Professional Massive Nerd

A half-formed memory was nagging Chromedome in his recharge. Face plates and names that were almost familiar. Flashing by quickly.

“Chromedome?”

Chromedome had onlined to Jazz standing over him. A concerned look was on his face plate. It was still dark; he could hear the wind and ice hit the side of the building. Even the darkness of their shelter felt too bright. 

“Are you alright?” Jazz asked. “You started jerking a bit in recharge.”

Chromedome’s processor ached. It hurt worse than it did when he first woke up in the med center. He reached behind his helm and rubbed at a particularly tender spot.

“Just a processor ache,” Chromedome said.  “I’m fine.”

He didn’t want Jazz to know how much pain he was in. There wasn’t anything the other mech could do anyway.

“You find anything interesting on your read through of the data pad?” Chromedome asked. 

Jazz vented and stood up. 

Chromedome pushed himself up into a sitting position. Another spike of pain shot through his systems. His frame didn’t react. He couldn’t muster it. He just blankly sat. 

It was the cold he rationed. The cold was just making his systems more sensitive. He wasn’t used to the lighter plating that his civilian-grade frame carried. He wasn’t used to the limits yet. There was nothing to be concerned about. Hadn’t the medics warned him about lingering side effects? He wasn’t sure. There wasn’t anything to worry about. 

There really wasn’t. He was fine. 

HE WASN’T-

Chromedome worked through the pain and focused on Jazz. 

Jazz had the data pad in his servos. 

“Lots of little things, a lot of strange things. I still didn’t find one mention of the Mer, or any other wildlife,” Jazz frowned. 

“What do you mean?” Chromedome asked. 

“You saw how the logs got shorter, right?”

“Yes, I had noticed that,” Chromedome said.

“They also started getting strange,” Jazz walked back over to Chromedome as he spoke. 

Jazz sat down next to him. The screen illuminated the space and burned his optical sensors. One of the shorter entries was on the display. 

Chromedome skimmed it. 

“Wait,” He muttered. 

Rewind casually mentioned a mech collapsed. He glossed over it like it was normal. 

“Blaster slipped again,” Jazz said. “Almost took him a whole cycle to get back up. We started working around him. He was rambling the whole time. I thought about grabbing one of the medics but,” Jazz paused.  “The weather is nicer today.”

“He just switches topics there?” Chromedome said. 

Rewind went from being worried to talking about the weather mid-sentence. 

“Yeah, then just the next cycle look at what he was talking about,” Jazz said.

Chromedome focused his optics on the lower portion of the screen.

“I keep hearing something at night now- I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. It gets so loud I can feel my plating vibrate. I need to remember to ask-” The log ended there. A few hours later, Rewind complained about the same noise. Each time he got to the point of bringing it up to someone, the log would end.

Something in his mind was shouting about the familiarity of it all. He struggled to rationalize it. There was nothing familiar about it. He had never ran into anything similar, or heard of anything like it. 

Chromedome kept reading.

Rewind would mention a few different mechs in his logs. He wrote about their weird behaviors but didn’t seem to acknowledge any of them as strange.

“Blaster’s been working nonstop the last few cycles; he’s been going at it so hard I think he forgot where his hab was. I had to drag him back to mine just to get him to even think about recharging. It doesn’t seem like him. The stress has been getting to us all a bit.”

Rewinds writing got more disjointed and brief. The only consistent thing in his logs was his messages to what had to have been his Conjunx.  

“Dominus, I’m really looking forward to seeing you again; it’s a shame the off-planet comms have been so patchy. Hopefully we won't be here-” Rewind stopped writing there.

It was reading like something out of a cheap horror holo vid. Even the atmosphere around them added to it. The snow and the storm outside made it completely dark. The only thing missing was the cheap monster.

“They had to have been doing something to the colonists here,” Jazz said.

Another spike of pain, and of familiarity, ran through Chromedome’s processor. 

“Something in the Energon maybe?” Chromedome mindlessly suggested.

Something in their processors-poking around, digging, changing who they were.

Jazz shook his helm and vented harshly. “Nah, mech, think about it, he keeps mentioning mechs missing shifts; there’s even a period of time where his own logs just stopped for a few days before he started back up again. I think they were being taken away and having something done to them.”

