The handful of paramedics that Atomizer had rounded up was packed into the hall of the maximum-security brig, standing by as Hoist spearheaded the operation. Between the personnel and the case full of Getaway’s missing parts that had been hidden away in the recesses of the medibay’s storage, there was hardly any room to spare. Despite the close quarters and anxiety concerning the operation, the room had an optimistic atmosphere as they undid the first of Rodimus’ laundry list of questionable decisions.
Whenever Hoist needed an extra pair of hands, Siren jumped to aid him before any of the others had a chance to respond—anything to get his mind off of what it was running circles around. When he was needed like that, it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Getaway sprang to action the second Hoist announced that they were finished, giving orders and darting to the bridge without so much as a thank you to the makeshift surgeons to whom he owed his freedom. Everyone already in attendance followed and he amassed even more of an audience along the way.
The hopeful buzz in the air quickly faded once Getaway greeted the faraway Rodimus and company. He was immediately caught up in his own grandeur. Siren watched on, appalled. Rodimus may have lost his favor recently, but he was still a fan of his speeches—they were always gripping and galvanizing. Getaway’s, on the other hand, left a bitter taste in his mouth for reasons he couldn’t quite name.
Thunderclash arrived midway through the speech, which, coincidentally or not, was when Getaway started slipping up on the dirty tactics he had been using to orchestrate the mutiny, unbeknownst until then to anyone but his closest confidants. The number of second thoughts in the room was so numerous and potent that they were almost tangible.
Getaway ended the call and insisted that those in the room appoint him captain. There was a good amount of questioning before everyone conceded, and who knows if they ever would have had Thunderclash not been there to hesitantly endorse him.
The room dispersed. Siren and Inferno went back to the office to fill Hosehead in. As they made their way back, all Siren could think was how strange it felt to disagree with Thunderclash—was it a case of Thunderclash simply being the bigger, less bitter person, or had he actually managed to make a mistake for once in his life?
Inferno gave Hosehead a quick, dry recap, unembellished by any commentary from Siren.
“Well.” Hosehead lowered his head, processing the update. “I guess we got what we wanted.”
“Did we even? He got rid of Rodimus,” Inferno said.
“Ugh!” Siren rubbed where his faceplate met his visor. “I feel so stupid! It’s so obvious that that’s what he really wanted! He always hated him! This was never about Megatron!”
“I don’t think it’s not about Megatron…” Hosehead retorted.
“Did he always hate Rodimus?” Inferno asked. “How do you know that?”
“He and Nightbeat are kinda sorta close. He told me all sorts of things about him, but I couldn’t put it together! And—those nudge guns Getaway mentioned? Nightbeat would’ve sniffed out what was going on if he had any recollection of it!”
“They’re…friends?” Inferno said, still unclear. “If that’s the case, why’d he get booted?”
“No, not friends…I don’t get it, to be honest, but he knows him!”
“This is too weird. Why lie like that? If he had just framed it around displacing Rodimus, people still would’ve been on board.”
“I don’t know!”
Inferno shook his head and sighed. “You know what? Whatever. Like no one’s ever slipped their own agenda in here and there. Who cares if he had a personal vendetta? Megatron’s gone. He delivered.”
Siren and Hosehead watched as he left, unsure if they should yield as easily as he just did.
“Soooo…do I stay here, or what?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t quite done with inspections.”
“Uh, Siren…” Hosehead tapped his fingers on the desk. “Did I hear that right earlier? Nightbeat got booted?”
“Yeah…Look, it’s fine. It’s fine! Getaway said their safety was ensured. Not that I have any reason to believe anything he says anymore. But it’s not like he can’t handle himself.”
Hosehead continued to tap his fingers. “Do you need anything?”
Siren sighed as he made his way to the exit. “A different ship? A different job? A different life?”
Hosehead took those rhetorical answers very seriously. “If you want, I could—”
“No, Hosehead, no. What if something actually happens? See? You wouldn’t be making a face like that if you were ready. Sorry.”
Hosehead hung his head.
