Ep. 1.5 - SOMA - (Closed)

[Deleted]

It was not often that mecha like Ratchet were stunned silent. Mirage wasn’t quite sure whether he ought to feel impressed with himself or not as he watched the medic attempt to speak, only to think better of it, then repeat the same process one more time before finally finding words.

He couldn’t help but smile slightly in satisfaction when Ratchet finally conceded to his ultimatum offer, and beckoned him to follow as he led the way to the control room. It was a small victory, but still one worthy of celebration. After all, he had managed to dissuade the mech from following through with a plan that would have recklessly endangered his life, which was no small feat considering how uncompromising he could be.

Upon reaching the control room, they found themselves greeted by the quiet, absent whistling of a mech whose attention was occupied with more important things than carrying any specific tune. The whistling abruptly stopped upon being interrupted by Ratchet, who barked out a terse order upon first setting foot in the room.

Wash, understandably startled by the unexpected demand, as well as Ratchet’s sudden presence in the the room, stammered a bit, but recovered quickly. Mirage couldn’t help but favor the other mech with a brief, apologetic smile on Ratchet’s behalf. It was just the polite thing to do, even if the mech hadn’t truly been startled or inconvenienced badly enough to actually need an apology.

Ratchet then went on to further explain their intentions and what it was they required of Wash, before turning his attention back to Mirage to ensure he found the arrangements to be suitable.

Which he did.

“I suppose they will do.” He replied wryly, accompanying the comment with a faint smile to make it more apparent that he was simply poking fun.

“As always, I will not hesitate to inform you should I find myself in need of assistance.”

[Deleted]

Wash met Mirage's glance with a good-humoured smile and a half shrug of his own. He too was used to Ratchet's temperaments.

Meanwhile, the medic nodded tersely.

"Please do," he said. "I will be standing by in readiness to respond immediately if you require it. Wash, you will alert the base and request backup before accompanying me should such an event come to pass, won't you?"

The blue Autobot buffed his knuckles against his chassis. "Hey, I've got a four-to-zero score against MECH so far. I'm all the backup you need."

"Oh really? And how do you know it's MECH we're up against?"

"Hey, I recognised the coordinates you sent me, Doctor. Who else would you face in a place like that?"

With an ornery harumph Ratchet turned his back on him. His expression sobered again as he studied Mirage.

"Take care," he said. "Don't take any unnecessary risks. And yes, I appreciate the irony of me being the one to say that now, there is no need to point it out. Check back with us as soon as you have cleared the area, or if you need aid. If not, we shall expect to hear from you again in twenty minutes."

Wash dialled the coordinates into the control program with a touch of his fingertips before motioning to Ratchet. The medic threw the ground bridge lever and the portal obediently spiralled open, humming into life. It's light poured over all of them, pale green and glowing.

Ratchet stood watching, his hand on the lever.

"Good luck," he said.

Through the portal came the scent of rain, of damp earth and ozone. And on the other side of it...

...

Thunder rippled through the dark and stormy sky. The wind blew in fits and gusts through the ghost town. It howled in the empty windows of the vacant apartment block and hurled rain against their filthy, crumbling walls. In the distance rose the peak of the volcano, its flanks wreathed in thick jog.

The rain was heavy and driving. Water gurgled in the streets, forming deep puddles in the cracked pavement and churning the rest of the earth into mud. It trickled through old tire ruts in the dirt, washing them away bit by bit. But there were no other traces of life to be seen, not even when lightning strobed through the low overcast and illuminated the town with a dull and flickering glow.

At a first glimpse, the ghost town appeared quiet.

[Deleted]

After bidding him farewell and wishing him luck, Ratchet powered up the groundbridge, its light flooding the room as it roared to life in a whirlwind of of sound and color. Mirage favored the medic with an appreciative smile and a faint nod, to show he acknowledged his words and wasn’t just staring at him inattentively, without actually listening to him, while waiting for the groundbridge to power up.

He doubted Ratchet would think him so rude as to do such a thing, but it never hurt to offer up such subtle non-verbal communication cues, just in case.

“I have little need for luck, but I thank you all the same.” He replied, before gracing the two mechs before him with a poised, theatrical bow, one arm folded behind his back while the other came to curve around his front.

Then, in a blink, he was gone.

------

He materialized on the other end of the bridge a few moments later, as invisible as he had been when he vanished from Ratchet and Wash’s sight. He paid no mind to the gloomy atmosphere around him, to the dark and stormy sky, or the desolate streets, or the crumbling abandoned buildings left to rot and decay - both because he was a proud professional who did not let such unpleasant environments bother him, and because he couldn’t even see his surroundings in the first place. Just as he was invisible to the world around him, the world around him was invisible to him. With his entire body cloaked behind artistically manipulated photons, there was no way for him to see beyond the particles which rendered him unseeable, and as such, he was for all intents and purposes, blind.

