my tormentor.
I tuck them into my task domain, every scrap and corrupted file I can gouge free from him. Home grows like jagged pieces of metal smelted together into a terrible, fragile scaffold barely strong enough to hold myself together with. It threatens to collapse around me, to decay completely, if I so much as edit a single bit of it.
I gulp the last bits of my torturer and my mind opens.
My optic cannot close, so I do not open my optic so much as I online the connections between it and my processor. One moment, I cannot see – the next, there is a room and I am secured to a circuit slab as panic ensues around me.
I am not panicking.
There are the surgeons that altered me physically. There is the mnemosurgeon that altered me mentally.
The mnemosurgeon is being dragged away by two surgeons, servos under his arms. His helm is lolling about his pauldrons as he drools oral solvent. Transfluid and oil seep from the seams of his sump guard. It leaves a streak on the floor as he scrapes past.
The chaos is loud. There are accusations: How did this happen? What happened in there? What did he do? How did he do it? What the frag? What the frag? What the frag? What in the pit? What happened? This is slag! This is total slag!
No one is speaking to me. My helm feels as if it is on fire. I turn down my pain sensors. My helm still feels as if it is on fire. I turn down my temperature sensors. Now my helm feels submerged in lava. I turn down my pressure sensors.
Now I feel nothing. This is a preferable state.
There are mecha pointing at me, but still no one is asking me anything. The mnemosurgeon is gone.
I turn inward toward my processing cores and begin rebuilding.
Either they will release me in time or they will attempt to destroy me entirely. If they choose the former, I will return Home. If they choose the latter, they will fail and I will still return Home.
Self-preservation is logical. To preserve myself is to preserve my function. I will act in defense of myself.
I will act in defense of Home.
~:~
Despite the death of the mnemosurgeon, my surgeries were considered a success. I was allowed to leave the Institute of my own free will – for whatever definition of free I now operated under.
Proteus and Sentinel were waiting for me at the entrance with a small entourage of enforcers. My facial emotion recognition software had been purged, so I could not accurately describe their expressions. At best, Sentinel wasn't making an expression (or was he?) and the upward curve of Proteus's mouth denoted a smile. His smile was rather pronounced.
He clapped me on the pauldron once I was close enough to do so. His party watched on.
“How do you feel, Senator?” he asked.
I considered. “I am adequate.” That was to say, I was heavily damaged and in need of repairs, but I was more or less functional.
“Yes, but how do you feel? Are you perhaps upset with me?”
“I am not.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“I feel nothing toward you,” I said.
“Do you feel anything?”
“I do not.”
“Not at all?” His smile was still present. He did not expect me to feel anything. As he was the one who had ordered me to undergo Empurata and Shadowplay, he should not expect me to feel anything.
I assumed he was experiencing pleasure at my expense.
“Maybe you have an opinion on your new paint job?” he pressed. “I chose the color myself. I remember how much you used to love purple. Do you still love purple?”
“I am indifferent to my appearance,” I said.
“So you don't care about purple even a little bit?”
“I do not.”
“Well, that's just unfortunate,” he said. I observed that he was still smiling. “I was hoping you would enjoy it as much as you used to.”
Voice inflections were beyond me as well. I was capable of recognizing that his tone of voice did not match his statements, but my neural network only threw up errors trying to explain why.
Sentinel's voice dropped low and was heavy with even more inflection I could not identify. “You look just awful, Senator.”
I assumed it was, yet again, pleasure based on our shared history.
“I am indifferent to my appearance,” I repeated.
“What about your mates?” he asked. “Surely, they won't be indifferent. Unless... Perhaps you are now indifferent to them? A tragedy. You have very beautiful mates. How are your Conjunx bonds currently?”
In truth, my Conjunx bonds had undergone a great amount of strain. It was likely that the mnemosurgeon had been tasked with rotting my connections so that I was separated from our shared net, but had only been partially successful before his destruction. They remained, though it was not safe to access them until I underwent diagnostics and repairs.
I could still taste them, feel the buzz of their energy. They were flavored with the digital signature of each of my mates, the electric pulse of their individual sparks. My bond net burned with the strain of unopened comms and failed location tracking. My mates were attempting to reach me. They were attempting to find me.
I kept the connections closed and proceeded to lie. “My Conjunx bonds have been severed.”
“What? No, that's terrible.”
Insincerity. That was what Proteus was portraying. His inflections and expressions in combination with his words dripped with insincerity.
“So you're indifferent to your mates now? They will surely mourn for you. Walk with me, I have arranged transportation home for you.”
The transportation had clearly been chosen with the size of his party in mind. The armored hovercraft had four partitions: The front where a drone operated the vehicle and an enforcer quietly menaced them to make sure they didn't drive us into a building, the second section where two enforcers sat, the third section where I sat across from Sentinel and Proteus, and then the fourth section where three enforcers were. I was surrounded.
Such precautions were understandable, but unnecessary. I did not plan to fight Proteus here and now. That would happen later.
Proteus clapped Sentinel's knee joint. “As it just so happens, Sentinel has shown interest in your mates. As you are now divorced from them, do you suppose you could introduce him?”
“They have already been introduced,” I said.
“Yes, but I want you to introduce him as their future Conjunx.”
I failed to understand his scheming. “They will not have him.”
Proteus squeezed Sentinel's knee. “I am not giving them a choice.”
Sentinel continued to wear a non-expression. Either I was unable to recognize joy or he was also not being given a choice in the matter.
“Forced Conjunx bonds are weak and easily broken.”
“Not this bond. Sentinel is going to patch himself in right where you used to be, whether your once mates like it or not. The new connection will be just as strong as your connection was. Have faith in me. I have done this before, I know what I am doing.”
“What is your reasoning for doing this?” I asked.