Siren couldn’t leave him like that. “You know I love you.”
“Yeah, I know…”
Hosehead made daily attempts to visit Siren during work, but Siren had been bad company. Hosehead insisted he didn’t mind, but Siren eventually asserted that he needed time alone.
Things had been quiet without Brainstorm and his explosive ambition. Siren felt just as restless and lonely as he did the first few years of the quest. Despite all the talk of the ship finally being on track, he felt more lost than ever.
He had some semblance of fun tracking down copies of a few titles from Nautica’s rec list that intrigued him, but they proved too difficult to navigate without guidance—he had a feeling he was missing lifetimes’ worth of context. If only she had been there. She wasn’t the greatest at explaining things, but he was more than willing to let her meander her way to the point. He wondered if he’d ever get to listen to that delightful raving again, he resented that he had only had the chance to a single time before.
It seemed he always ended up staring into the empty chair across from him, mentally replaying better times. It did more harm than good, but his mind refused to go elsewhere.
The worry packed on with each day that passed without hearing anything from their exiled crewmates. He had taken to spending most nights in his and Blaster’s room, and it was always the first thing he asked about when they saw each other. Blaster had yet to reply with anything but a disappointed shake of the head.
He didn’t want to think it. He didn’t want it to be possible. He knew better than to assume the worst. But he couldn’t help wondering if the radio silence was because something had happened to them. What if they died? What if he would never see Nightbeat again? Not only would the last memory they had together be a sour one, but they had barely had the chance to make many others. Sure, Getaway and Atomizer both assured that Necroworld would be safe—Nightbeat would even be in the company of his friend Censere—but it had been a distress beacon they were going after.
He knew it was ridiculous to worry so. Nightbeat was perfectly capable of holding his own.
…Except for that one, fatal time. If he had walked into one death trap, who could say he wouldn’t walk right into another?
Every atom in Siren’s body was telling him to commandeer a shuttle and go after them, but he had a job to do—and sure, Inferno could do it in his stead, but he was having a hard enough time without even more complications (even if he said otherwise), and Hosehead couldn’t possibly deal with the pressure of being put in charge—what if Siren ran off to Necroworld only to come back to a ship charred beyond recognition? And maybe leaving would be selfish, besides. So far no one had attempted to and as far as he knew, thanks to Blaster keeping him up-to-date, no one was planning to. It gave off the sense that, for better or for worse, they were all in it together.
Siren realized he was being excused from duty only once Inferno tapped him. “Don’t think so hard, bud. You’re heating up the room.”
Inferno had been right—the hallway was noticeably cooler. Siren went straight home. The Lost Light was passing through a populated area, so Blaster was busy working on the bridge for the night. Siren sat up in his bed, still not sure what he wanted to do, if anything. For now, his only task was mindlessly sipping at his dinner ration.
Siren didn’t know how long he had stared into space, but after a while, Hosehead invited himself in and stood right beside him. “Wanna go do something?”
Siren knocked the back of his head against the wall.
Hosehead scooped him up and shook him in a crushing embrace. “Stop being sad!”
“I can’t just stop!” Siren said, somewhere between a groan and a laugh.
“Just stop for an hour or two and go do something with me! Anything!”
“Put me down!”
Hosehead did just that, returning Siren to his bed in a standing position, which he stayed in so that their faces were level. “Fine. I’ll do something. You realize tonight’s not socializing night, though, right?”
“Yeah, but Getaway’s new rules are kinda dumb, aren’t they? You can blame me if we get busted. So what do you wanna do? How about something on the rec dec? Something sporty might help blow off steam…”
“Yeah, that—”
A third party entered the room. It was Blaster, looking nowhere near as amused as the other two. He didn’t even comment on Siren’s impressive height. “Hey. We finally heard from Rodimus.”
“Really?” Siren perked up. “Well? Is it good?”
“Not good.” Blaster shook his head. He looked ghastly just from whatever it was he had heard. “We didn’t get to hear the entire message, but…”
“What? What did it say?”
“I can’t bring myself to say it.” Blaster frowned, loosely shrouding his mouth with his hand. “Three letters.”
