[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]A Temporary Solution [Nokta, Windshield]

[Nokta]

Nokta gave a terse examination to the device in his servo as Windshield spoke. He still didn’t trust the hacker. There was just something off about him, something wrong that had been nagging at the back of the scout’s processor the entire night. But this would have been more of a problem if Nokta didn’t actually think he could handle a mission like this on his own. Alas, he might not have needed Windshield’s distraction under normal circumstances– but said normal circumstances would have also required him to survey the perimeter for extra sets of eyes and optics that would have otherwise threatened to compromise him.

They didn’t have time for that.

Windshield went one way, Nokta went another. The hacker, off in the direction of the ruse he was so clearly itching to implement into the fray, and the lieutenant, towards the crane where the device was to be deployed.

He moved acrobatic, his form like dark brushstrokes against the canvas of night, a deadly silhouette whose movements were so precise that if they could be seen in the light there would be no mistaking he’d done this thousands of times before. Over the wall, past the security gate, atop a cargo container, and then forth onto a low building of concrete, brutalist design. A short jog ahead lay the crane, from which he could scale easily from his current position on the warehouse he held position atop.

Crimson optics stopped briefly to examine a lone human posted at their station. The mech considered the being with scrutiny. It had been the first native he’d encountered since arriving to this world. The organic was elderly, nearing its time– a lifespan so short, almost infinitesmally so compared to the lieutenant’s own kind. So much so that it was hardly even worth noting. The being sat there, wallowing in the filth of its surroundings with little care as to the fact that it was very likely leading itself to a faster demise because of it. These creatures died so easily, it was a wonder they’d been creating problems for either faction at all since the war had moved to Earth.

This human’s existence was of little consequence.

Fans wheezed out their last sigh, biolights fading to nothing. The scarlet glare in Nokta’s optics faded, almost to nothing. All that remained were the two pinprick white irises that made up the frontal portion of this mech’s optics. Lense plates. Their nigh indistinguishable glow was the only thing signifying any form of life within the demon’s frame.

Over their comms, Nokta finally spoke: "Now." And his voice was a warble to all else. Audio wavelengths immediately fled to the desert sands, the naked ear unable to parse any meaning from that whisper of a sound. It was a command only meant for one pair of audials to hear. His companion, given permission to finally play his hand.

[Windshield]

Click-Clack.

A blue spark, flickering, flaring, expanding. It is a momentary thing—it makes a fleeting journey across the black tapestry, beginning at the end of the barrel of a gun, ending at the bottom of an exposed barrel of oil—gone all too soon in a raging inferno. All is chaos, blue heat engulfs the thumb and it spreads, tapers into red curtains. It reaches the boat. Its occupant dives into the dark waters for safety. The metals creak in protest, the wood is consumed, and the plastic cries golden-black tears.

An alarm is sounded. Figures rush to the disaster. One... Two... Three... More... More. Only the old man in the booth remains. He thinks that this is a dream or a nightmare. He hears the screams and chaos in his sleep every night, after all. Too haunted to care.

The monsters that haunt his harbor were now free to act.

One marveled at the scene...

In a quiet corner, his face is bathed in red and blue and he remembers the apocalypse with a certain kind of melancholy. It is a purging sensation, erasing the self like waves do footsteps on the beach, leaving nothing but a blank slate. Blissful, eternal, and yet... gone so soon. He watches the figures grow tall in the shadow of the fire. Some panicked and knew not what to do, others took charge of the situation. A group of workers arrived with a magnificent rubber-metal serpent. Cold saline waters sprayed mercilessly across the site of his little miracle—they could not extinguish it.

The oil raged and burned and it would not be so easily denied.

More serpents joined the one. Hopeless, all hopeless. The fire would burn into the late morning hours until a fire crew arrives. A smoker will inevitably be blamed for starting it and they will charge her with all manner of untrue crimes. She knows no one would believe her if she told them what she saw—an amber-eyed Jinn moving along the walls and setting the harbor on fire with a magical blue spark.

Windshield would be flattered had he known, but he was no myth made real, only an agent of himself.