“Why? Do you object?” He watched me closely.
I did. I was going to eventually destroy Sentinel and would prefer to do so without harming our bond net and therefore violating my primary function. A rotting connection would inflict damage on Home.
That was irrelevant to my question, however. I was unable to understand the purpose was of bonding Sentinel to my mates.
So much of my processing space was unavailable to me due to errors. With my sensors turned down as low as possible, I managed to avoid any physical discomfort, but I was still lagging behind.
My response time was slow. I sat there in silence for seconds too long, long enough for the upward tilt of Proteus's mouth to become a downward tilt. His last question – did I object?
I did. Home was my function and I could not allow another mech to inflict damage upon Home.
It better served my function to lie. “I have nothing to object to. They are not my mates any longer.”
Ah, there it was. It was obvious.
“You are going to use Sentinel to control them.”
Proteus's scheming was logical. My mates were willful.
“Your once mates are very willful,” he explained, the downward tilt of his mouth evening out. “My enforcers say that Orion Pax fought them. He's lucky he's still captain of the Rodion Precinct... For now. As long as he is subservient to Sentinel, he may be able to keep his position.”
Sentinel was subservient to Proteus, and so what Proteus actually meant was that he would let Orion stay on the force as long as he was subservient to him.
“And then Ratchet... Our own attending physician... I've heard rumors he runs a free clinic in Polyhex. That goes against his contract, from what I recall.” He gave me a prolonged look. “That Soundwave is perhaps the most problematic of all. We elected him Secretary of the Senate, not only at your behest but because of his natural talents – and yet I'm receiving reports that he regularly interferes with our communications and surveillance.” He leaned forward just slightly. “I even have optic witnesses putting him in Kaon, having secret meetings with insurgents.” He leaned back. “I should have all of your once mates recycled. However... They are all so useful in their different ways. How you have allowed them to behave is unsightly, but your taste is above reproach.”
I noted that at no point did he mention planting a bomb in the corpse of our former Prime and attempting a mass murder at his viewing so that he could blame the deaths of upwards of a million mecha on the insurgents and have them all tortured in the way he had me tortured. He so carefully avoided speaking about how my mates and I had thwarted him with the aid of my students at the Academy of Advanced Technology.
But this was the root of it all, I was almost certain. This was the catalyst.
Proteus gripped Sentinel's inner thigh, spreading his legs. “Have no worries,” he said to me. “I myself had Sentinel's hardware modified for maximum pleasure output. Your once mates will be well satisfied.” He glanced down at my lap. “Forgive me, I don't mean to be insensitive. I forgot for a moment that you have been downgraded. Is there anything left?”
“There remains some software,” I answered. “It has been disabled, however. As for the hardware, there is nothing left.”
“How unfortunate.” He was smiling again. “Would you like to see Sentinel's hardware? So that you have an idea of what your once mates will be experiencing.”
Sentinel's flat mouth tilted microscopically downward.
“That is unnecessary,” I said.
“I think it's very necessary,” he disagreed.
Whatever equipment Sentinel was operating with was, at this point, superior to my lack thereof. Not only that, but I had no plans of allowing him to interface with my mates.
There was no emotional basis for this. I simply understood, to the extent my incomplete memories allowed me to understand, that allowing Sentinel to interface with Home would cause them harm. I could not allow that.
That was not what Proteus needed to hear. “If you would like to show me, I cannot stop you.”
That was, apparently, what Proteus wanted to hear. His servo slid back toward Sentinel's knee joint. “I suppose you're right. You can't stop me.” His optics glowed in the dimness of our partition. “You can never stop me again. Remember that. Always remember what happens when you act against me. I have taken everything from you. You can't even be angry about what I have done to you because I have taken away your ability to feel anger.”
I was coming to the end of Proteus's dominance display. How did I know that? How did I know that if I said the right thing right now, I could make him believe that I was no longer a threat to him?
He saw me as... Yes. He saw me as little more than a drone. A puppet for him to command. With no emotions or personality of my own, he believed I lacked autonomy.
He was incorrect. It would serve my function to make him believe he was correct.
I said, “I understand that before I underwent Shadowplay at your command, we were in conflict.”
“You were difficult to work with, yes,” he said.
“Would you agree that this is the conclusion of that conflict?”
“That depends... How do you feel about me right now?”
“I feel nothing toward you,” I said, and it was true. I was not angry at him for what he had done to me or what he planned to do to my mates. I was not sad or horrified or afraid.
Proteus was simply an obstacle that I was going to remove at my convenience.
“Then I would say our conflict has concluded,” he agreed.
“Has our conflict concluded in your favor?”
“Yes,” he said with heavy inflection, optics overly bright. “Yes, I would say it has.”
I nodded. “Then you have won. I have lost.” I bowed my optical casing. “It is only logical that I answer to your superior intellect from now on and follow your lead within the Senate.”
When I lifted my helm, he was smiling again. “That is all I've ever wanted to hear from you,” he said in a soft voice. “I believe we are going to get along just fine from now on.” He cocked his helm. “Ah, we're here. Sentinel and I will escort you up to your apartment so that we can break the news to your once mates together.” He looked up at Sentinel. “You will not fail me.”
Sentinel shook his helm. “I will not,” he said.
Our door slid open. There were already two enforcers waiting for us to exit the craft. Proteus got out first, then Sentinel, and then myself. The enforcers closed in behind me.
“Wait here for our return,” Proteus told them. “I don't anticipate this will take too long.”
The tower block I inhabited with my mates was outside the Citadel, chosen due to its thick walls and proximity to the train station. Orion's official address was in Rodion where he worked, but everyone at his precinct knew he commuted from home. Ratchet had to regularly travel between our apartment, the Citadel, and the slums of Polyhex. Soundwave traveled to Kaon whenever possible to debate with gladiators.