Siren leaped down to shake him by the shoulders. “What?! The DJD? Are you serious?!”
Blaster instinctively recoiled. “Rodimus didn’t say it outright, but it sounded like Getaway sent them…”
Siren dragged his fingers down his face with such force that it seemed like he was trying to peel his faceplate off. “The DJD?!? We have to do something! We have to—”
“Don’t rush into anything.” Blaster moved to the other side of the room and began unstacking one of the many towers of record crates. “Getaway is organized if nothing else. We’ve got to match that.” He reached the bottom row of containers and fished through them, retrieving a case full of dozens of miniature devices and handing two of them to the others.
“What are these?” Hosehead asked, holding his up to the light.
“Communicators.” Blaster stuck it on the inside of his collar plating, the others copied him. “Unless you already know to be looking for them, they’re undetectable. Press once to reach me, twice for Siren, three for Hosehead. I’ll tell you everyone else’s hailing codes once it’s all sorted.”
“What are we doing, exactly?” Hosehead asked.
“Stealing a shuttle. Since we finally have confirmation that Rodimus and the others are on Necroworld, we’re going after them. Plus there’s a battle going on just outside that Getaway refused to help out with, so that’ll probably be our first stop. You don’t have to go, it’s just that I might need you to play messenger.”
“No problem!” Siren said, glad that his great idea was being executed even if he wasn’t directly involved. “So who’s in charge?”
“Thunderclash, presumably. Getaway asked him to stay after our meeting, though, and he kicked the rest of us out…” Blaster stopped prematurely at the sound of approaching footsteps. A fourth party poked their head in. Blaster offered another communicator. “What is it, Hoist?”
“I’m suddenly not so sure this plan is going to work out.” Hoist said, needing no explanation as he clipped his device under his collar. “They’ve admitted Thunderclash to the medibay.”
“What?!” Siren shouted. Hoist jumped, not having realized he was in his presence. “What happened?”
“H-He’s comatose! They said his old condition came back. Now, I’m no doctor, but…”
“No, that’s not right!” Siren shook his head vehemently. “His old condition? The one he only had cause of those personality ticks? The only way that could have happened is if he got re-infected, but we haven’t been anywhere near anywhere that that could happen!”
“The timing is suspect…” Blaster said. “Seems Getaway’s not as organized as I gave him credit for.”
“They wouldn’t let me actually see him, either,” Hoist added.
Blaster tsked. “Who keeps a patient from the acting CMO?”
“Ugh. Don’t call me that.”
“Argh! They’re obviously hiding something!” Siren was bursting at the seams. “I am not standing for this!”
“Siren—” Blaster started, but Siren was already set on his stampede to the captain’s office.
Hosehead lagged behind by a few paces. Siren was grateful for the backup, but he had nothing to say to him as they marched on. He had lived a life of complacency, even after caving to Springer’s orders proved where that led. He had always been perfectly capable of nurturing his rebellious side, except for where it truly mattered. Cybertronian authority was usually backed by millennia of experience that made them imposing beyond measure, but he knew Getaway was out of his depth.
“Siren! What brings you here?” Getaway greeted with such warmth that one would think he’d done nothing wrong. He didn’t bother greeting Hosehead when he followed through the doorway.
“What did you do to Thunderclash?”
“What did I do to Thunderclash? I admitted him to the medibay. His condition is acting up.”
“That’s impossible!”
“No, it’s not—”
“Do you realize that I actually know what his old condition was? What caused it? How it was cured?”
Based on his reaction, Getaway hadn’t known that. Siren shuddered—he wanted his theory about Getaway’s true intentions to be discredited, not the opposite. “I don’t appreciate your tone, Siren.”
“Tell me what you did!”
“What right do you have to the details of his care?”
“Technically? Nothing. But you realize who you did whatever you did to, yeah? He’s got a sizeable fan club. Word’s gonna get out one way or another and then there’ll be more people at your door than you know what to do with.”