It would have bothered him a bit more, had he not been in possession of keen proximity and spatial sensors, not to mention his sonar emitters and thermal detectors. While he could not see where he was, or even what was going on around him, he could still “feel” his way through his immediate vicinity with practiced ease.

Employing his spatial and proximity sensors to safely maneuver his way through the broken streets, Mirage simultaneously took advantage of his thermal-sensors to scan his surroundings for any traces of life. Humans, clever though they were with their use of camouflage, were betrayed by their own frames, which radiated heat and gave away their presence rather noticeably.

If there were any living creatures scuttling about, hiding in the dark like the vermin they were, he would find them.

And they would not be happy that he did.

[Deleted]

The rain beat down against Mirage without rippling his cloak. It drummed hollowly against his frame and flowed icy-cold through his joints and the seams in his armour. But against the dark sky he did not leave so much as a wrinkle in space.

Thus cloaked, he would be able to walk unseen through the streets. Any mud or wet grass he trudged over would leave a trail of silvery prints behind him, but so long as he stuck to the pavement the only sign he left of his passage was a gentle splash now and then, easily disguised by the hammering rain. A low haze clung to the ground. It swirled around his legs, further hiding his footsteps from sight.

Rows of dark windows streaked with grime peered down at him as he walked. Tattered scraps of rubbish and cloth flagged from broken sills and flapped against rusted fire escapes. Old telephone poles stood alongside the streets, tilted with age. Their sagging wires sang in the wind, while over his head thunder rumbled through the clouds.

Guided by his spatial sensors, Mirage would be able to make his way to the centre of the ghost town. No traces of heat crossed his thermal scanners, save for a handful of tiny dots scattered in the nearby apartments. Nest of rats, most likely. Mice.

But nothing human. For miles in all directions the town was empty.

Almost.

From the far west edge of town came a hit: a signal. It was very faint, less than a pinprick against his sensors - so weak that if he turned his head it would waver in and out of detection. But its origin was unmistakeable.

Cybertronian.

[Deleted]

The cold was bothersome, but not terribly so. Not enough to prove distracting. Though the rain chilled his thin armor plating and seeped uncomfortably into his joints, he was not hindered by it. His cooling systems simply powered down in response to the cold, as they were no longer needed to keep his internal temperature stable, which was just fine by him considering he made less noise that way. With no quiet humming or whirling of fans, he could move all the more silently through the rain-soaked streets.

(Not that the faint hum of his internals could really be heard over the pitter-patter of billions of countless water droplets pelting the ground in the first place.)

Sticking to the roads, so he would not give his position away by leaving footprints upon the muddy earth in his wake, Mirage walked at a slow, sedate pace, taking care not to disturb the street’s illusion of vacancy. The concrete beneath his feet was crumbling and fractured in places, and the last thing he needed was the tell-tale crunch of displaced rubble to announce his presence to whomsoever might be listening.

According to his scanners, those persons amounted mostly to rodents.

The small, scurrying little dots on his HUD were far too small to be anything else, unless the area had, at some point, inexplicably become home to wild rabbits or particularly small cats.

Mirage curled his lip slightly, but did not take action against the hairy little beasts. Unpleasant though they were, he was not visiting the area to exterminate rodents. He had far more important matters to see to.

Thunder rumbled overhead as he continued on through the abandoned streets, his sensors extended to their furthest reach. His search went on. He covered ground. Save for the rodents seeking shelter from the rain in the surrounding, crumbling buildings, he found no signs of life, no signs of anything worthy of note.

Until the signal reached him.

He had scarcely noticed it at first, it had been so faint and weak, but upon doing a double-take, he found it to be more than a trick of his imagination. It was real. It was there. He wasn’t just sensing something he wanted to find, that didn’t actually exist.

He turned to face the direction from which the signal came. He paused, allowing himself time to scan the area ahead more thoroughly, to gather a more precise feeling of his surroundings, before cautiously making his way forward. He had been careful before. He was being Red Alert’s definition of careful now, suspecting that the signal could very well be nothing more than bait, leading him into the very trap he had warned Ratchet against falling prey to.

[Deleted]

The signal led him down rows of dilapidated apartments. The blustery wind blew through them, driven by the storm churning overhead. Lightning flickered, illuminating the heavy underbellies of the clouds.

No human lifeforms glowed on his thermal imaging as the spy made his way across town. Voles wriggled through the grass, flattened down by the rain. Once he disturbed a whipporwill that had been taking shelter in the thick weeds at the foot of a picket wood fence. It winged across the field in silence before darting through a broken window.