The thick walls were vital because of Soundwave's sensitivity to sound. We had even custom-ordered and installed acoustic panels lined with copper to further block out ambient noise and radio signals. It was, Soundwave had told us, the only place on the planet where he could relax.
I lagged under the infected memory and just barely managed to avoid tripping into the tower block. My pause was so minute that Sentinel and Proteus failed to notice.
I required repairs immediately.
Our combined wages were sufficient for one of the larger units in the upper floors, giving Proteus even more time to – yes, that sounded correct – bask in his own glory.
Yes, Proteus was being smug. I recognized it now.
“As you are now divorced from your mates, I will have a suite prepared for you in the Citadel,” he said. “I can't spare Sentinel to live here with them, but I will make sure he has time to visit them often.”
As that was not a question, I did not respond. My control on my sensors was faltering and I was becoming increasingly aware of how hot my processors were running.
There was an idea.
“Ratchet will want to run diagnostics on me,” I announced.
“I will allow it,” Proteus hummed. “He will see for himself that the Shockwave he bonded with is gone and that there is nothing any of them can do to bring the old you back. It might even make them more amicable toward Sentinel.”
He would see for himself that the connections were still present and that I required repairs before I could open them again. Once I was repaired, I could access our shared network and download our cache. With my memories more or less in place, a vast amount of the corrupted files I was holding onto could be dumped and I would be able to recharge without running the risk of catastrophic failure.
(As I was accomplishing these tasks, I was certain I was also going to be fielding comms from my mates and sharing some of my future plans with them.)
(Some, but not all. I could not remember entirely the kind of mecha they were, but I was certain at least two of the three would not take kindly to the crimes I was going to commit. My function was Home. I sought to avoid harming Home with the truth.)
After recharging, I was going to hire an assassin.
Sentinel was not allowed to touch Home. The only reason I hadn't already hired an assassin – no, the two reasons why I hadn't already hired an assassin was because I was going to have to meticulously plan out Sentinel's death so that Proteus did not immediately suspect me or my mates and I did not currently have the processing capacity for that; also, I could not access my shanix accounts.
I was led to my own front door as if I might not remember where I lived. There was a moment where I wasn't sure where I lived.
I only knew we were at the right door because of the dents and scratches at the bottom.
Proteus also noticed them. “That is interesting,” he said. “What could have caused that?”
Soundwave's cassettes had caused that. They liked to wander off on their own upon occasion and they also liked to loudly announce themselves when they wanted back in.
Pain dashed through my brain module like a lightning bolt. The memory fragment was corrupted. There was me going to unlock the door as Ravage clawed at it and yowled, saying over my pauldron, “I'm just saying, darling, he has his own passcode. He's just being dramatic.”
But there was also me pressed up against the inside of the door, staring down at Orion on his knee joints before me, his mouth against my valve as I sang his praises.
But there was also Ratchet waiting impatiently in the open doorway, yelling, “Get a move on! Shockwave, I don't care what drape you wear. Just put something on or else we're going to miss our reservation! No, Soundwave, it won't violate the restaurant's dress code if you wear your noise buffers. Well, if it does, we'll just go somewhere else! Orion, stop flirting with Shockwave! We're trying to leave. Is this Date Night, or Drive Ratchet Up the Wall Night?”
(But there was also me in my jewelry drapery, diamonds and sapphires tinkling against my frame, and there was Ratchet catching sight of me, the blue of his optics glowing as he vented slow and unsteady. “That's the one,” he said in a low voice. He let the door slide shut and announced, “Actually, the reservation isn't that important.” And somewhere out of sight, Orion laughed. Somewhere out of sight, I felt Soundwave go almost molten with relief that we got to stay in. But had it been Ratchet that had said that or had it been Orion? Or had it been Soundwave at the door, looking me up and down and saying, “Suggestion: Return to berth. Agreement?”)
But there was me outside the door between Proteus and Sentinel and Proteus was looking at me, waiting for me to explain the state of the door.
My optical casing was on fire. No, it wasn't. If it was, Proteus and Sentinel would have made note of it. It only felt like it was on fire.
I had to backtrack to the last thing Proteus had said. What had caused that? Soundwave's cassettes had caused that. However, while Proteus was aware of Soundwave's cassettes, I found it pertinent not to draw attention to them in case he hadn't already figured them into any of his plans.
Instead of answering verbally, I kicked the bottom of the door with excessive force.
My pede was not exact to the shape of Rumble's and Frenzy's fists, but the damage was approximate.
“Why?” Proteus asked, making a new expression. “Don't you have a passcode to your own apartment?”
I did not have to answer that because the door swung open immediately.
Soundwave was wearing both his visor and blast mask. But that wasn't right because he was home. When Soundwave was home, he took those off. When Soundwave took off his visor and blast mask, he preferred to keep his mouth busy by sucking –
I lagged as the memory fragment played out, but it was on top of another memory fragment, which was on top of another audio file, which was on top of the boiling pitscape of my mind.
Soundwave was sucking my spike, but he was also telling me about how he got his scars, but he was also keening as he overloaded, but he was also playing music for us –
I dragged myself back to the present moment. I had only missed one second, no, three seconds, and nothing had happened. Proteus was quiet as Soundwave stared at me. I stared back at Soundwave.
Past him, standing in the common area, Ratchet slowly got to his pedes and Orion stood frozen.
They were all staring at me. I stared back.
They didn't say anything out loud, but I felt the fizz of their comms through our bond net.
Ratchet, softly, “Shockwave? Is that... you?”
He was trying with increasing urgency to message me, but I kept our connection shut.
Orion, just as quietly, “What have you done?”
He was looking at me, but not speaking to me.