“Do you think this is any way to address a superior? What’s prompting this, Siren? It seems unlike you. There’s nothing on your record about outbursts like this…” Getaway said, typing away at the command console on his desk. “If you don’t calm down, I’ll have to schedule a counseling session for you.”
“Don’t change the subject!” Siren seethed, slamming his palms on Getaway’s desk. He would have agreed that Getaway had a point about his tone, but he knew he was like Rodimus in that he often didn't accept to negative feedback unless it was impossible to ignore. “Do you have any idea of the danger you’ve put him in? Why didn’t you let Hoist check him out? What if he dies?! Whatever you did to Thunderclash, you’re going to tell me, now.”
Getaway flinched at the piercing delivery. He raised his voice, but it still paled in comparison to Siren’s. “I told you, I didn’t do anything.”
Siren moved to respond, but both his and Hosehead’s comms began hailing them with alarms as incessant as he was. They were being dispatched.
Getaway continued to type away. “You’re just going to ignore that?”
Hosehead turned to him, wondering the same thing.
The way Getaway had been typing wasn’t the way someone would if they were simply looking up a profile or taking notes—he seemed to be anxiously awaiting and promptly responding to replies. If he was indeed messaging someone, what could he be plotting? “Considering it’s you bluffing, yes.”
“Could you live with yourself if I wasn’t, though?”
Siren turned the monitor towards himself, but Getaway had done away with the instant messenger he had surely been using. Siren gave him a final glare before racing off to the brig.
He was more aware than ever of the small pistol weighing down his subspace pocket. It had been entrusted to him if he ever had difficulties performing the security procedures he was authorized to carry out. He hoped today wouldn’t be the day he finally had to use it.
When Siren and Hosehead arrived just outside the brig, Inferno rolled up as they were transforming. Once all three of them were standing, Inferno intended to charge in, but Siren motioned for him to stay put. Making sure he wasn’t in the eyesight of the security officers tasked with watching the brig—which was easy since they were preoccupied with their own confusion over the fire alarm—he silently gestured to remind them that he was armed and for them to hang back until he could assess the situation. They hovered just outside the entryway, ready to pounce at Siren’s signal.
Siren surveyed the scene—the lineup of prisoners was unchanged since he had last visited. Only one thing stood out as unusual: There was absolutely no fire.
In the picosecond it took him to turn back around, a pack of security officers emerged from blind spots and behind closed doors that lined the hall. They outnumbered them five-to-one. Siren could sense their hesitancy about having to engage their coworkers and moved to speak, hoping to negotiate, but even with his hands raised they mistook his typical volume as aggression and started to shoot away.
Commotion erupted from the cells. Hosehead went behind the brig’s entry archway wall for cover, Inferno blasted a generous amount of fire retardant at the security officers to obscure their vision as he stepped backward to do the same. Siren glanced at the brig-watching officers, who seemed to be completely unaware of what was happening and were tentatively drawing their own weapons.
Siren put himself at the forefront and gestured to them with his head. “Inferno! Arms!”
Inferno rushed one of them with the intent of knocking him into the other. Hosehead finally saw an opportunity to help by holding them down while Inferno disarmed them. Relieved of their weapons, they opted to huddle out of the line of fire.
Siren had been doing the best he could in holding off their attackers, consistently aiming for their knees with enough decoy shots that they didn’t think to protect his true targets. Seeing that his allies had come through in following his orders, he pushed even further ahead, hoping to make the delineation between sides less clear by driving through them so they had to worry about their front and back and to keep them as far from the prisoners as possible.
A few of them slipped on the foam Inferno had sprayed. Siren, however, knew exactly how to traverse it securely, and seized the opportunity to incapacitate them and their weapons. A shot grazed his armor and he flinched. Atomizer noticed the brief loss of clarity and attempted to land an arrow in one of his shoulder tires, but Siren managed to just barely maneuver out of the way.
Hosehead, however, was concerned that some of the shots were landing in the cells on the back wall. Siren didn’t appreciate him being so distracted. “Not now, Hose!”