At the far western edge of town Mirage would reach the end of the apartment blocks. Ahead of him were rolling foothills, blanketed in a vast forest of dark pine trees. An overgrown playground lay nearby - an old slide, a swing set, a little hut made of planks. Age had rotten the wood and left skeletal remains of the metal bars. Things creaked in the wind.

The signal pinged just north of his position. There, his proximity sensors would tell him, sat another apartment building. But unlike the others this one was not intact. Something had scooped a massive chunk out of one of its corners, tearing away the cement and brick and exposing a crumpled mess of rusted plumbing that rose over two stories high. Beyond the hole was darkness, save for whatever dim light glowed through the windows.

From inside the hole radiated the signal.

But it was odd. It had not increased in strength as he had drawn near it. It glittered within the building like a tiny star, bright and clear.

And there was something else.

It was not a life sign. Whatever lay inside the ruined house was Cybertronian technology - but not a Cybertronian itself.

Or else not a whole one.

[Deleted]

Generally speaking, Mirage did not like to fall upon cliches; he liked to think he was more skilled with words than to ever need to resort to trite expressions to convey his thoughts. Yet, as he made his way through the crumbling, rain-slick streets beneath the darkened sky, he couldn’t help but notice how eerily vacant the area was. It was...quiet, too quiet, and Mirage couldn’t help but pull a face at himself just for having such a banal thought in the first place. Save for the roar of wind, the pitter-patter of rain, and the rumble of thunder, the only sounds he heard were those he made himself. Save for the wild animals scurrying about, seeking shelter from the weather in the decrepit, decaying buildings that were abundant in this godforsaken place, he seemed to be entirely alone.

The silence, the lack of any sign of current or even recent human activity, was concerning. Suspect. He couldn’t rightly tell whether the place seemed abandoned because he was actually the only person there, or if that was what he was meant to think. Though he loathed to give them any credit whatsoever, he did not doubt MECH was capable of arranging such an artful ploy. In his experience, the best laid traps tended to be ones mecha walked into willingly, having mistakenly assumed there was nothing dangerous lying in wait for them, and everything about his current environment suggested no one was lurking in the shadows, ready to set upon him.

Which, naturally, made him suspect that there was.

Further reinforcing his suspicions was the very signal which he was following. Something about it seemed...off. And not just because it clearly had to have been planted there deliberately, that much was given. Mirage knew full well, as he approached the mangled apartment building, that whatever he was detecting within it had not been left there on accident. Mech was playing games, he was sure of that. Though whether the signal was meant to be bait, or part of some twisted scavenger hunt, he could not foresee.

There was really only way to find out which of his suspicions was correct.

Mirage did not need his vision to see that wherever he was heading towards, whatever he was about to walk himself into, it was unlikely to be pleasant. He did, however, need his vision to safely maneuver through the mangled and likely unstable building as he searched for the source of the faint but disturbingly Cybertronian signal.

Even so, he refused to drop his cloak entirely. Though his sensors could detect nothing in his immediate area, no signs of life, human or Cybertronain, he wasn’t going to take his chances. Not when MECH had made their interest in him so abundantly clear. Instead of uncloaking his optics entirely, he simply rendered one of them semi-transparent, allowing himself little less than half of his usual range of vision. His optic was little more than a faint yellow light in the darkness, dim enough that it could not easily be seen if he was looked at from the side, or at all from behind. Facing his front, however, it was a little more conspicuous - though not quite as conspicuous as it might have been had he unveiled his other optic as well. One faint glowing light would seem out of place, yes, but one would not usually immediately assume it to be an eye. The same could not be said for a pair of disembodied lights.

Carefully, he stepped past the rubble surrounding the hole that had been gouged into the building, taking care to avoid misplacing his footing, or disturbing the crumbling ground he walked upon enough to cause a racket. As he slowly creeped his way into the building, he opened his comm. with Ratchet; his first scheduled check was not meant to happen for another six minutes, but he felt it prudent to inform the other mech of his situation, should things happen to go awry within the next few kliks.

::First and foremost: nothing is wrong:: He prefaced immediately, knowing Ratchet might very well have assumed the worst the moment he first opened up the encrypted line.

::--Not yet, at any rate:: He admitted a moment later. ::I may have found something of interest, or I may be walking towards my doom. I haven’t quite figured out which it is as of yet, though I will be sure to let you know once I do::

He doubted the medic would appreciate his dark humor, or the dry, flippant way he discussed the very real possibility that he was walking into danger, but he just couldn’t help himself. Some mecha coped with stressful situations by becoming hyper-focused upon them, treating them with the utmost care and seriousness. Mirage reduced them to something trivial to be mocked and made light of.