Chromedome didn’t have anything to add. He ignored any instinct that he did. His processor ache was making his systems glitch painfully. Creating false instinct. 

“Some creepy slag,” Jazz said. “I haven’t seen anything on the technorganics yet though.”

“Rewind might not have known about it,” Chromedome suggested. 

“I always thought all of them would have had to know; the amount of space they would have needed would have been massive. A good chunk of the colony would have been facilities for it. I always thought they were all assigned here to work on the Mer in some way. Something just isn’t adding up to me.”

Chromedome stayed silent. Jazz vented.

Jazz stretched. “Nough creepy stuff for me, I think I’m going to try to recharge for a bit. If the processor aces get bad again tonight, I think we might have a few pain patches in one of these crates.”

Chromedome still felt like he could recharge. There unfortunately wasn’t much else to do during the storm.

“Hopefully by the time we’re up the storm will be over and we can get back to work,” Jazz said as he sat down and leaned against the wall.

“Hopefully,” Chromedome said.

He wasn’t thrilled at the idea of potentially being stuck in such a small space for more than a cycle. The one room in the hab was large enough for one of them to take a few steps, maybe.  It was cramped and hardly counted as warm.

Jazz stretched before lying down on the floor. Chromedome moved closer to the heater. He sat against a wall awkwardly. He entered an unstable recharge. He was never prone to recharge fluxes. He had them from time to time, but it was almost always a short memory from the previous cycle. 

He had known other bots could have strange fluxes. But it wasn’t something he had ever experienced. Or at least that he could remember experiencing. He had always just had fragments of memory replay during recharge. Ever since he woke up in the med center, they had been even more disjointed than he remembered.

He didn’t even know how to describe the flux he had that night. He heard the quiet sounds of Jazz’s vents whirling down. The sounds of the storm hitting against their camp. 

He felt something watching him. Staring, judging. It peered down at him. It made Chromedome feel alert. He felt something comb through his systems. It peeled back the layers of memories. It had a shape, a form to it, but Chromedome couldn’t see it. He just knew it was there.

It looked at things he couldn’t. Memories and thoughts that were just out of touch. 

Chromedome felt like an observer in his own mind. Chromedome tried focusing on the being. But he couldn’t. It still moved through his processor. He felt a minor shift in his mind. It made him want to scream. A small nudge that felt familiar. It made him want to fight, to get away.

A ghost of a sensation- an idea was planted inside of him. Just to come closer to the water. As soon as it solidified, it started to fade into the background. Waiting and ready to come back.

Chromedome didn’t want to recharge anymore.

He attempted to online himself. 

Everything in his processor stopped. He felt it. Whatever had been sorting through his processor had noticed him perceiving it. It started to move closer, to scrutinize him more. He pushed through his Onlining process.

Chromedome onlined his visor. 

The world flickered back into view. Light was starting to filter into the window. He vented harshly. 

Panic ran through his spark. Only for a second. He felt a cold fog in his mind. His spark immediately slowed down.

He couldn’t remember why he had onlined so suddenly. He shook his helm.

“Mornin’” Jazz mumbled. 

The other mech was sitting up. Jazz was already working his way through his morning ration. Light was coming in through the window. The oppressive darkness had finally retreated.

“Did the storm break?” Chromedome asked.

“Yeah, there's a bit more snow outside, but it’s not coming down anymore, at least,” Jazz said.

“Back to work then?”

“Yeah, back to work. We only got a few more cycles on this planet; I want to make them count.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to change up locations today, go along some of the coastline, get a few varied shots of the landscape, maybe find a different beach.”

“You have any idea where to go?” Chromedome asked.

Jazz waved a servo in a so-so motion, “Vaguely, I’m hoping further up the coast we’ll find another access point to a beach.”

Chromedome could tell Jazz was already eager to get out of the small shelter. He pushed himself off of the ground. 

“These floors are not kind on my back strut.” Chromedome stretched his frame as he stood. 

“Can’t wait to recharge on a real berth again,” Jazz said wistfully.

Jazz offered a ration out to Chromedome. He took it gratefully. He sat with Jazz for a moment and quickly fueled through his intake. He caught Jazz staring once or twice. It wasn’t an uncommon thing. He had many mechs with face plates stare at him before. He was just happy Jazz hadn’t asked any of the normal questions Chromedome would get about it.  