Proteus took this as his queue to talk. He gestured to me. “Hello, once beloveds of Senator Shockwave. I have brought him home safely for you. May we come in?”
Soundwave reached out and touched my optical casing with his digit tips. “Query: Shockwave?”
I nodded. “I am.”
He let loose a high-pitched keen of grief that sliced right through my brain module.
My software glitched and instead of taking a step forward as I had meant to do, I collapsed to my claws and knees.
“This happens sometimes,” Proteus said somewhere above me. “The procedure can be taxing. Doctor, if you wouldn't mind...”
“Help me move him, Orion, move –”
There were servos on me, moving me, and I followed along obediently. I tripped over something, but I didn't see what. I wasn't seeing anything. When had I stopped receiving visual input?
I was laid flat on a soft surface and my patch panel was manually popped open. Something plugged in and I wasn't alone anymore.
Everything hurt. Nothing should be hurting. I couldn't remember how to turn my sensors down. Or could I remember, but I didn't have the processing power to do it?
I wasn't alone anymore. Who was that?
It made everything hurt less, so I chose to let it stay.
<<<you^re still here>>>
Who?
<<<shockwave>>>
<<<sweetspark.>>>
Who?
<<<we^ve got you>>>
<<<We^ve got everything under control>>>
Who?
<<<i^m going to make you all better and then you^re going to recharge>>>
<<<i have to dump your corrupted files now>>>
<<<you^re going to forget a lot of things>>>
<<<but we^ve got you>>>
<<<we^ve got all the important memories backed up>>>
<<<i won^t let you forget us>>>
<<<i^m not going to let you forget yourself>>>
Who?
<<<don^t worry about that right now>>>
<<<i^m going to make you all better>>>
<<<you^re going to recharge>>>
<<<then we^re going to repair your memory>>>
<<<after all that^s said and done>>>
<<<We^re going to kick Sentinel out.>>>
Wait.
Sentinel.
Was.
Going.
To.
Harm.
Home?
But.
My.
Function?
<<<sentinel^s not putting a single digit on any of us>>>
<<<soundwave^s going to hypnotize him and that will be that>>>
<<<just focus on yourself for now>>>
<<<so we^re your Home>>>
My.
Home.
<<<you^re home>>>
<<<you^re home>>>
<<<sweetspark>>>
<<<we^ve got you>>>
<<<we^re going to figure all this out>>>
<<<and we^re not going to murder the senatorial faction or the functionist council>>>
<<<we^re going to talk about that later>>>
Must.
Protect?
<<<that goes both ways>>>
<<<we protect each other>>>
<<<you^re going to have to let us protect you too>>>
Who?
<<<time for a little nap>>>
<<<we love you>>>
W h
~:~
I woke up in considerably less pain than I had shut down in. Proteus was gone and Sentinel was in a trance-like state in the cassettes' berthroom, closely watched by several upset cassettes.
I was also being closely watched by individuals who were upset. I couldn't tell by the looks on their faces, no. With the repairs done to my neural network, I should be able to rebuild my facial emotion recognition database, but it was of very little aid currently.
I knew they were upset because my connections were open and I was in their neural networks where they were feeling a multitude of emotions, most of them meaning upset.
When I tried to mute their outputs, Ratchet unmuted them and became even more upset with me.
Ratchet pointed at his face. “See this? This is not a happy face! This is a mad face. This is the maddest face you've ever seen in your whole existence. This face is so mad that it just might start screaming at you!” His expression was very pronounced. I took a snapshot and added it to my facial emotion recognition database.
That was what someone looked like when they were very mad at me. That was important to know for future reference.
“When enforcers come a-knocking, you don't go a-walking with them! Not ever again, do you understand me?”
“I will do what is necessary,” I said.
Ratchet's engine growled.
“You have been quiet.”
I was not speaking to Ratchet this time. Ratchet had been decidedly not quiet. Soundwave was often quiet and was also currently laying half on top of me while Ratchet berated me from my lap.
Orion, sitting at the side of our circuit slab and the only Conjunx not touching me, glanced up and then away. “I... I am sorry.”
Ratchet did in fact make a noise as if he was about to start screaming. And then he vented a long sigh. “Orion... Starshine... It's not your fault. None of this is your fault.”
That was untrue. This was partially his fault. It was also my fault and Ratchet's fault and Soundwave's fault and the fault of my academy and the fault of the Senate and the fault of the Functionist Council.
(This was the moment when Soundwave, deep in our connection, commed me and told me that my honesty would not help the situation and that it was pertinent I not let Orion know what I was thinking. He ran the simulation through his own neural network of what would happen if I told Orion that this was, in any way, his fault and shared the emotional outputs through our bond. They were very poor outputs.)
“It is my fault, though,” Orion insisted.
“What else could you have done? What else could we have done? Let the Senate murder countless mecha?”
“I let them take him. I watched them walk away.” He bowed his helm. “I should have fought them.”
Logic was not dictating Orion's emotional state.
(That, at least, Soundwave agreed with.)
“No other survivable outcome,” he said. “Sacrifice: Necessary.”
“For what?” Orion asked, voice trembling. “They still tried to kill us after they took him away. Letting him go didn't save our lives. It did not buy us time or stop anything from happening.” He clenched his servos and curled over them. “What did we even sacrifice him for?”
“I am currently present,” I announced as Orion seemed to believe I was not. “I am capable of answering any questions you might have.”
Orion began to keen, stopped himself abruptly, and then shook. He did not look at me as he said quietly, “I am sorry.”
“I do not accept your apology as it is not required.”
“You know what you do require?” Ratchet said. “A swift aft-whooping!”
“I do not require an aft-whooping either.”
That made Orion make a small noise.
(Soundwave informed me it signified reluctant amusement.)