Still, satisfied with the results, he withdrew into nothing, slithered through the shaded corners, and took to observing from afar. He waited patiently on a rocky outcrop as the gray smoke rose to obscure the fading stars and the rising sun. Oh, how beautiful... Self-satisfied, he dangled his legs off the side of the ledge comfortably and, finally, he called out to his lieutenant: "You should see the view from up here... It's rather beautiful."

Terribly, terribly beautiful.

[Nokta]

A great bright hellfire bloomed across the docks, Nokta’s dark silhouette soon backlit by its brilliant blue-orange glow atop the concrete service building. He watched as tiny, worthless legs shuffled by the dozen to go quell the blaze. Away from him, away from his goal. Two pinpricks of white lifted to the crane in front of him, scrutinizing the tall, yellow subject of that goal.

With a running start, he leapt. Spindly limbs found purchase on the rungs and beams of the construction crane with ease, and he began climbing. A thin mass of limbs scaling the carapace of the towering, metal vigil that held dominion over the dockyards.

The mech paused just before reaching the top of the crane, hanging from its underside by one servo, already well versed in its owner’s past high-climbing traversals. Removing from his subspace the all-important device that this entire mission had relied upon thus far, he grimaced at the sight of it.

He was above all of this.

Pride would not be allowed to remain an obstacle to the task at hand, as he secured the scanner to the underside of the crane arm where it would not be spotted by its operator the following day. But the thought nagged. Windshield could have done all of this on his own– either of them could have. So the prospect that the real reason for this mission was not to survey some areas, but instead some way of testing Nokta could not be so easily denied in his mind.

A test to prove what? That he was competent? That he was loyal?

Supposing that his abilities were the subject of Megatron’s doubt even now bit at his psyche. Nokta’s peds made no noise as he landed back on the roof of the concrete service building. But the look of agitation on his face was loud enough. In the back of his mind, the fear that he had somehow already failed his leader had begun to encroach upon him.

Windshield said something about the view, but it was drowned out by the ideas circulating in the lieutenant’s processor. Off the roof, over the fence, and out under the receding night sky, he left the docks behind. He’d done what they came here to do. Nokta trudged up the rocky outcrop the hacker was lounging on soon after that, his optics still a sterile white, biolights suppressed to nothingness under his silent running.

"We’re done here," the mech would speak, apathetic to Windshield’s navel-gazing as he continued walking past him, his back turned on the chaos of the rising dawn. Fading with the night above him, never stopping, never compromising.

There were still more tests ahead.

[Windshield]

The smoke captivated the spark and addled the senses.

It was not an unknown experience and its familiarity left behind an almost...comforting sort of pain. In contrast, Nokta's apathy was an impotent poison. Uncomfortable but harmless. Still, the comfort was gone now. Windshield spent a while longer observing the chaos. He was unwilling to part with the sensation so soon, but the beauty was gone. Amidst the disillusionment, he noticed something he hadn't before.

The smell of burning oil and plastic. It was disgusting and made him want to retch. This was not a miracle. Of course it wasn't. He was incapable of creating miracles, only refuse for the chemical pyre.

When he finally turned his head towards the other mech, he only caught a fleeting glimpse of his back: "...so soon?" He asked with a forlorn frown, not expecting an answer of any kind. He stood up with a kick and set off in Nokta's footsteps, jogging a short length to catch up.

Soon, they faded into the sea foam like a mirage and the sun shone passionless over the gulf.

...

They would pay two more visits to two more places—each industrial, each remote—each in a different corner of the world, all connected. One thought them insignificant—checkpoints to be tagged and vacated when the job was done, the other lingered in their wings a few moments longer each time, and each time, it was too soon over. Neither of them spoke a good word of encouragement to the other, and the final stretch home was an uneventfully silent one.

Until...

Florida was the last.

They had stopped by an old warehouse after driving a safe distance away from the harbor. A vast, moonlit shoreline framed the building from afar. In the midnight hours, where the foundations met the ground, its mangled form bled into the darkness seamlessly. There were no streetlights this far from the road but even in the dead of night, it was clear that wherever they were now was just a sad echo of some forgotten mercantile effort—the hollow carcass of one failed company or another.