“But—”
Couldn’t he see that the prisoners had curled up into their alt modes and backed into corners? The majority of the shots were landing above waist height. They were as protected as they could be. “Not now!”
Siren took a few bonafide shots that spewed energon back into the security officers’ faces. Pushing through the pain, he took a few more of them out. Thanks to that, they were almost evenly matched, even with some of the wounded managing to get back on their feet. Hosehead finally decided to step out from behind the wall and make himself into a barricade—Siren knew what he was going for, but he was such a bigger and less agile target.
“Get back!” Siren barked.
“But the—”
Siren cringed in anticipation as an arrow shot over the crowd. It landed firmly in Hosehead’s torso tires, penetrating through to his internal organs. Blinded by pain, Hosehead collapsed on top of him, the arrow snapping inside him as he keeled over. Inferno held his own for a few seconds before deciding it was wiser to surrender, leaving him the only one that was relatively unscathed. The two officers they had disarmed made no haste in taking back their weapons and the addition of Siren’s. They stuffed Hosehead and Inferno into an empty cell and punted Siren into another across the hall.
Atomizer crouched down to converse with the wounded Siren, seated on the floor, futilely trying to plug his shot wound with his hands. “We’ll get someone in here to take care of that.”
Siren felt like spitting in his face. He winced in pain as he vocalized. “What is wrong with you?!”
“I could ask you the same thing! Disobedience like that doesn’t get us to Cyberutopia.”
So Getaway had ordered all that over asking questions? That didn’t sit well, but it was hardly surprising—Getaway had kept nearly the entire crew in the dark during his planning stage. Siren moved to speak, but Atomizer spoke over him.
“This conversation is over. Hold tight.” Atomizer held out a finger and rose to his full height to look into the other cells. “Froid?”
Froid perked up. He seemed remarkably composed considering what had just happened. “Yes?”
“Come help me get your pet out of storage,” Atomizer deactivated the cell bars and headed towards the door that led to maximum security. “The captain would like to see you two.”
The firefighters stewed in silence, watching as security picked themselves up and made way for the medibay while Atomizer and Froid retrieved Sunder. Inferno stroked Hosehead, not out of personal affection or familiarity, but just because he seemed to be in so much pain. Once all the visitors had left, Hosehead broke the silence, his voice shaky and squeaky. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Siren replied. Though he had moved to lie on his back to slow the bleeding, his spilled energon began pooling beyond the cell bars.
“I was just trying to help…”
By protecting Froid? Siren couldn’t help but find it ironic. “I know. Your spark’s in the right place.”
Hosehead frowned deeply and curled up into himself. Siren decided to spend the wait for medical attention recharging. As he waited to fall unconscious he thought to himself: Thunderclash must have tried to push back and been punished just as they had. He wondered if Getaway would keep locking his crew members up on a case-by-case basis or if he’d resort to more widespread measures. And if Getaway had reacted this strongly to questioning, then it stood to reason that he had indeed sent the DJD to Necroworld. Considering that they had already offed an entire duplicate Lost Light, a small squad of stragglers hardly stood a chance.
The dreams his mind concocted as he recharged were disturbing enough to wake him after a short time. The brig felt lifeless in its quietness—there was only the ambiance of the electric bars humming and Hosehead sniffling. Greater noise eventually crept—the acting medics finally made their appearance. Siren sat upright, ready to explain his pain.
It was Sunder who stared back at him—bright blue Autobot optics never looked so malicious. He could feel him probing inside his head, remixing some memories and outright deleting others. The urge to fight back was overwhelming but he was completely immobilized from the inside out. He had been wanting for his worries to subside, but not like that.
Siren awoke in his room, a few minutes before his shift, as usual. The vague feeling that he had been locked up in the brig a few weeks ago still lingered. He certainly didn’t enjoy work, but that was such a melodramatic way to think of it. He pushed the thought away so he could get ready and head out.
“Mornin’!” He greeted Inferno as he hung his pack up.
“Hey. Have you seen the energon fires lately?” Inferno asked as he surrendered the chair.
“In the furnace?” Siren asked as he sat and got settled. “No, why?”