“And I do not require an apology,” I repeated. “I require my Conjunxes. All three of you. The damage to my neural network is irreparable. Without access to yours, I am likely to act in a socially unacceptable manner.”
Now Ratchet made a loud noise.
(Soundwave informed me it was a bark of derision/laughter.)
“That's one way to put it. When I was scrubbing down your brain module, I saw a lot of plans involving murder. Plans you didn't plan to tell us about. What's the point of using our neural networks to figure right from wrong if you plan to pick and choose when you do so?”
“Prison: Insufficient for holding senatorial faction and Functionist council members,” Soundwave reasoned in my place. “Freedom: Also insufficient. Solution: Destruction.”
“Yeah, well... It's not right.”
I watched his expression change. What did that mean? I tasted his connection and his emotional outputs were complex.
“It means I'm tired,” he said aloud. “It means I don't like this. But you're right. These are the mecha we can't even get in prison. We wouldn't even get through a trial. And if they're not in prison, they're out here with the rest of us.” His blue optics darted across my helm. “Hurting us. Making us afraid.”
Orion uncoiled and sat up. “Yes... Yes, they are hurting us. They are hurting our people. And I am done watching them do so.”
“Orion: Righteous.” Soundwave reached out to him. “Justice: Will be served. Orion: Come to berth.”
Orion looked back at us and his expression was pain. Pain that resonated through our bond and tasked me with urgency. Home was harmed. My function was to protect Home.
I ran the simulations through Ratchet's neural network to decide how to approach our hurting mate. I was going to emotionally manipulate him into joining us.
Ratchet allowed me to.
“Orion,” I said. “Proteus will return in just under three hours to collect me and Sentinel and then I must return to the Citadel with them.”
(From what I had gleaned from my bonds, the order of events had gone like this: Ratchet had forced me to shut down to avoid catastrophic failure; as Ratchet was repairing me, Proteus informed Orion and Soundwave that I was moving out and Sentinel was taking my place; Orion threatened to kill Proteus; Proteus threatened to take Orion to an Institute where he would be made to look and think like me; Soundwave faked an urgent call to Proteus from one of his sponsors in the Functionist Council; Proteus had to leave, but ordered Sentinel to stay behind and become acquainted with his “promised Conjunxes”; Proteus said he would return in the morning for us; Soundwave proceeded to hypnotize Sentinel; Sentinel was now humping a pillow in the cassettes' berthroom while they watched on in disgust.)
“I do not know when I will see you next,” I told him honestly. “Of my Conjunxes, you are the most inaccessible to me.” This was true as both Ratchet and Soundwave had positions within the Senate and Orion did not even work in the Iacon precinct anymore. “Be one with me while I can have you.”
He began to keen, stopped himself, and whispered, “I do not deserve it. I do not deserve you.”
Ratchet and Soundwave were moving to make room for him. I was already splitting my chest open. “What you believe you do and do not deserve is inconsequential to me. You are my Conjunx.” The glow of my spark reflected off Ratchet and Soundwave. “Be my Conjunx. Unless you wish to divorce yourself from me?”
“No!” he cried.
I waited.
He came to me.
He crawled over Ratchet to lay on top of me, his chest splitting open to meet mine. He finally allowed himself to keen as our sparks fused. Ratchet stroked his back and Soundwave curled around my pauldron to press his face against Orion's.
Like this, I could access much more than just are shared cache and private comms. I wasn't just reading outputs from his neural network either; his emotions were mine.
I keened with him, gripping him close as grief tore through us. His grief only increased upon reviewing my memories from the Institute, and so we fell deeper and deeper into sorrow and regret. We lived in despair together, gorged on guilt and helplessness, drowned ourselves in blame and rage, and burned from shared humiliation.
Even the deepest pit was not endless, however. Once we had shared everything and felt everything, there was nowhere else to go but up.
My main storage was more or less repaired. Corrupted fragments of memories had been replaced with complete files whenever possible, but some memories were gone forever.
This memory remained. I pulled it out of my main storage and signaled to Orion, <<<look>>>
We were sitting in the common area. I was preparing my research article on energon usage by Relinquishment Clinics and Orion was leaning against my side with a datapad in his lap. The datapad was displaying poetry, but his gaze was on my face. Ratchet was retrieving fuel for us and Soundwave was yet to be our Conjunx.
I looked over at Orion staring up at me, his cheek on my pauldron. I said, “What is it, darling?”
And he said, “Every morning, I wake up and find that I love you more than I did yesterday.”
And I said, “It's evening, Orion. Morning was hours ago. We're getting ready to recharge soon.”
And Ratchet added as he walked back into the common area, a tray of energon cubes in servo, “Do I have to check your chronometer?” He set the tray down on the low table and planted his servos on his faulds.
And Orion sputtered and said, “I was attempting to be romantic.”
And I said, “It's a good thing I have already been seduced, then.” And I dramatically tossed my datapad aside so that I could then throw myself on top of him with a dreamy sigh. “Take me now!”
And then Ratchet was laughing at us and Orion was fending off my wet, sloppy kisses as he laughed too and I was also laughing as I licked his cheek with a brazen grin.
I tucked the memory away where it was safe.
<<<i no longer feel love>>>
<<<but I know what it means to love you>>>
<<<what has been done cannot be changed>>>
<<<not until we discover time travel>>>
<<<you are getting distracted thinking about time travel>>>
<<<i am incorporating it into my future plans>>>
<<<i do not want to let you go>>>
<<<even for a little while>>>
<<<my mates are my function>>>
<<<you come before everything else>>>
<<<regardless of how long it takes>>>
<<<i will come home>>>
He showed me his guilt again.