He wasn’t sure what exactly that said about him, but he was certain it said a lot.

[Deleted]

Loose rubble shifted beneath Mirage's feet as he picked his way through the hole. Even his light footsteps were enough to send a trickle of cement slithering down from one of the exposed upper floors. Rusted plumbing moaned in the wind.

Ratchet's sombre voice came over his comm.

"I copy that, Mirage," he said. He sounded terse. "I've still got your life sign on my scanner, bright and strong. Let me know when you decide to give the all-clear. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but whatever it is you're investigating... be careful."

The rain cut off as soon as the spy ducked inside the old building. It sheeted past the hole and the grey windows, and drummed against the distant rooftop with a hollow rumbling sound. Mirage would be able to hear water gurgling through other holes in the ruined structure, gathering and splashing down natural spigots in the crumbling old concrete.

He stood in a wide room. Chunks of rubble were strewn across the cracked tile floor, upon which lay a flat pool of stagnant rainwater, black with filth. All furnishing had been stripped from the room decades ago, leaving nothing but a coat of dust behind. The walls were grey with age and grime. The air smelt musty, like mould. Bits of broken glass still glimmered in the windowsills.

Another hole had been smashed into the wall to his left. There appeared to be a kitchen of some sort behind it, gloomy and sodden. A mound of debris sat in the middle of the hole. The dim yellow light from Mirage's optics would pass over it if he looked at it, revealing that it was made up of pulverised concrete, decaying timbres, tangled copper wiring, and shreds of rotten drywall.

And then...

It sat on the floor in plain sight, propped up against the debris. Its screen shed a gentle blue light.

It was a datapad.

'ATTN: MIRAGE' read the words on the screen.

They were typed out in Cybertronian glyphs.

[Deleted]

There were few things that genuinely, deeply unsettled Mirage. Since the start of his indoctrination into the field of special operations, he had been subjected to many a dark and unpleasant thing both in training and in the line of duty. He had witnessed, experienced--and yes, even done--ghastly, disturbing things which, before the war, he would have found deeply unsettling and appalling, likely to the point of needing years of extensive therapy in order to cope.

In that respect, it was a blessed thing he was not that same mech he once was anymore. It would be rather inconvenient, trying to live the life he had now with the mindset and disposition he had then. He had been too naive, too soft-sparked, too sheltered and fragile. He would have been absolutely destroyed by that which he had to endure during his tenure in the special operations division, had he not already been demolished, torn down to his very foundation by the fall of the Towers and the loss of everything--and one--that he knew and loved that had resided within them.

It was a bit difficult, after that, for him to feel daunted or demoralized by much of anything. On that day he had reached the very peak of his despair, fallen so far from so high into a seemingly bottomless pit of anguish and pitiful wretchedness that everything he experienced thereafter simply paled in comparison.

His training had been far from easy, and his experiences on the field even less so, but he found himself comforted and reassured by the knowledge that nothing--nothing--would ever hurt as much, or make his spark as sick with horror, as the day Towers, their legacy, and their inhabitants, were razed to the ground.

Given all this, it really said something about how disconcerting that fiendish little message was, that Mirage stepped back, startled, the moment he laid his sights upon it.

He tensed, freezing in place as he stared the datapad down as if it too had eyes which could look back into his own. He ran a scan - every one he could think to run - not wanting (or daring) to take another step towards the sinister little thing until he was absolutely positive it wasn’t bugged, or trapped, or...or whatever other God-awful thing MECH could have possibly thought to do to it.

Only once his scans came back negative (twice) did he finally walk closer to the datapad, silently but vehemently cursing it in his mind for startling him, and cursing himself as well for being startled in the first place.

Cautiously, he reached forward to pick up the datapad and see what else it had to say to him.

[Deleted]

His scans detected nothing. It was, to his optics and his sensors, little more than a perfectly ordinary datapad.

Its screen glowed gently as he picked it up, highlighting the underside of his jaw. It was sleek and fit snugly between his hands. The moment he touched the edges of the little device the screen flickered and the glyphs scrolled away, replaced with new words:

SCANNING...
ID CONFIRMED.
INITIATING...

The room went dark. The apartment vanished. The ghost town and the storm and the blustery peninsula fell away. Thunder rumbled distantly in his audials, as if he were listening to it from deep underwater. Somewhere beneath him the datapad cluttered into the debris, dropped from numb fingers. The world tilted sideways around him as bits of his processor went dizzily light. He would feel his knees hit the floor an instant later, which shuddered with a thud when the rest of him collapsed upon it.