And it was, in all likelihood, completely abandoned.

Windshield took advantage of that assumption and promptly transformed. It was audible and visible, but not more so than the swaying of the nearby trees or the cries of the howling wind traveling through the dilapidated building. It would soon be over, he thought, stretching his arms—to the left, to the right, swinging around and bending.

Flexible little thing, he was.

"Alright, looks like we're far enough now. Want me to call for a bridge while you give his lordship the good news?" He dared suggest, breaking the silence, struggling to make anything of Nokta out in the dimness of it all.

[Nokta]

Each time they’d taken their leave from every subsequent location, Windshield had dragged his peds for one reason or another, but Nokta was too distracted to take the purple mech to task for this, or comment on it at all outside of bluntly belted out commands to ‘move out’ or ‘keep moving.’

He’d grown quieter as the night went on, preferring silent introspection to mindless chatter, expecting that it would quickly devolve into more petty argumentation with the hacker if he gave him any more heed than he already had. That silence had taken him far across the breadth of his mind, as it was oft to do in times like these. Deep in thought, he had no doubt that the devices they’d spent the night deploying were important, whether that be in a significant way, or one less than middling. Megatron had use for them. But the jury was still out as to whether or not his leader had real use for him.

Through a dilapidated skylight in the roof of the warehouse, a thin beam of moonlight shone off a polished sliver of metal in the wraith’s hand. Sharp and chrome. He hadn’t seen reason to use it tonight. In the reflection of the blade he saw only a courier.

He was thinking. About the mission, always first the mission. But also of Megatron, his meeting with him, and the meetings to come, if there would ever even be more than the two. He was thinking about processor damage in his memory banks, unexplainably attained during stasis. A ghost ship being deconstructed in the Arctic.

He was thinking about the knife in his servo and the traitor it once belonged to. About the next spark it would snuff, and how soon or how long it would be until then. About everything he’d endured to end up here, disappointing, sobering here.

And then, finally, he was thinking about himself, because the only thing that ever kept anyone from indulging in their own selfish thoughts was time. His role in all of this had been gnawing away at him all night. However little, he’d always understood that it took many small pieces to complete a large puzzle. No, he was never a puzzle piece that was easily seen or heard, and that was by design. But he’d always envisioned himself at least a modicum larger in size than the one whose job it was to hide knick-knacks. Rank might have been one thing, but purpose was another. And if he knew anything it was that the former was nothing without the latter.

A silent exhale left his frame. He’d learned that proverb by another's example, he supposed. Nokta brushed his thumb over the handle of the moon-drenched blade. Even after all of these years, he still hadn’t brought himself to remove his late captain’s name from the hilt.

Windshield spoke.

Nokta’s frigid lens plates darted upwards as the hacker stepped into the dark. The other Decepticon struggled to make out his form, but the moonlight on his dagger would illuminate a thin portion of Nokta’s countenance. It would not illuminate what weighed on him behind the optics.

After a moment of staring almost uncomfortably long at his companion, he spoke. “He’s been waiting long enough, hasn’t he?”

Nokta rose to his peds, the poacher’s dagger disappearing back into its holster, and with it what had been illuminating his face. Crimson blossomed over his frame as he stepped out of the shadows and into the light. Vents fissured soft puffs of air before settling down as the glow returned to his optics, drowning those unsettling white lens plates in signs of life once more.

He steeled himself before making the call. And then a soft clicking noise fluttered over the encrypted airwaves, accessing his leader’s communications line with a single ping. "Sir," the wraith spoke, his voice free of the warble his outlier ability had been inflicting upon it, back to the same rasp it had been at the beginning of the night.

"It’s done. The humans are none the wiser."

[Megatron]

There was a great and terrible silence amidst the static after Nokta spoke. Then, suddenly, Megatron's words pierced it. Sharp-sounding, dagger-tongued echoes of their leader's voice overpowered the whistling air and the creaking of trees and metal. Nokta would listen, Windshield would hear. It filled their audio receptors with a singular strength that drowned out thoughts and obscured the environment. No idle fancies, no memories of the past. For a spell, it was if though they were in their Lord's presence—but not yet.