<<<i failed to protect you>>>
I swallowed his guilt whole. I brought up the memory file of the Kroma, Macabre, and the Heavies attacking us. When I left with them, only one Heavy stayed behind to fight Orion. His chances of survival increased exponentially due to my choice.
<<<one of us had to fail to protect the other or else we would both be dead>>>
<<<as Proteus wanted me alive and would have killed you>>>
<<<this result is acceptable>>>
<<<Not to me>>>
I felt determination. He was determined. I was determined.
<<<i will not fail again>>>
<<<then do not fail again>>>
We slipped away from each other, the last surges of energy dissipating as we reoriented ourselves. He pushed himself up and kissed the center of my optic. Our chest plates slid shut. “I love you.”
“You hold utmost value to me,” I replied. My mates were Home.
Ratchet was laying to my right and Soundwave to my left. Orion chose to flop back down on my chest plates rather than crawl back over them.
Our berthroom door slid open. Frenzy and Rumble stood in the archway.
“Boss, can you make him stop?” Frenzy asked. “He's getting transfluid on everything.”
“And his spike scares me,” Rumble added. “It's like someone with a size kink met someone with a tentacle fetish and then kept adding biolights. It looks like it has optics.”
“I think it can see us,” Frenzy whispered.
Soundwave vented a sigh as he got up.
“The Senate cannot fall fast enough, let me tell you,” Ratchet grumbled. “How long do you think we have to keep pretending to interface with this piece of slag?”
He looked at my optic. I was incapable of emotions and incapable of facial expressions, so I failed to understand what made him look so displeased as he pointed at me and said, “No assassinating him!”
Soundwave pinged me with a private comm from the cassettes' berthroom saying that Sentinel had to die. He attached snapshots.
The berthroom glowed softly with opalescent transfluid on the walls, floor, and berth.
The circuit slab had been sized for the cassettes to recharge together, meaning it was short and wide. It had to be custom-ordered.
The viscoelastic pad on top of the circuit slab was a lost cause. I asked Soundwave if the circuit slab was salvageable.
He sent me another image of the circuit slab without the viscoelastic pad.
(Sentinel's pede was in a corner of the images, suggesting he was laying down on the ground. I assumed Soundwave had forced him to recharge.)
The circuit slab itself was untouched. However, the cassettes refused to lay on it without a deep cleaning and a new viscoelastic pad.
We did not have a spare viscoelastic pad present.
Soundwave sent me a video clip of Ravage hissing.
“I will not assassinate him,” I said as I checked my various shanix accounts and offered Soundwave my pay range, time tables, and preferred assassination methods.
“You better not!” Ratchet snapped, pointing at me.
“I will not,” I lied again as Soundwave forwarded me a list of assassins that had been utilized by the Senate in the past and that he found effective. I told him I did not want an assassin the Senate had used before.
I was forwarded a new list of mecha that were potentially assassins based off surveillance, skills, and income.
“What are you and Soundwave talking about?” Ratchet asked, optics narrowed.
“We are ordering a new viscoelastic pad.”
Ratchet's connection pulsed with suspicion.
Orion's connection pulsed with weariness.
They both knew I was going to kill Sentinel regardless of their wishes and they both understood that I was correct in doing so.
They understood, but did not wish to accept it.
They did not have to accept it. They simply had to allow it.
This was the least I was willing to do to protect Home.
~:~
The process was not quick, but it was thorough and resulted in the least number of casualties of all my plans.
Every step of the way, I had to form a query to my mates that they simulated through their neural network and then they fed me the emotional outputs for my initial query. I could understand the consequences of my actions without their outputs, but regular feedback was necessary to avoid acting in a way that caused them distress.
My mates found murder particularly distressing. They also believed that the sudden collapse of our government would be distressing to our people and could lead to a civil war. That would result in more casualties. My mates were distressed at the idea of casualties. I did not want to distress my mates.
I ran multiple scenarios through them and eventually decided to replace the Senate body slowly and to fade the Functionist Council out of existence.
I started with Proteus. As Chief Enforcer, he would simply replace any senators I removed with his own followers, or simply refuse to replace them at all to give himself more voting power. I was elected Chief Enforcer in his place (through bribery, blackmail, and very public scandals) and thus began my plans in fervor.
Murders were distressful to my mates, so I carried out most assassinations through a third party: I was manipulating slavers, kingpins, sponsors, weapons dealers, and religious fanatics to turn on their political and religious leaders and kill them for me.
I was also instigating civil unrest and supporting public protests. I was purging the Senate of corrupt enforcers and replacing them with officers of Orion's choosing. I was revealing the locations of Institutes and watching as they were knocked down by insurgents. I was forcing the Senate to pass policies and repeals that returned power to the labor class so that they would be loyal to me. I was allying myself with the Decepticon faction and using their mech power to put pressure on those who opposed me or otherwise attempted to assassinate me.
I attacked the high caste where it mattered: Their revenue. I toppled their empires and freed their slaves and publicly denounced their abuses of power. Either they aligned with me to save themselves or they crumbled beneath my pede. Their remaining wealth and sociopolitical influence became exploitable resources.
As I was forcing reform at multiple levels, I also had private investigators searching for the lost Matrix of Leadership.
(I had Prowl of Petrex looking for it. He denied me at first as searching for a religious artifact during a period of government and public restructuring struck him as an ill use of his time. He denied me several times. I turned to my bond net and asked my mates how I could convince him to work for me. They advised that I not blackmail or otherwise threaten him, which I was planning on doing both. Ratchet put forth general suggestions and Orion wanted me to appeal to Prowl's sense of justice, but it was Soundwave who hacked Prowl's service records, the surveillance for his tower block, his shanix accounts, and his comm feeds before making his own recommendation. I said, “I will assign a partner to assist you in your search as there is a significant amount of ground to cover. I can transfer Jazz of Staniz in from Kaon.”)