The last thing he would see before his vision irised into darkness was the glowing screen of the datapad, blurry and indistinct.

INITIATING...

Mirage's personal universe switched off.

----

It was dark. All was quiet.

Mirage had a dream.

He was soaring through the blue skies above Cybertron, far above the spires, so high that the planet was little more than a silver moon beneath him, that landmarks lost all meaning. He was flying purely by the airways now, invisible lines that traced a network, a web over his home. He was on Vector 984, approaching the SYNC intersection. Contact Iacon terminal - there was the clearance to LUNA, and he did a roll for the sheer thrill of being alive -

He was lying in Dead End, on a sheet of oil-stained plastic, because the emergency medical camp the Autobots had set up was overflowing with the damaged, the dying, with Empties desperate for scraps, and had run out of slabs hours ago. The light of the Exodus burned in the skies above him, vivid red with laser fire and burning ships.  He lay on his side within the makeshift shelter of the triage area, exhausted and in pain. He was threading in and out of consciousness, but still felt it when someone nudged their foot between his wings and growled, “Hey. You. You, Aerialbot. You Air Raid?”

Now he was walking down a narrow corridor. It was arched and gloomy, lit only by the blue-green light shed from the holographic monitors mounted down its length. His scatter blaster was propped back against his shoulder and his footsteps echoed against the polished black floor. Ahead of him strode a white robot, one who glanced up from time to time and tutted at the energon drip, drip, dripping from the black cables woven elegantly into the ceiling. "We'll have to correct that leak before a scan detects the discrepancy," he said, and -

He was bent over backwards in a pitch dark room, his feet on the floor but his back clamped to a table while a looming figure shone a laser scalpel into his face and some other poor bastard screamed his throat raw in another room. "We're lucky," said a voice above him. "Straight in and out, not as bad as I initially thought, he should be all right," and the tip of the scalpel gleamed like a green star -

And then it was back to flying again. Swooping, soaring. Cool, he was leaving a contrail behind him now, tiny ice prisms glittering in the sun -

Mirage woke up.

He stood in a narrow, winding corridor. It was dark, poorly lit - the only light came from the holographic monitors mounted in the walls, that shed a dim deep-sea glow against the polished black floor. Lines of glyphs flickered across the screens, the text familiar and comfortable. A white robot strolled ahead of him, a datapad in one hand while the other was folded behind his back in a contemplative fashion. A companionable silence folded around them both, unbroken in the hush of the quiet, dreamlike setting.

Mirage would feel - strange.

His body - something was wrong with it. It felt heavier than what he was used to, taller and broader across the shoulders, and yet stronger too. A self-diagnosis would reveal that he was operating within combat parameters and all of his systems were online, from oil and hydraulic systems to his flight suite. Even lifting his hands to examine them would show him that his frame was in pristine condition, the white and red paint flawless.

Something was very wrong.

Ahead of him, the white robot came to a halt.

He stood in the middle of the hall and looked back at Mirage, a kind expression on his dark grey face. His golden optics shone. When he spoke it was in Neocybex, with a beautiful cultured Iaconian accent.

"Ah, Mirage," he said. "Brilliant, well done. I apologise for the disorientation. It should pass momentarily. Can you understand me? Are you here with me now..?"

[Deleted]

Something was wrong.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, since he had gone into the situation fully expecting something sinister to occur, but this was far beyond anything he had imagined. He had simply picked the datapad up, then all at once he couldn’t move, his body had gone numb - it felt as if his sensornet had been shut off with the flick of a switch, rendering him insensate and incapable of controlling his own frame.

He tried to alert Ratchet, tried to let him know that something was happening, but he couldn’t. Robbed of his voice, he couldn’t speak. He wasn’t certain whether he could even activate his comm system, though he tried to, as shortly after making the attempt he fell to his knees and his vision began to fade, along with his consciousness.

The world as he knew it fell apart around him bit by bit, sounds faded, his vision blurred, then without warning everything around him vanished in a blink of an eye, leaving him as the sole occupant in a black, endless void.

Then all at once he abruptly found himself outside of the void, in a reality that was not the same as the one he left. He was doing things he had never done, seeing sights he had never before viewed, reliving memories that were not his own, yet despite all this there was an unnerving air of familiarity which accompanied the sights and sounds surrounding him.

Reality warped and shifted around him with careless abandon. He felt as if he were in some sort of dream-like state, though no dream he had ever had in his long existence had ever felt quite as...unnervingly real as this. Everything he felt, and saw - it was crisp, vivid. He was acutely aware of how utterly wrong his body felt, how alien the experiences he was being forced to go through were despite the haunting air of familiarity which clung to him each and every time the universe rearranged itself around him.