“Someone came in here to complain about it. They’re burning so low we shouldn’t even be able to keep flying.”
“Huh. Shouldn’t someone be taking care of that? That’s not our job, is it?”
“It was the Pyrobot’s, but they jumped ship, remember? And I can’t complain to command that they should reassign that task without the right documents—y’know, written proof that the people in charge of it aren’t here anymore. But Getaway had everything reorganized and so I couldn’t find ‘em. But you’re good at digging, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll get on that!” Siren said, pulling up the databases in question as Inferno walked out.
Hours passed as Siren kept himself busy with the mission he’d been given, which was proving to be as frustrating as it was entertaining. He was thorough, but nothing turned up. There were a few potentially promising documents he’d been willfully avoiding, but he would have to power through them if he wanted answers.
He readied his external storage device that held a copy of the fire safety inspection report from a few weeks ago and copies of his incident reports, made in a batch with the ones he had gifted Nightbeat. Since they couldn’t be touched by whatever had gone through the official versions, they were his best bet. He’d be disciplined for having made them, but the livelihood of the ship took priority.
It wasn’t the content itself that he dreaded, but the mental image of Nightbeat lovingly poring over them for hours on end, and the day they had spent co-authoring the safety inspection report. Things had been so good. Why did he have to go and betray him like that?
His efforts were thankfully fruitful—the Pyrobots had indeed been referenced a few times. Based on his own account, they had been just as loyal to the ship’s livelihood as himself and the rest of the fire department. It felt so strange that they would up and leave when he hadn’t.
His thoughts were interrupted as Hosehead took the seat across from him. “Hey, Si. What’cha doin’?”
“You’d better have a good excuse for being here. You know how strict Getaway is!”
“Oh, yeah, I do. I’m here to schedule more training sims, obviously.” Hosehead raised his brow, hoping Siren thought his reason was realistic enough should they be caught fraternizing.
“You already used that one!”
“But I could always use more, right? Eh? Eh?”
“I guess so. Do you remember the Pyrobots?”
“Umm…” Hosehead took a moment. “Oh, yeah, they’re some of the deserters, right? Kindle and Fervor?”
“That’s right, they did such a bang-up job that we barely ever spoke even though I’m technically in charge of ‘em. Seems weird that they’d just up and leave!”
“That is strange. Really, really strange.”
“I guess it might make sense, somehow. People are weird like that. But what I can’t figure out is why there’s nothing about them in the computers anymore.”
“Something must have happened, right? Oh, god.” Hosehead’s voice turned to a whisper. “They didn’t leave willingly, did they? I bet they got killed for disagreeing with Getaway and he’s hoping no one will remember them! I bet if we look into it, they’ll…” He shuddered. He couldn’t bring himself to say what he was thinking.
“It’s probably just a virus or some kind of clerical error,” Siren said, halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “Don’t freak out! You’re shaking over some missing data! Though I guess I should expect that from you, considering how you freak whenever something happens to your virtual pets…”
“Oh, wait, you don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“There was this huge fight in the shuttle bay earlier. Like, a shootout. That’s why I decided to come hang out, cause, to be honest, I was already kinda freaked out before you even mentioned your thing.”
“What?! Between who?”
“The Protectobots versus us. A couple managed to escape—including Thunderclash if you can believe it. Everyone’s talking about it, mostly cause it’s kinda confusing. Like, why leave?”
“Well, if Getaway had done something…”
“Exactly.”
Missing persons, potential conspiracy, gaping holes in their knowledge—Nightbeat would have had a field day, had he been there. Siren shook his head. “I don’t know about that, Hosehead. It’s possible, I guess, but we don’t have enough to say for sure. But, look—” He fished through a drawer and produced a datapad. “We’ve got a copy of the furnace maintenance manual, so we can take care of it if no one else will!”
“Okay. Well, that’s good, at least…”
“I’ve gotta tell Getaway we’re doing it, first, though. And maybe we can squeeze enough intel out of that convo to know if something bad really is up or not. So…” Siren checked the time—his day had flown by. “Just a couple more minutes and we can go do that together!”