"Fine work, Nokta. Return to Blackridge Hold as soon as you are able, I shall await you in my quarters for a debrief."

Notably, although he had responded across both of their frequencies, Megatron did not make a mention of Windshield, nor was the other operative congratulated in the same terse manner. The Decepticon master may have simply been returning a favor—ignorance repaid with ignorance—but he was rarely so petty. Perhaps whatever was about to transpire, whatever Megatron's intentions may have been thus far, the hacker wasn't truly part of them. He was, after a fashion, just a tool, a means to an end. It was not a dismissal, but the manifestation of a sordidly cold attitude towards his subjects...

But was Nokta any different? Perhaps he was only deserving of the two words—of fine work, a debrief, and nothing else.

...

Deep in the bowels of their stronghold, Megatron presided over a command table, seated. He closed the communications channels abruptly and returned to his designs: an outline of the Nemesis wreckage displaying to his left-hand side and a vaguely humanoid figure to the other. Tall, featureless, and uncanny. His mind was singularly focused on such matters now and Nokta and Windshield soon joined the multitude of names that were of little significance in the present moment. They would be plucked from that deep well of memory again when they arrived, but for now, it was if though they had never existed and only their contribution left a mark on Megatron's world.

[Windshield]

Windshield thought nothing of Megatron's words, nothing of Nokta's insistence on maintaining his distance, and nothing of the fact that it filled him with a certain kind of urge to stab him. Instead, he leaned against a nearby pillar and blankly stared upwards at the moonlight and the stars. He'd already asked for an escort. Any moment now, they would be swallowed by that familiar blue-green glow and they would have to suffer each other's presence no longer—and yet, it did not feel complete. They had spent hours in each other's company and he pried nothing of substance from his associate, teased out of him no more than a single shout and clouds of cold steam.

Was he—losing his touch?

No. Perhaps he'd simply been too distracted by himself, by this planet, to properly apply his talents. There were names that distracted him, too, but in a sudden bout of frustration, he pushed them back out of his mind. For now... Windshield stopped stargazing and focused his candlelight eyes on the other mech.

"So, what does my dear lieutenant think of the Earth so far?" He asked on a whim and with a smile. It was his smile. The kind of smile that would never put anyone at ease, no matter how genuine it may have looked, and it was all because of those damnable optics, which betrayed no emotion, and smiled no more than Nokta's, and betrayed him entirely.

Briefly, he realizes this and makes a note of it, but he cannot control them. He cannot even remember when was the last time that he could, but still he plays the game, still he returns to the character he once was and grasps firmly on the illusion that he is someone else entirely. It was a played out song, a record stuck on loop.

He was and he was not.

[Nokta]

Megatron’s voice filled him. With what, he did not know. Nonetheless it was all-encompassing.

"Copy." Nokta disbanded from the line, and the conversation was over just as soon as it had began.

‘Fine work,’ but within himself he did not feel as though the work had been fine. He did not feel as though he'd done anything at all, yet. Perhaps that was what came next.

Seeming apropos of nothing, Windshield asked him another question.

Nokta hadn’t seen much of Earth at all yet. Only the parts that had been tainted by the human maggots and the detritus of their war. Its natural beauty, if there was any, had yet to be understood by him. Things rarely retained their beauty under the cover of night, anyhow. It was only on clear nights like these that anything could retain their splendor. But tonight was not a night for pondering anything other than current events at play.

But what did he think of Earth? Windshield did not care. Nokta could see it in his optics, of course. Why some mecha even tried to feign amity when they were so direly incapable of it still escaped him. At this point in the war, a smile like that should never garner anything more than healthy suspicion.

Nokta could have responded to the question, said something about Earth being a fitting graveyard for the Autobot cause. And Windshield wouldn’t care and neither would Nokta really, and then they would return to Megatron. And it would have been a wasted platitude even though he meant it with a frightening amount of his being.

Silently, he took his place beside the dark purple mech as they waited for an irregularity of swirling seafoam to form in the darkness of the sad warehouse. He was quiet as he did this. He didn’t answer Windshield’s question, because Nokta didn’t waste words.