First he was flying through the air on wings he never had, above a home that was never his, then in a flash he was all but dying in the Dead End, and the pain and exhaustion that plagued his frame felt far too acute to be the imaginings of a dream. Next he was walking down a hall, a gun propped casually over his shoulder, and the moment after he found himself in an environment that he would have never cared to ever find himself in again, about to endure something undoubtedly unpleasant---

Then reality shifted again, leaving him confused and disoriented as it had every time before. He was flying once more, the scene endlessly more pleasant than the one prior. It did not last, however, and soon the world around him changed once more.

This time, however, things were different, though it took him a moment to realize they were. There seemed to be no preset series of events, no actions he was being forced to follow, no feelings that were not his own clinging to his mind, feeding like a parasite upon his sanity.

However, despite having control over it once more, his body was still not his own. Not physically, not in any respect other than it was a form in which his consciousness resided, which he could manipulate. He looked upon his hands, his chest, felt the wings against his back raise up of their own accord in a show of alarm.

Ahead of him was a mech, one he hadn’t noticed until he turned to speak to him, to call him by name. Mirage looked up at him with a start, and was made far more concerned than he liked to admit when he realized he could no longer cloak himself.

He stared at the mech, a million questions burning through his mind, and a million more spawning beside them with each passing moment. He hadn’t the time to ask them all, nor was he in any state to even formulate half of them into sentences and put them into words, so he settled on the first one to come to mind.

“--What is this.”

It was a demand, not an inquiry. Mirage did not enjoy being toyed with, he did not take well to being manipulated against his will, and he most certainly did not appreciate being run through a gamut of emotions and situations which forced him to question his own sanity and the fortitude of the very fabric of reality.

He was angry, he was confused, he was endlessly frustrated, and very quietly, in the very deepest depths of his being, he was just the slightest bit afraid.

[Deleted]

The white mech smiled at him.

He was an averaged sized robot, his plating snowy white from head to foot, save for his upper arms and legs, his face and midriff, and his small, neat hands, which were a dark grey. His frame was spindly but finely forged, with the oddly humanoid proportions that sometimes accompanied Cybertronians who did not transform into obvious vehicles like cars or jets or machines of labour. Only a few heavier pipes that swept back from his chest to his back like a parachute harness gave any hint to what his alternate form was.

White-lensed goggles perched on his forehead, and a pair of delicate antenna swept back from each audial at the side of his head. A glowing round lens sat dead centre in his chest - golden, like his optics. And Mirage's own.

He clasped the datapad in both hands and held it to his chest, like a clipboard.

"Remarkable, isn't it?" he said cheerfully. "This - everything you're looking at - is a neural-based simulation that operates via the manipulation of stabilized phasic geniculo-occipital wave signals from the pons node to the lateral thalatic chamber to the primary visual chipset of the oculomotor. Connections are made to the frontal hemisphere as well, especially the dorsolateral cortex and - and - and I apologise if that means nothing to you, or is of little interest to you at the moment. I'm just rather delighted to see such a successful integration at work, as anyone would be to reap positive results from their life's work."

Caught up in his own enthusiasm, it took a moment for Mirage's frustration to sink in. The mech faltered, his smile fading.

"And... you probably don't care about that," he said. "Doubtlessly you're wondering where you are right now. I'm sorry for the confusion. We had limited memory files to work with, and most of them were in damaged areas and had subsequently become corrupted, poor fellow. And then there's the body you're riding - well, suffice to say, we didn't have a copy of your frame-type in our databanks, so we had to made due with what we had access to. Perhaps in the future we will be able to accommodate you with a mock-up of your own body. Towerling, of an aristocratic House? Hmm. Difficult, but not impossible. But I'm sure it would be more comfortable for you. Hmm!"

He tapped something onto his datapad, as if taking a note.

"Anyway! There are a few things I would like to discuss with you, in private - hence the simulation. If you'll follow me to the projection room we can get started. Er..."

The mech hesitated, uncertain. "Unless you have questions you wish answered first? Bitter recriminations? It's all right, I've heard it all before, you shan't offend me. I'm here to assist you in any way that I can. In turn, I hope you can assist me."

[Deleted]

Though he was not an unintelligent mech by far, having had a privileged upbringing which allowed him the luxury of being able to educate himself to his spark’s content, Mirage found himself completely baffled by the stream of technobabble that poured out of the other mech’s mouth. Clever and well-learned though he was, he was no scientist, no scholar, no engineer. He could only guess as to what it was he was being told, what the stranger before him was so enthusiastically describing. Nothing past neural-based simulation” made a bit of sense to him whatsoever, which he found endlessly frustrating as he wanted very much to know what the hell was going on here.