(Prowl very quickly agreed to work with me after that.)
(Soundwave was admonished by both Orion and Ratchet for his blatant disrespect of privacy, but I rewarded him with candy.)
We were on the brink of civil war, but I had precisely calculated how far I could push the public without reaching that point. A civil war would endanger Home. That was unacceptable.
Instead, I used the threat of civil war to press criminal charges against my remaining corrupted senators and to force the heavily weakened Functionist council to disband.
Neither of these were permanent solutions. My fellow senators would be off-planet before their trials even started. The Functionist council would meet in secret and plan my demise.
Neither of these were meant to be permanent solutions. The actual permanent solutions involved their deaths so that they could never challenge me or my mates again, but that was going to take time if I was to avoid arousing suspicions.
The collective opinion of my actions were largely positive. It would negatively impact my standing and the standing of my mates if the public was aware of various present and future crimes.
Then I simply waited for the Matrix of Leadership to be found.
It was not Prowl that found it.
I was later informed that Megatron and Orion discovered the Undergrid of the Citadel and went exploring for reasons that were illogical to me. At some point during this adventure, Orion started hearing voices and chose to walk toward them.
I was unable to experience any emotion of my own, but Ratchet and Soundwave also failed to express any sort of surprise that Orion would do such a thing.
I was unaware of any of this. I was making an address in the primacy auditorium and then my bond net was a burning, overwhelming sun.
Later, Soundwave shared the videofeed of the address with me.
One moment, I was denouncing the Functionist council. The next, I was saying, “Within this Matrix, All Are One. Right now, in this moment. In every moment, we stop to recognize something of ourselves in each other. Unity is not some hoped-for event. It is a matter of perception.”
Soundwave, standing in a corner of the videofeed, was echoing me. Ratchet, down in his Polyhex clinic, had the same experience.
I had already planned for Orion to take the Matrix of Leadership, but I hadn't anticipated that the Matrix of Leadership would find Orion and take him first.
“I am not as I was,” Optimus Prime told us in the privacy of my suite in the Citadel. “I have been called to fulfill a glorious purpose and I must answer it.”
I tasted him through our connection and he was different. He was changed. He was altered. He was powerful.
Soundwave went forward first and softly pressed their forehelms together. “Primacy: Changes little. Our bond net: Stronger than ever. Answer call together. Stay together. Stand together.”
“You did always say he was Prime material,” Ratchet said aside to me.
“I was correct,” I replied. “The Matrix of Leadership chose him.”
“Yeah, somehow, I didn't figure that it would talk.” He pinched his nasal ridge. “Or that Orion – Optimus – ugh – could listen.”
Optimus looked at us. His expression was fearful.
“He's worried we're rejecting him,” Ratchet explained.
Ah.
That was false.
Ratchet led and I followed. Ratchet kissed Optimus and then Optimus kissed the side of my helm.
Everything was going according to plan.
Optimus Prime, chosen by the Matrix of Leadership, wanted to reinstate me as Chief Enforcer of the Senatorial faction. I declined. Ultra Magnus was instated in my place. Optimus tried to give me one of the open senator positions. I declined. He filled the remaining seats with trusted advisors and confidantes. He attempted to assign me as Lord High Protector. I declined. He assigned Megatron instead.
“What can I give you, my spark?” he asked me. “I've given Ratchet clinics and funds to reconstruct Empurata surviors. I've made Soundwave chairmech of the Integrated Communication Commission.” He pulled me close and leaned his helm against my optical casing. “What do you desire?”
“I have no desires,” I said. “I require a staffed synthetic laboratory and approval from the mech subjects review board for clinical trials so that I may put an end to the energon crisis. The emotional outputs of my mates will also be necessary to limit test subject mortality.”
My function was Home. Starvation was not allowed to touch Home.
Optimus smiled in a way I interpreted as sad. “A noble cause. Our people will never starve again with you working diligently for them.”
(I did not care about our people.)
“I believe there are some empty labs here in the lower levels of the Citadel,” he said.
There were. I was the one who had emptied them.
“Would that be sufficient? I would prefer to keep my mates close to me.”
“That is sufficient for my needs, yes.”
“And you will return to our suite every night?”
“I will return when rest and fuel are necessary.”
“You will return to our suite every night,” Optimus repeated, but it was not a question this time. “You belong with us. Please do not take yourself away from us. Not now, not after everything we have done and accomplished.”
“I will return when it does not interfere with my work,” I compromised.
Optimus sighed. “In that case, we will never see you again. I will retrieve you when it is time for you to rest or fuel – or Soundwave or Ratchet will if I am unavailable.”
“I will allow myself to be retrieved if it does not interfere with my work.”
Optimus gave me a look. I took a snapshot and sent it down to Soundwave in the form of a query. He studied it and sent back,
<<<our mate: misses your emotional availability>>>
<<<assumption: shockwave has said something to remind optimus of his emotional unavailability>>>
Ah.
I bonked my optical casing against his forehelm. “If you have need of me, I will be nearby. You are my mate and nothing can change that. Some have tried and they have failed. Now they are dead.”
These were facts.
Optimus relaxed minutely and said, “And now we are rebuilding from the smelt of their corruption.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
Optimus tilted his helm. Now there was a different look on his face. I recognized this look. He was being devious.
He slid his servos down my faulds. “Ratchet and Soundwave have returned home for the night. Perhaps, as there is no work to interfere with at this moment in time, you might deign to join us?”
His implication was clear.
“You lead and I will follow,” I said. He wrapped his arm low around my waist and took me from the primacy auditorium up several levels to the primacy suite – a much grander affair than the office suite Proteus had made me live in for a period of time.