Chromedome placed the cube down on one of the storage boxes littering their space. 

“You ready?” Chromedome said.

“Yeah, hope you are; it should be colder today.”

“Fun,” Chromedome said sarcastically. 

Jazz pushed through their storage crates. He pulled out a drone and a small controller for it.

Chromedome grabbed a few supplies and, after a moment of internal debate, decided to grab the data pad again. There was a chance he would have some downtime. 

Jazz and Chromedome both had to push the door to get it to slide open that morning. The snow and ice had frozen part of the mechanism shut. 

Outside looked similar. There was only so much a snow-covered landscape could change. The only real difference was that the ped prints they had left over the last few cycles had been covered in snow. It was impossible to tell where they had been.

Jazz smoothly transformed and revved his engine. Chromedome followed suit. The two of them started driving away from their camp. He mentally grimaced as they drove through the thick new snowfall. It was already grabbing onto his frame. He could feel it wedging its way into his transformation seams. 

Chromedome carefully followed after Jazz.

Jazz started to slow down, and Chromedome did the same. They had been driving for a while. Jazz tapped on his brakes and skidded slightly as he transformed. Chromedome carefully did the same. 

Snow crunched, and ice fell off of him as he stood back up on his pedes. He had to run his servos down parts of his frame to get more stubborn ice off. He was looking forward to not having to ever deal with this kind of weather again. He was yearning to head back to Cybertron and not have ice cling to his plating. 

Another positive about leaving was the lack of water that other planets would bring. Chromedome could go the rest of his functioning without seeing water or ice again and offline happy.

The landscape there was just as barren as the rest of the planet. There was less snowfall. Chromedome didn’t think the storm hit as hard there. The water sounded calmer as it hit the shore.

“There should be another access point down to the shoreline nearby,” Jazz said.

“What’s the point in filming from a different spot today?”

“The locals used to come here; there’s some shallower pools of water that are left by the tide going out. I saw Rewind mention it, and I compared it to some old maps I had this morning. He didn’t mention anything living in the pools, but who knows. We’ve been lucky so far.”

Jazz started to walk down toward the shoreline. Chromedome followed him. Even though there was less snow, the ice was still thick there. The two of them walked slowly to avoid slipping on the surface. 

The water crashed slowly against the shore. Small chunks of ice moved with it and crashed against the gravel of the beach. The two mechs worked their way down closer to the ocean.

Around them, ocean water had pooled into natural worn sections of stone. Chromedome and Jazz peered into the first one they saw. The water was shallow, but inside there were small signs of organic life. Small organic fish darted between stones and strange plants that seemed to thrive in the small pools of water. 

Chromedome knelt down onto the edge of a pool and gently put a digit in the water. A small fish darted out and brushed against his plating. 

Chromedome awkwardly grabbed one of their cameras from his subspace. “Do you want me to start getting shots?” 

“Yeah, I’ll work on getting the drone ready,” Jazz waved and took a few steps off to the side. Chromedome saw him in his peripheral vision pulling equipment out of his subspace. 

Chromedome still wasn’t sure if he was doing a good job getting footage or not. He lined up the camera carefully with the small pool beneath him and filmed the smaller life forms just existing in their own little world. 

The small creatures darted around the shadow he was casting over the water. Chromedome lost himself easily in filming the little world beneath his pedes. 

He enjoyed the small quiet moment. He listened to Jazz off to his side as he prepped the drone. He heard its small engine whirl to life and listened as it got rapidly quieter as it flew off into the distance. 

Chromedome stood up from the tide pool. He stood over by Jazz and hunched over to look at the control unit for the drone to get a glimpse at the footage it was getting. 

“It’s almost terrifying to think about how much of this planet is just ocean,” Chromedome said. “Who knows what could be down there.”

“Fish, probably a thriving population of Mer. It would be interesting to see what’s down there. I did try to source a submersible drone for this shoot, but I had trouble getting one on short notice.”

The two of them were distracted by the screen. The sound of the ocean hitting the shore was getting louder. It was a nice sound, but it was starting to grate on his systems. There was less snow there, but the cold wind drifting in from the ocean made it feel just as cold as the area around their camp had been. 

They didn’t notice a lot of things around them.

Mainly, they didn’t notice a Prototype break through the waves that were hitting against the shore. A flash of a large creature was what he saw in his vision. Chromedome backtracked, but the large creature slithered against the ground quickly. 