From what little he could gather, he had been pulled--somehow--into some sort of…simulated reality that existed only inside his own mind. A simulated reality that MECH somehow managed to not only create, but forcibly implant into his consciousness via unknown means--something to do with the datapad, no doubt, though Mirage couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they could have rigged the device to do such a thing.

It was all deeply, deeply perplexing (to say nothing of disturbing), which only made the non-answers he received from the strange white mech all the more vexing to him. Under normal circumstances, Mirage was not prone to letting his emotions get the best of him, to emoting anything more than what he wanted others to see, but in that moment he found himself lacking a bit of his usual restraint. His optics narrowed of their own accord, one brow twitching slightly as he stared the smaller mech down and tried very, very hard to keep his temper.

Be civil. He reminded himself, unsure if his thoughts could somehow be overheard by the other mech, since this mockery of reality was apparently taking place all in his mind. Be civil. Keep a level head and steady hand.

Taking a moment to pause and breathe in a steadying cycle of air, Mirage straightened, his hands clasping together, out of habit, at the small of his back. He usually found the gesture comforting in its familiarity, but it felt alien to him now, almost uncomfortable. His hands did not feel like his own, they were too big, his fingers awkward and bulky. They didn’t seem to fit together properly. He didn’t like them.

No, he didn’t like them in the slightest, nor did he like the way his face felt bare and uncomfortably exposed without his mask. He wasn’t sure how mecha lived like this.The urge to lay a hand over his optics to shield the upper half of his face from the world was powerful enough to make his fingers twitch with the desire to follow through on the impulse.

He waited till he was damn well ready before attempting to speak, not caring in the slightest how long he held up the little white and gray figment of his imagination which stood before him.

“I have questions and recriminations both, though luckily for you I will not indulge myself in the latter.” He said this in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, helm tilting slightly as he deliberately looked down upon the other mech.

“Now. Who is this “we” to whom you refer? What is it you are trying to accomplish, and for what purpose do you require my assistance? How and why is it that I, specifically, have I been cast into this false-reality? What’s more, how do I escape from it?”

He paused, not to let his questions sink in, but to bow slightly at the waist so that he could lean forward, lowering himself a bit closer to the other mech’s eye-level. The gesture could easily be mistaken for consideration of the white mech’s smaller height, were it not for Mirage’s tone and expression, which all implied his intent was to far more condescending than kind.

“Shall I continue, or would you like me to pause?”

[Deleted]

Were Mirage in his own body the gesture would not have worked; the white robot was roughly his own size. But in this taller, heavier frame –

He loomed.

The white robot leaned back. He blinked.

“Oh, no need to continue,” he said. He smiled brightly. “I believe I understand the gist of your line of questioning. All typical questions from someone in your position, and all very good ones. I will try to answer them to the best of my abilities.”

With the datapad still tucked under his arm he raised his hand and waved his open palm to one of the holographic monitors. With his fingers spread he made a little beckoning gesture as it. Tiny ports in his fingertips glowed, and an instant later the monitor sprang to life and expanded in size.

Another gesture called up a glowing blue map of Cybertron. The white robot pointed to it, and the map highlighted one of the crumbling cities embedded upon the planet’s surface in orange and zoomed in upon it. Though the image was staticky as the holograph rippled the city was instantly recognizable, from the open plazas to Trion Square to the lofty apartments and spires of northern Translucentica Heights:

It was Iacon.

“We’re members of one of Cybertron’s finest old scientific academies,” he said. “I should more properly say, we amount to all that’s left of it. It could be argued that it was the cerebral pursuits of our society that suffered the worst in the war. The Decepticons were not particularly kind towards the Autobot intellectual class or its accumulated knowledge, save for what could be captured and perverted into instruments of destruction.”

He sighed, his shouldered slumped.  The holograhic map of Iacon fritzed at him, as if in sympathy.

“Our own fault for being soft targets perhaps, and disinclined towards using violence to defend ourselves,“ he said glumly. ”Anyway, you’re currently standing in one of the lower–level corridors of our data library, beneath the ruins of the University itself. I’m sorry I can’t give you any more details than that.  Cybertron may be a dead planet at this time, but Decepticon stragglers left behind in the wake of the Exodus still hunt the last of us across its surface. Which is why we have taken refuge beneath it, in the Undergrid and elsewhere. And, well, while I would like to believe that a fellow Autobot would not betray his own...”

He gave Mirage a careful look. “We also acknowledge that you, Mirage, are a rather dangerous individual and not entirely known to us. Until we are certain of your intentions we must view you as a potential threat to our security and limit what data we give you regarding our identity and our operations. Er. Those are the words of my superiors, not mine. I'm sorry.”