Siren’s confidence that everything would probably be fine turned Hosehead’s mood around, as usual. Once Inferno showed up, they filled him in on the progress they’d made. He wasn’t a fan of their theory, but he was glad they’d made more progress than he had.
“I didn’t even get to ask you what’s been up with you!” Siren remarked as they walked towards the captain’s office side by side. “It’s been, like, a week since we talked!”
“Oh—I completely forgot to tell you. Did you notice that we parked a while ago? Can you guess where we are?”
“I did…hmm…” Siren cocked his head, taking in Hosehead’s excited demeanor. “No way. No way! We aren’t seriously in Cyberutopia, are we?!”
Hosehead grinned and nodded. Siren bolted to the nearest window. He didn’t know what to expect—apparently, not much. It looked like just about anywhere else.
“Yeah, surprisingly unimpressive.” Hosehead agreed. “But it's still cool!”
Siren could feel himself growing disappointed for staking as much as he had in getting there. But appearances could be deceiving. He wouldn’t let himself be disappointed until this place veritably proved itself to be as underwhelming as it looked. He took in the scenery for as long as he could before Hosehead tore him away.
It turned out they could have stared a good while longer, given that Getaway was busy with some important, closed-door meeting. Hosehead pressed the side of his head to the door, trying to relay in whispers the fragments he could make out. “Something about…an architect? A ‘grand’ architect? Grapple, maybe? No, wait, I don’t think it’s Grapple…” Hosehead squinted, pressing harder against the door. His head nearly collided with the Getaway’s as the door unexpectedly slid open.
“Perfect.” Getaway said, pushing Hosehead off of him. “You can start with these two, they’re troublemakers.”
Before Siren could even see who Getaway was speaking to, Hosehead was already writhing on the floor. His t-cog convulsed, causing him to reshape, not into his alt mode, but a sparkeater. His fuel lines slithered out from under his plating—Siren was far from queasy, but the sheer horror of it unnerved him all the same. The display would be sickening no matter who was on the receiving end, but the fact that it was his best (and by some definitions, only) friend amplified the revulsion a thousandfold.
Finished with his first target, Sunder emerged, followed by Scorponok. Siren instinctively shielded his eyes. Where was this all coming from? This seemed decidedly out of character for Getaway. As far as Siren knew, all he had wanted was to get them to Cyberutopia, and he had recently accomplished that. What more could he want? Was this the price of that? Releasing someone as dangerous as Sunder was extreme, and Siren doubted it was just an empathetic gesture from one maximum-security detainee to another, considering what they had just done to Hosehead. People didn’t generally go from 0 to 100 like that. Had Getaway been hiding his true methods? Had he, in fact, done something gruesome to the Pyrobots?
Everything added up in Siren’s mind: Getaway was in over his head and in that desperation had taken to erasing his mistakes from his crew’s mind, and now had some sparkeater-centric plan to employ. It would have been great if he had been able to figure out what Getaway was trying to do, too, but he had realized enough to work with.
All those thoughts flashed in Siren’s mind in an instant. In that same instant, Getaway had declared him the next target. He knew he barely stood a chance, but he had to do something. He reached for his pistol to find that his subspace pocket was empty—Getaway must have decided he wouldn’t be needing it.
Scorponok moved to restrain Siren—he was much slower-moving, however. Siren ran past both him and what used to be his dearest friend, who was trying—in vain—to suck the spark from his body. At least it had been Hosehead who had been subjected to the involuntary mode change, anyone else would have posed more of a threat.
Siren felt positively dwarfed as he ran past the titanic Scorponok. It didn’t seem like they were trying to harm Hosehead any more than they already had, so he opted to get off-ship while he still had the chance to—any given shuttle’s cruising speed beat the Lost Light’s pursuing speed. It was the best if not only way to send a call for help. He transformed and drove lights and sirens through the hallways towards the shuttle bay.