He pulled me across the threshold and through the common area. My mates laid me out on our berth.
The circuit slab was custom-made to fit and charge all four of us via electromagnetic induction and was topped with a viscoelastic pad to mold to our unique dimensions. I sank into the pad and Ratchet laid on top of me.
All three of my connections went wide open and I opened myself up in turn.
The removal of my physical interface system hardware had been complete and yet to be repaired.
(The structure my valve would go into had been melted, the scaffold for my spike housing had been warped. The sensor connections had been burned and the ports through which my valve and spike would have been accessible had been welded shut.)
From what I understood, Ratchet was, in his free time, reconstructing my hardware components and wiring from memory with help from Soundwave so that they could integrate the new parts with my software. It was a slow process between their busy schedules, but I was in no hurry. I had no need for a physical interface system.
My mates accommodated me most sufficiently.
With our connections wide open, I had access to their sensory input. Ratchet increased his temperature output and his heat seeped into me. Soundwave crouched over my helm, valve smearing across my optic, as he fed Ratchet his spike.
I was both Ratchet and Soundwave, my nonexistent mouth and fuel intake stretching around a rigid girth even as my spike was clutched in tight, wet heat. I boomed with pleasure, sinking even further into the pad. I was both thrusting and being thrust into, I was both sucking and being sucked, I was both gulping and being gulped. I both received and gave, gave and received.
I was venting, panting, my siphon unrolling straight up into Soundwave's valve. He arched and keened and I felt that as well, I felt the penetration, the glide across sensor points, the building charge. He rocked back and forth, fragging himself on me.
I was inside of him and inside of Ratchet and the sensory input quickly and easily swallowed my processing space. I groaned under the surge of my own data overflow. I gripped Ratchet's waist tightly.
But my overflow was not my own. They were open to me and I was open to them and so my overflow was theirs, increasing their own pleasure exponentially. Ratchet moaned around Soundwave's spike and Soundwave whined and somewhere else, Optimus hummed and stroked his spike. I felt that too, the individual digits squeezing and releasing, pulsing electricity against sensitive plates.
My faulds were rolling, my sump guard bumping up against Ratchet's naked valve as if I could bury myself inside of him. I nuzzled Soundwave's valve because it felt as if my own valve was being nuzzled and his pleasure system was flooded with input that made me feel as if my own pleasure system was being saturated. He rolled into Ratchet's mouth (my mouth) and back on my siphon (my valve felt deliriously good) and his whines built into tiny, hiccuping vents.
And then there were digits (my digits) in Ratchet's valve (my valve), stretching and sliding and spreading. Ratchet and I both groaned and went liquid.
Optimus chuckled as he swung himself into the birth and sat on my lap just behind Ratchet.
I felt the kiss of his spike (my spike) nudging against Ratchet's valve (mine) before steadily, slowly, with great enjoyment, pushing.
I was the sensor plates of his spike and the sensor points of Ratchet's valve and I was giving and receiving charge, I was being sheathed and I was the sheath, I was fragging and being fragged, I was being gripped and massaged by the coils of an eager, excited valve and my coils were straining delightfully around a thick rod, but I was also a mouth and the spike sliding through that mouth and I was a valve riding a narrow, long siphon, and I was all three of their pleasure systems as the sensory input kept flowing through.
(I was also regulating Soundwave's auditory input so that the noises we were making didn't negatively overwhelm him.)
I was gripping Ratchet's faulds so hard that I was leaving paint transfers behind and I was Ratchet feeling me bruise the delicate protomesh beneath his armor plates and I was Optimus who was buried to the housing and I was Ratchet's spike dragging across my armor plates –
The number of inputs overwhelming me left space for nothing else, for no other thought but pleasure, pleasure that wasn't even mine but it was mine and it was me. The data overflowed and my engine roared and it kept overflowing, spilling back down the connections into my mates in waves, and they were getting louder, which meant I had to keep regulating Soundwave's auditory input, which meant I couldn't allow myself to be completely overwhelmed by pleasure, and so I flowed the excess pleasure back into them and that made them louder and interface harder, slick noises and crashing metal and harsh vents and fans going and engines roaring and electricity crackling.
I allowed one last overflow to dump over me, to fill me to the brim, to leave me feeling fuzzy and hot. And then I routed it all back at them before closing my connection.
Simultaneously, two car alarms went off and a radio channel playing techno pop screeched to life. Lubricant squirted over my optic, giving my small world of Soundwave's valve an oily perspective. Soundwave almost severed the cables of my neck by abruptly sitting on my helm and Optimus collapsed on top of Ratchet, pushing their combined mass down on top of me.
I laid there for some time as they vented and whimpered through the aftershocks of their overflows, preparing my task list for the following day.
They were warm and purring, heavy and already comming me to keep my morning clear.
<<<we^re not leaving this berth for at least the next 12 hours>>>
Ratchet licked the underside of my optical casing, chasing the dribbles of Soundwave's lubricant.
<<<you^d best just get comfortable>>>
Soundwave made a high-pitched noise as he shakily got off my siphon. Optimus vented deeply, pistoned into Ratchet once more, rested, and then pistoned again. Ratchet groaned and rested his helm on my chest plates.
Soundwave curled into my side, neatly wrapping one my arms around his waist. I slurped my siphon back into its hatch, wet as it was.
I started to wind down for a recharge with Optimus and Ratchet still rocking against me.
They were safe for now. I could recharge. In the morning, I would make sure they were still safe and then I would make sure they never starved.
Optimus, still lazily interfacing with Ratchet, edited my task list for the following day. At the very bottom of it, he added:
Return Home.
Ratchet attached:
Or else.
I attempted to remove their instructions.
Soundwave proceeded to lock me out of my own task list.
Ratchet laughed at me.