With the datapad clasped in both hands again the white robot gave Mirage an apologetic look.

“As for why we've brought you into this simulation, well... we are aware that you are not particularly inclined to look fondly upon this prolonged war. We all hate it, it’s a horrible thing – but your streak of individualism in the matter is what caught our eye.  We’re always looking for outside assistance, from mechs who understand the importance of intelligence and discretion and are willing to work a little outside the fringe of the Autobot military ranks, so to speak.”

He waved his hands, his yellow optics wide.

“No disrespect intended to the Prime of of course, we admire him greatly,“ he said hastily. ”We would just prefer not to draw attention to ourselves. As I am sure you are aware, even a well–intentioned friend can accidentally give you away when you are trying to remain hidden in shadow, when that is not an existence they are accustomed to living themselves. We must be patient, quiet, and careful of who we trust if we are to survive.”

The white robot bowed to Mirage, politely and with respect.

“Which is why I want to assure you that you are free to leave this simulation at any time. You need only say that you do not wish to become involved with us and I will end this reality and return your higher level consciousness back to normal functions. And that will be the end of it. Life will go on as it is, and you will never hear from us again.”

He glanced around the darkened corridor before offering Mirage a timid smile. “But privately, between you and I... it is my hope that you will agree to help us, even if it is conditionally.”

[Deleted]

Mirage could not help but give the mech a wary glance as he moved, his hand waving to call up a an image from one of the monitors. He did not know what it was he intended to show him, and as such he felt that it would be prudent to remain alert. Quietly, he wondered if it was even necessary for the strange mech to make the waving motion with his hand in the first place, since this was all a simulation inside his mind, and theoretically, reality could simply be bent so that whatever he wished to show him could be brought up on a whim.

Of course, he wasn’t about to question the logistics of the situation out loud, since next to nothing about what was going on made any sense to him whatsoever anyway, so there was little point in asking - especially when there were far more pressing questions he wanted answers to.

He watched, curious but silent, as the mech prompted a map to appear on the monitor beside them.

A map of Cybertron.

Distantly, Mirage felt a quiet pang deep within his chest. He was quick to dismiss it, to tuck it away and refuse to acknowledge its existence. He refused to be plagued by homesickness over something as simple as a hologram of his ravaged homeworld.

But then the map zoomed in on Iacon, on what remained of Translucentica Heights and the home he once knew, and all at once ignoring the pang in his chest became far more challenging.

His optics fixed themselves to the image, to the bombed-out buildings and crumbling spires which decorated the once pristine landscape, until he finally had to force himself to glance away so that he could actually focus on what the mysterious white mech was saying to him. He pinned his gaze to the nameless mech’s face instead, careful to ignore his peripheral vision lest he be tempted to look back to the map.

As he was quick to discover, the day had yet to finish throwing surprises at him, because what came out of the mech’s vocoder next was so entirely unexpected that Mirage had to take a mental step back and wonder if he had heard him correctly.

This...if the mech’s words were to be believed, then this simulation was not MECH’s doing after all. This would have come as something of a relief had Mirage not found the claim rather difficult to believe, given all the evidence which suggested otherwise.

But there was still a chance, however slim, that he was being told the truth. This thought alone urged Mirage to at least hear the mech out, to find out just what it was he had been singled out for. He found it concerning that these mecha seemed to know so much about him (how, exactly, he would most certainly have to ask), that they had somehow managed to track down his whereabouts and deliver a message directly to him by means which had still yet to be explained. Only through further questioning and investigation could these pressing questions be answered, and though he had been presented with the opportunity to opt out of the simulation and end it right at that moment (or so the white mech claimed) he was reluctant to do so.

Something was rotten in the state of this simulation, and by God he was going to figure out what.

Taking a step back, he frowned thoughtfully down at the white mech, regarding him in a new light. Everything he had just been told...well, assuming any of it was actually true, called for him to treat the mech differently than he had before while under the impression he was some sort of artificial intelligence cooked up by MECH.

“I hope you’ll forgive me for reserving the right to be skeptical of all this.” He replied carefully, after a moment of thought.

“I still have nothing but your word to prove that anything is genuinely what you claim it to be, and given the circumstances, I have good reason to find your sincerity dubious at best.”

He retrieved a single hand from behind himself, the other remaining pinned in place at his back as he gestured towards the other mech.

“I’m afraid I have further questions for you, before we can continue on. Namely how it is you’ve managed to not only track my location, but send a device to the planet from light years away in order to deliver a message to me.”

He paused, optics narrowing slightly as he regarded the smaller mech with a calculating look.

"Or how it was you managed to lead me to it in the first place."