Getaway wasn’t about to let him get away that easily. He followed only a car’s length behind, cursing him out and ordering him to surrender. Siren didn’t bother responding. Instead, he shouted brief, urgent warnings to everyone they happened to pass: “Sparkeaters! Evacuate!”
Of course, if there had been a fight in the bay earlier, there was bound to be even more security staff than usual, but it was really the only option they had. Siren was going too fast to be able to tell if he had any followers besides Getaway—though thanks to his stamina being much greater and more evenly expended than Getaway’s, he was starting to lose him.
He drifted around a corner and nearly smashed into someone. He executed a flawless swerve out of their way but realized too late that as they had also become a sparkeater, it may have been wiser to crush them up against a wall to lessen their chance of harming others. Getaway was considerably farther behind him now, though he noticed that the monster wasn’t at all interested in their captain—that must have been why he opted to utilize Sunder as opposed to the less discerning sparkeater gun locked away in Brainstorm’s lab.
The end of that stretch of hallway marked the beginning of the home stretch to the ship’s exit, just two decks below. Siren drifted around another corner. He was relieved to see that his warnings had had some effect and others were heading in the same direction with a great air of panic about them.
He charged towards the stairway. Before he had transformed completely, he grabbed onto the rails of the staircase, lowered himself, and let go. He swiveled around on his ankle to reorient himself in the correct direction and transformed back. From there, he drove on until he arrived near the shuttle bay’s control room that housed the vessels’ keys. He cut his sirens and ducked into a side room to get there via the air vents, his best chance at avoiding security—all those hours he spent bored at work, staring at the ship’s blueprints were coming in hand.
He gingerly dropped in undetected and grabbed half of the key collection, accounting for if the shuttles had been shuffled around from his last visit thereby leaving him without much of a choice as to which would be closest to his drop point, if others escapees needed keys tossed to them, if they would also go for the control room after him, or if Getaway or his lackeys tried to snatch up the key collection before Siren’s allies could get to them. He may have loathed his shortsightedness at times, but at least he could come through when it really, truly mattered.
He had a bit of a struggle getting back into the vents but ultimately managed and crawled upwards to the shuttle bay, listening to the muted uproar below as he crawled. He heard the crowd flooding in from all directions, some desperately trying to direct everyone to the right place, others only able to scream as the sparkeaters followed close behind.
The shuttle bay’s ceiling was much higher than the control room. He braced himself as he dangled through the opened vent and transformed midair to cushion his fall. He was the first one to arrive, though the others—allies and enemies—were just seconds away. He transformed again and looked to his left, right, and straight ahead—he didn’t recognize the regal-looking shuttle he had landed between and knew he hadn’t swiped the keys to the other, but the one across the way was his ticket out.
Getaway strode in just as Siren made a run for it, releasing the sparkeater he had been restraining by the fuel lines. Siren reactivated his sirens, successfully scaring it off for a moment.
“Stop resisting,” Getaway said, dishearteningly casual. “They won’t hurt you if you’re one of them.”
Scorponok cut through the crowd on a MARB with Sunder as his passenger and blocked Siren’s path to the loading dock, nearly running him over. Star Saber, of all people, entered and ran towards him with a drawn sword and righteous fury. The crowd had calmed down, but only because Sunder had managed to mutate every single one of them. Siren was cornered and the only viable sparkeater prey in the vicinity.
He hated that Getaway was right. He thought of how Sunder had already wreaked havoc on a swath of the crew before—they had all been turned back from being made to fold themselves inside out, so the effect Sunder was employing now was likely reversible as well. What was left for him to fight for? To remain himself? The only thing keeping an iron grip on his selfhood was spite. The sliver of hope that Nightbeat was still alive called out to him—he couldn’t go disappointing him by getting killed out of his own self-interest. If he was going to make it out of this situation alive, surrender was his only option. At least he could take solace in knowing that he had done all he could.
With great reluctance, he met Sunder’s eyes.
In a strange way, it felt as cleansing as it was corrupting. Everything Siren had been worried about and everything he had been trying to parse while also fighting for his life quickly disappeared as they were transmuted into a simple, primal hunger. ✧