Ep 0.5 - Searching In The Dark - Closed

Most of the things Jazz had been thinking about lately were innocuous (ok, maybe not the trap layout he'd been working on). Planning to tighten security, planning to shake up the duty roster, talking to mechs, femmes, and humans.... After so long alone, being around this many beings and this much activity was great. Fun, even.

Then he'd gone mainframe diving. And suddenly the slag had rushed back in. From an unexpected quarter, even.

Jazz stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. He sat down on the berth, the berth they'd fallen into recharge in the last several nights, safe and content in the familiar security of cohort. He drew some of that residual longwave in and let it settle him. Just a bit.

"I've been doing a little research on Shadow and her unit, and I...want your opinions of her. Personal, professional, any guesses you may have about her past. Whatever you got."

Young. Close-knit. Yeah, I'm sure. Primus....

Jazz nodded, field tapping out automatic reassurance in response to his cohortmate's flare of...whatever that was. Remembrance, probably. Or maybe that had just been on Shadow's behalf. As odd a match as it was, Ironhide seemed to be in Guardian mode with her. Perhaps it was that 'young'ness, pinging the frontliner in a way that he'd been slowly backing off from as Bluestreak grew and became more independent. Jazz could tell from previous conversations that Ironhide was attached to her, and Jazz would have had to be blind to not hear the affection and worry that tinged his harmonics when he spoke of her.

Ironhide was many things, and no one would have listed "subtle" among them, but he had a good spark and a surprisingly keen optic for when something was wrong, particularly with close friends and cohort. If he was remarking on her lack of self-confidence and antisocial tendencies, then they were issues.

Jazz filed away that bit about the 'Con that took out the Thirteen to ask about later or ping the mainframe for. First, though, the Pitspawn he could see.... "Does she ever say anything about her former commander? Labyrinth? Command style, relationship with the rest of them...anything like that?

Jazz shuttered his optics. "That...was what I was afraid of." He invented, exvented, reaching for calm. Now was not the time to get angry. If HE got angry, IRONHIDE was going to get angry, and then they'd both be angry and the Pitspawn they were angry at wouldn't even be here to pound into scrap.

"Let me tell you what I found. First...Labyrinth. Database says he was an Enforcer before the war, did a little private security work on the side. After he joined his record is fairly good. Few disciplinary actions when he first joined, but reliable after that. Nothing outstanding, but reliable. Then things got...strange. There was a disciplinary action in his record but no details like there'd normally be and linked to files and attachments that didn't exist. Then a lot of quiet for a vorn or so and after that he was in a few missions that went bearings-out and aft-up. Spectacularly. BUT, he came out of those shiny. His record's all over after that how he distinguished himself, blah blah, and he was given a command to do with as he pleased. That command became the Thirteen. He recruited his unit himself, trained 'em up, was a stellar commander, and served as their leader until his and their (minus one) death."

Jazz tapped his claws against the edge of the berth. "THAT all looked a little too clean. Few too many gaps and oddities. A little suspicious the way he never got denied anything by command after starting the Thirteen. So, I kept diggin'. Went through the archives."

Jazz pulled one leg up, wrapping servos around his knee. "Did you know that 'bout when Cybertron went dark, a whole slew of specialists dumped their professional records into the archives? S'true. Including a very appropriately-named medic called Farsight. Farsight was a military psychologist. One of the things in his records were encrypted personal copies of all his evaluations. One of 'em was Labyrinth's. From the date, I suspect that it was the 'missing' file that Labyrinth's last disciplinary action was supposed to link to.
There was a lot of unflattering slag in there, but I'll give you the shortlist."

Jazz started ticking off fingers, his claws snicking against metal with each tick. "Labyrinth was charistmatic but manipulative and ethically questionable. He was a perfectionist and a control freak. He was unstable and didn't play well with others, particularly low- or drop-castes and PARTICULARLY full-frame mecha. Farsight made it clear that he thought Labyrinth should under no circumstances be given sole command over a unit. In fact, he suggested that Labyrinth be watched carefully, lest he ENDANGER any vulnerable mechs in his unit."

Jazz just looked at Ironhide, his field gone heavy, tight, stone-cold. "And this...was in none of Labyrinth's official records. And less than two vorns later he had his own unit. And no one ever questioned his decisions or his command again."

Jazz tapped his finger against the berth, three sharp, pointed raps. "So. That was Labyrinth. I dunno, 'Hide, I'm a suspicious fragger, so maybe you should help me out with my interpretation, here. What do YOU think it all means?"