"Why don’t you ask me something you really want to know," the wraith suddenly said. "You may not get the chance for some time." Or ever again, depending on how his meeting with Megatron went. Whether that meant another reassignment off-world where he wouldn’t be heard from for another millennia– or something else.

Windshield could decline the offer. Show his true colors and reveal that he really did not care after all, as Nokta suspected. They would go on and neither of them would speak like this with one another again. But if Windshield had gleamed anything about the lieutenant thus far it was that in all likelihood he was not in the habit of revealing anything about himself to anyone.

Perhaps it would amuse Nokta, hearing a question borne out of whatever assumptions the hacker had made of him thus far. They always did, some closer to reality, some further. Anyone who knew his full story was long gone, and it was unlikely that would change soon.

Windshield would probably be disappointed either way. It seemed like that was making the rounds tonight.

[Windshield]

Oh—was this an offer? No, it couldn't be. No one ever offered anything to Windshield, not in a long time, and of all their people left in this forsaken universe, he somehow felt that the lieutenant was among the least likely to do so. Still... it was tempting and he clearly had no reason to wear that face around him anymore, to feign collegial familiarity. If he could, he would stop the asinine smiling right there and then but, well, his face tended to get stuck that way. It was almost instinctual—a terrible but well-practiced habit.

Wearing it still, he straightened out his back, away from the wall, and fully faced Nokta: "...And you would answer me?" He asked, smiling no differently than from before. In many respects, he was no more emotional about this situation than the other mech. It could be an an unnerving thing—seeing a smile and being unable to tell whether there is even a shred of a person left behind it.

He stood there, motionless, a perfect picture of himself. Gone were the exaggerated movements, the kicking and the jumping and the halfhearted head tilts, but still he had that damnable smile pressed right across his features and he couldn't get rid of it... Perhaps he didn't even want to get rid of it.

No matter, he did have a question in the end—an honest one.

"To be honest, I kind of wonder... Are you afraid that you might feel something if you started treating others like people?"

His body, face, or voice gave no indication that this was so deeply a personal question. He asked it with relative ease and a voice so unremarkably average that, had it not been for its contents, the query could have been ignored with no greater resistance than the last one.

Still, had it only been him that Nokta dismissed so entirely, he would have understood.

Windshield was an acquired taste even on his best behavior, but Nokta regarded Cintra in much the same way and his respect for Megatron felt... artificial, formulaic: the sort of admiration that was a universal mantra recited and circulated among the Decepticons ad nauseam...ad infinitum. It did not feel personal, especially not after what Nokta told him at the gulf. From where he stood, Windshield well and truly felt that the mech standing before him had forgotten entirely that to live meant to do so among other people.

Don't let them see, don't let them know, right? That was his assumption about Nokta.

There was something nagging him about that sentiment. Perhaps, Windshield was projecting or... he simply recognized crippling apathy when he saw it. In others, in himself. Out of anyone, he probably knew it the best and if it taught him anything it was that:

There was more under the cold exterior. There was always more.

And though Nokta was no Windshield and though they were very different in so many respects—there was something so torturously familiar about this all.

When...

Where—did this familiarity even come from? He wondered.

Oh, yes.

He'd nearly forgotten. He was so much like him, yes. Not as Windshield remembered him, no, but their first meeting was exactly like this one. A mirrored picture of the distant past. It hurt to think suddenly.

Windshield was no longer smiling.

[Nokta]

Treating others like people.

So that was what had been grating on the hacker’s nerves. He’d left a better impression on the mech than he would have assumed outright.

That Windshield seemed to imply there was any inherent quality to others that elevated them above the basic state of being living, functioning beings– who deserved some special treatment or attitudes simply because they functioned– was a concept that bordered notably close to a brand of moral virtue that nearly every Autobot he’d ever had the displeasure to meet liked to spout. He wondered, what passed for a person these days? How many of them weren’t just hired guns, scalpels, wrenches, mining drills, shells of something they would never be again?

Because maybe some of them had been tricked into thinking otherwise, but the reality was that none of them were people anymore, if they ever happened to be at all.

"Others. Like you?" The lieutenant pinned his comrade with a questioning gaze, a challenge to the hacker’s philosophy in turn. Windshield might have had a point if he chose to verbally cite his past demeanor towards someone like Cintra compared to himself. But how many idealistic Cintra’s were there compared to jaded Windshield’s? These days? Too few.

As for Megatron? Even if he’d been asked about him, it would do no justice to the lieutenant’s true feelings about the mech to attempt to dissect them in one short night.

Maybe Nokta had lost the ability to treat pawns and kings like anything other than they were with all the time he’d spent in the ruthless rigidity of Decepticon military structure. That would be a more graceful assumption.

What of Windshield’s assumptions he had made correctly were astute. He’d gotten things wrong, but one thing he hadn’t was that yes, there was more to Nokta. Always more, deep down. But it was likely only Primus knew what was writhing at the very bottom of those depths.

Now the stupid smile on Windshield’s face was gone. Perhaps his energy to pretend to be friendly had finally run out for the day. Perhaps he was merely taking a moment to interrogate his own philosophy. Maybe Nokta should have done the same.

Or maybe he should have told Windshield off. Part of him wanted to, he could show the hacker just how much he felt in reality. Warn that the day he started acting on anything more than his orders was the day that they should all be afraid. He’d run that course before, much of the guilt was even still fresh. He’d suffered little in the aftermath compared to what those around him had. And even then what he’d lost in the process had nearly broken him.

But Windshield had already seen enough of Nokta in his earlier outburst. That energy needed to be reserved for the Autobots. A groundbridge bloomed in front of them, bathing the warehouse in sickly blue-green. The lieutenant walked until he was within arm’s reach of the portal. And then he stopped in apparent debate.

"I’ve never stopped feeling, Windshield." Turning his helm partway to face the other mech, charcoal dermas parted to speak one last time. "I’ve simply lost faith in everyone but him to keep going until the end."

Without another word, he crossed that sickly threshold.

[Windshield]

Never...stopped...feeling...

Windshield wanted to follow, he almost reached out with his hand for the portal, for the departing Decepticon, then stopped himself in his tracks, digging his feet into the cracked concrete. He grit his teeth and his brow sunk heavily over his optics, concealing the dying embers of a spent bonfire. Then, he stood there in complete silence and watched the otherworldly hues twist and turn, folding space onto itself.

"Keep going until the end," he repeated after the wraith like an echo. There was hesitation in his voice, confusion even, it was almost another question, but one that ultimately fell on deaf ears.

Nokta was already gone and still the portal beckoned for one more.

Briefly, he considered chasing after him to talk his ear off about—something. Why.. why could he not remember what it was? It would be just like back then, like he'd always done. The half-formed memory filled him with a kind of determination that he hasn't felt for many long years... And yet it was not enough. Nokta wasn't him, would never be him, and Windshield was not the person who could be bothered to stop them from making the same mistakes anymore. There were pieces still missing, perhaps forever.

He just stood there and watched, immobile, as the portal closed before him. When it did, and he was alone in the moonlight, that hotheaded urge too did start to fade. He did not resist its slow and painful departure. Even had he tried to hold onto it with all his Spark, the silence and loneliness would coax it out of him.

Alone, again. Always alone, but never completely.

He had his wretched memories and that damnable withered stem of a conscience to nag him into the early AM hours. He would remain here, perhaps even sleep here if his processor let him close the optic for more than a minute, and he would not join Nokta in Megatron's office. After all, the Warlord did not ask for him. He wanted the lieutenant and his faith, clearly.

Faith. He had it once—perhaps still did—under the smile, under the aches, under the mask of the mask of the mask; Not just faith in Megatron but also something else entirely. A bright and brilliant future, yes. One where none needed to suffer, one where he could die comfortably with his sins. No one knew of this wish, of this future dreamed in the distant past, and none could truly know how deeply Windshield wanted it.

He was once a true believer in that ephemeral nebulous dream. Maybe he could be again.

Like this?