THAT name made Jazz's processor jump rails and fall off the track completely. "BARRICADE? When did...wait...was that...." Two nanokliks to the mainframe logs, finding the reports on an event he'd only heard told by word of mouth on base. The Fallen's weapon. The failsafe codes. Ironhide, Shadow....

Well. Barricade was dead. Couldn't have happened to a nicer slagger.

Jazz whistled, low and musical. "That...wow, Ironhide. Never figured that anyone but spec ops'd manage to take that glitch out. And if he was tryin' to get himself offed before Blaster could get there...yeah, he would spill all his intel if he thought it'd help. So he was the one who took out the Thirteen, then? How did Shadow react to that?" Jazz's lips quirked in a humorless smile. "Maybe it's better if you just start from the beginning?"


<<Feel free to fast-forward through however much you want, here. ;P>>

It wasn't much. A hesitation. A mis-stroke of a fuel pump, a stutter of ventilation. Small, but familiar. The signs of a mech's systems reacting to processor stress. It could mean a lot of things: surprise, physical damage, minor processor glitch....

Or, the one that Jazz was most familiar with: a dissonance between logic and memory threads. A lie.

Jazz might have missed it if it hadn't sounded so...WRONG against the steady, resonant hum of Ironhide's systems. This was Ironhide, after all. No, surely it was some sort of glitch....

Jazz's concern was buried under Ironhide's story, his processor focused on picking out the information about Labyrinth and stifling his own anger. "Well, Pit." He vented a sigh. "Primus only knows what he did to them. And that...PRIMUS."

Jazz uncurled his fingers from the edge of the berth, lest he warp the metal. "'Nother bit of info, on the Thirteen this time. Their records were kinda suspiciously sparse. Labyrinth wasn't so good about filling out the details on their recruitment. No info on where they were from, their vital data, anything. Just a very long training period noted. So long that he had to have been training them from scratch." He looked up at Ironhide. "Crazy, manipulative, given his own unit...and hated full-frames. Wanted mecha he could shape, mecha he could BREAK and build up again into what he wanted."

Jazz gestured. "You said it yourself. She's so YOUNG. I bet they all were. Gathered from Primus knows where, little more than sparklings, and he...." The berth creaked under his fingers again. Jazz let go, slowly. "He kept them close. They were always together unless on mission. There's no disciplinary record on any of them, no crosstraining records, no nothing to indicate that they mingled with anyone else. And now, without that, without him and the rest of the cohort...."

Jazz tipped back his helm. "She honestly told me she shouldn't be here." He used the same glyph structures Shadow had used, not only for a physical place, but a state of being. Here: functioning, swamped in modifiers for loss and uselessness and pain. "And I don't think that's just survivors' guilt. I think that's an honest belief that she's nothing without the rest of the Thirteen. She's been CONDITIONED, Hide, or I'll eat my guns."

Jazz met that murderous promise with one of his own, laced in modifiers for agony and a fragging long time. He swore by all that was and wasn't holy that if he was right and he ever got his hands on Labyrinth, he'd have the mech begging for deactivation by the time he was through.

Thirteen younglings. Death was way too good for the fragger.

Jazz throttled it down, though. Anger wasn't going to help right now. Now they had to think of Shadow and what SHE needed. Which, Jazz was willing to bet, was a lot. He said as much. "That type of damage can be deceptive. Generally mecha subjected to it are then conditioned to act normal, to serve unthinkingly...and above all not to question the handler. Which...frag." Jazz ran a few diagnostics, dumped some heat, terminated a few murderous threads. "Which means that she's lost her entire support system. Handler gone, fellow Thirteen gone."

He shot Ironhide a compressed clip of the conversation he'd had with her. This isn't home. It can't be. It SHOULDN'T be. "Yet she's taken to you. To Blue. She even let me comfort her. You said it: she WANTS, but I don't think she realizes she can have it. She was terrified, 'Hide. Terrified, because I was telling her that we were her friends, were there if she needed us, and she saw that as a FAILURE. It's twisted and terrible and makes SENSE. What better way to keep your team loyal than to forbid them to make any other ties?"

Jazz was up, pacing, before he realized he was doing it. He made himself stop. Made himself go over to Ironhide and just...stand there, soaking in the steady hum of Ironhide's systems. He leaned in, resting his helm against Ironhide's chestplates and reaching up to curl a hand around Ironhide's shoulder. "She doesn't trust me, I know that. Maybe--and frag, isn't that sickening--but maybe my being her CO makes her see me as the handler, I don't know. But YOU...you she trusts more than any of us. You and Blue're going to have to hold her together while we work it through. She needs you."

He looked up at Ironhide. "This is gonna suck slag, 'Hide. It's gonna hurt her and us, but we have to try and talk her through this. Who knows what slag he has her believing."