He looked around the refuse and the trash. No, not like this—though it was a fitting place for who he was in the moment. He exhaled with a tortured chuckle at his own expense. Then, finally, the last vestiges of that burning sensation had left him and he was all hollow again. He slunk his back against the pillar a second time and let himself slide gently to the messy floor.

And Windshield smiled and the believer was quiet once more.

[Megatron]

On the other side of the portal, Blackridge Hold awaited. Cold, hewn from mica and sediment and sheer calculation. Functional, orderly, a perfect transitional outpost were one to be objective. Even its makeshift attributes were logical and only the product of cutting costs as necessity. Megatron loathed this aspect of their current lodgings, but the genius of their rapid construction could not be so easily denied.

He awaited, far down a corridor from the Control Room, as he had instructed Nokta, in his chamber, seated at a command table; a tiresome position but one which nonetheless needed doing lest he risked further incidents. Many did not realize this, but the Decepticon war machine was far more fragile than it seemed. Its illusion of complete control and power unparalleled was just that—an illusion that Megatron strenuously maintained ever since his return.

As his clawed digits processed the data at their disposal, his mind finally returned to the matter of those responsible for delivering it at his fingertips. It was a most serviceable job that they have done, and soon, he would be able to put the beacons to their true purpose. Thinking of it, he'd glanced at the final and most secretive beacon, the fourth—a completely different make than the other three to be certain. Larger, more robust and less delicate. No fine fingers, no deep knowledge, was required to operate it. Perhaps this was the reason Windshield was not summoned back for the debrief.

The device was placed into the center of the table now, awaiting the lieutenant, as did Megatron who had finally set aside the data processing for the time being and hoisted himself upwards from the chair with a mighty motion, settling eventually to the right-hand side of the table where he would accept the returning asset.

[Nokta]

The buzz-thrum of activity in Blackridge instantly assaulted each of his senses. The mass of Vehicons and other personnel moving through the main Control Room was a fast departure from the quiet of that warehouse– the quiet of being in the field. The contrast was dizzying. He must have arrived in the midst of a shift change.

Contorted figures moved all around him, larger mecha passing by underneath the amber lights to create a blinding flicker flash over the grounder like a haunting zoetrope. He needed to get out of this damn room. Vaguely, he felt a presence following behind him. At least Windshield wasn’t dragging his peds like he had been earlier.

Doors whirred open and he was out into the hallway, finally. The stuffiness in the air was just as, if not more oppressive here, deeper into the mountain, but at least the mass of bodies was gone.

Windshield of course, had been chattering his little helm off the entire way, talking about one thing or another, Nokta did not know. All he knew is that the migraine that had begun to form ever since he’d arrived at the other end of that groundbridge was faster reaching a boiling point with every murmured word. Until he’d had enough. With a harsh grunt of agitation, he spun around.

"For Primus' sake, are you just direly incapable of shutting your fragging–"

There was no one there.

An empty hallway, not even a spare Vehicon to shoot him a disturbed look. Nokta’s faceplates went slack. He didn’t have time to ruminate on the implications of what had just happened. As the faint and unexplainable taste of putrid spilled energon began to fill his mouth, he quickened his pace down the hall.

He stopped in front of the door to his leader’s quarters. Again. Earlier tonight he’d made a mistake. It would not happen again. He entered, leaving any last remnants hesitation behind him for good.

Those various arresting shapes of gunmetal gray shone out to him in the light of the room like a beacon of their own kind. Standing at his full height, the old warlord was just as effortlessly imposing as he’d been the first time, and perhaps even more surreal now that Nokta had his helm screwed on a little tighter.

He’s just another superior officer. That’s all. You’ve served countless.

"Sir."

He announced his presence right away, as was professionally standard. In the dimness a customary, yet brief bow of the lieutenant’s helm could be made out. He padded forth after that, the obscuring clutches of darkness gradually loosening their hold on his frame as he moved into the light.

"Windshield…ran off. I can send for him, if you’d like." A ghost of what had unsettled Nokta in the hallway just moments ago surfaced in the gentle pause after speaking the name of the mech who’d been his partner the entire night. It faded as soon as it came. Megatron didn’t look as confused as Nokta had felt when regarding Windshield’s absence. Slowly the lieutenant began to suspect his being here by himself was by design after all.

"Unless you’d prefer we do this alone." Whatever this was. He’d tried not to speculate too much on that since he’d been called him back. His gaze shifted to the device on the table. Interest flickered in his sanguine optics at the familiar sight. He suspected he already knew what it was, but he would wait for his leader to reveal that himself.

[Megatron]

Megatron did not initially react to Nokta's arrival with anything more than eye contact. He maintained it when the lieutenant reported that his partner was left behind in the field. Many a commanding officer would be upset by this display of casual negligence—at Windshield and the superior in the field—but Megatron seemed utterly indifferent about it, his imperious gaze fixed on the wraith in his office with no change in demeanor. His mind also remained focused, his features undaunted by this change. Was he a master of his baser emotions or was he simply so thoroughly unconcerned with the hacker's status that it was barely worth the effort it took for Nokta to speak it? His behavior lent itself to either interpretation—though his following words would sadly confirm more to the latter:

"An astute observation, Nokta," he commented idly on the servant's final statement, "Windshield's current whereabouts are indeed irrelevant to the next phase of the mission."

His voice was as harsh as ever but he did not seem at all aggravated by the hacker's continued absence. So, it was true then... Megatron did not care—not beyond what contributions the least of them could make.

Even still, he did care about one other thing: evaluation.

"Speaking of..." He approached closer, trailing along the right side of the table until he'd joined Nokta at a comfortable distance—a distance at which he would look down upon him ever so slightly and in return the other mech would have to arch his neck upwards a degree or two. It was a most subtle reminder of their respective positions on the ladder.

"What is your assessment of his performance?"

There it was. Performance. That was the sole guiding principle by which Megatron measured who was worthy, useful, and loyal. He did not care about niceties or respect or even fearful submission because he knew that if he wanted it, he could force it upon anyone within the ranks of his army—even Starscream, let alone one as middling as Windshield. No, what he truly cared about was where the links fit into the chain, what their uses were, and how much he could rely upon them when he needed them.

It was Nokta's turn to fasten Windshield's link into the warlord's chain—and whether he knew it or not—his own as well.

[Nokta]

His optics remained glued to the device on the table until Megatron started moving towards him with a change of subject. Keeping his optics now where they were supposed to be, his crimson gaze locked with his leader’s again.

Even at a ‘comfortable distance,’ their size difference was staggering. Megatron, quite literally twice this mech’s size, towered over him. It was both impressive and unsettling at the same time. The feeling of inferiority standing in his master’s shadow was palpable. Nokta wouldn’t have it any other way.

Megatron wanted his assessment. He would provide.

"Despite initial, vocally demonstrated low morale, it did not affect his overall performance." Morale. A deceptive variable at best, ebbing and flowing with the tides of war. Only brought up due to its capacity to change, sometimes in a way that did affect performance.

Nokta too, did not doubt the ability of his leader or the overall command structure of the Decepticons to be able to sort Windshield should that ever change. If Megatron’s rally cry from the night prior was any example of his ability to keep his soldiers in line, that much was true. It was worth keeping tabs on, nonetheless.

Moving on, Nokta then thought back to the docks in Africa, where Windshield had employed a rather clever ruse whilst Nokta himself secured the device in an area of the hacker’s own choosing.

"Windshield displays impressive resourcefulness, as any expert of their craft should. His methodology in the field suggests an above average capability to adapt to fresh circumstances where others might struggle." It was an honest statement, neither sugarcoating nor underselling the value of the mech’s ability. There were no petty remarks to skew his leader’s impression of the hacker in a negative light, regardless of what Nokta’s personal thoughts on Windshield really were. An assessment cold, clinical, and succinct.

"I’ve no doubt he’ll remain a valuable asset to you in the days and weeks to come."

In a way, Windshield had not been wrong earlier when he berated Nokta’s willingness to treat others as anything more than a series of values in a net system. But it certainly made him adept at judging people objectively when he had to. Windshield’s own value would remain serviceable to the lieutenant for now, so long as that morale didn’t continue to dip any lower than it seemingly already had. They would need every helm screwed on tight for the battles to come, no doubt.