Chromedome felt a pain in his leg after the creature lunged at him. He was dragged to the ground. 

“Chromedome!” Jazz exclaimed.

Jazz rushed forward. Chromedome started to try to grab onto the ground. But the large creature was strong. He felt every horrible bump and scratch as he was dragged closer to the shore. Jazz ran forward and grabbed his servo. 

With a final pull from the Prototype, the two of them were dragged into the ocean. 

The cold water was a painful shock to his system. A burning panic flared through him as he was submerged. He flailed against the creature's maw and tried to free himself. The teeth dug deeper into his plating. It let him go for a second before it bit down on his arm.

He saw a flash of white to his side, and he just barely saw Jazz fall deeper into the water. He saw a flash of color as another Prototype swam after Jazz. Chromedome tried to reach a servo into his subspace. To access the emergency buoy, but the speed he was sinking in the water made it hard for him to move. 

He didn’t want to drown. It was the worst way he could imagine having his spark extinguished. A slow and horrible death that would be dragged out over several days. He almost hoped that the creature would tear into his plating and end him sooner so he wouldn't have to suffer.

The water around him grew darker. But it also grew warmer. He could hardly see anything besides the Prototype. He felt rising pressure against his armor. The only source of light was the glow of small bio lights on the Prototype and from Chromedome’s own Energon leaking into the water.

He was already feeling exhausted from the extended fight with the Prototype. The animal had no reaction to any of his attempts. A numb resignation was taking hold on his processor. 

He felt something in the water. It shocked his systems. It made his frame jolt. Moving took more effort. The Prototype slowed down as he did. Water was still rushing past him. He couldn’t hear anything, and the only thing he could see was the creature that was most likely about to tear him to shreds. Every time he tried to escape, the Prototype would thrash in response.

He saw something. In the water. Everything around him was nearly pitch-black. But he was starting to see the impression of a shape in the distance. It was large. Parts of it glowed in the water. It was massive. He assumed it was a landmass. A stony formation at the bottom of the ocean.

It moved. Slowly, but he could just make out subtle motions across the large thing. It stretched out farther than he could see. All of it moved in subtle ways. Small parts of it glowed faintly in the water.  

The Prototype brought him closer to whatever it was. Chromedome weakly tried to free himself again with renewed vigor. Something inside of him did not want to be here. Something felt wrong in his processor; even his Spark seemed to know that he shouldn’t have been there. 

Soon he was brought right up against the large creature. He had never seen anything like it. The Prototype kept his arm tightly secured in its jaws. The Prototype was taking him to the monster. Chromedome tried and failed at freeing himself again. He bit back a scream as he felt teeth dig deeper into his arm.

Chromedome flailed against the Prototype as he saw a giant eye snap open and stare down at him. 

He felt resigned to his fate. He knew there wasn’t a way for him to escape.

He saw tendrils snake into his vision. He felt a jab of sharp pain in the back of his helm. He would have laughed. It figured he would go offline to another processor ache.

Errors were stacking on top of errors in his HUD. He was being forced into recharge. He didn’t fight it.

The last thing he heard as his visor went offline was a loud screech in the water.

-----

Chromedome was in pain. He wished it wasn’t a normal sensation. But it was. Another cycle and another processor to poke through. He extracted his needles from the optics of the cadaver he was assigned to.

He retracted the needles in his right servo as he weakly scraped it against his chest plate. He felt the burning and all of the emotions of the offlined bot like they were his own. It made him feel sick.

“Chromedome, did you see anything?” A clinical voice said from behind him.

“Trepan?” Chromedome asked. “Where did-”

“Your supervisor had to leave for the cycle. Did you see who offlined this mech?” Trepan smiled as he spoke.

Chromedome’s plating crawled. The mech under him had offlined quickly. But Chromedome still felt it as he was shot through the spark chamber.

“No, even when his spark was still being snuffed, he never saw who killed him.”

Chromedome fought to compose himself. If his normal supervisor or even any of his other coworkers were around, he would have felt even slightly more at ease.

No one ever let their guard down around Trepan. No one who knew what he was capable of anyway. Chromedome had seen the mech genuinely laugh in glee as he reprogrammed other mecha. Most of the others, at least, had the tact to look grim as they worked.

Chromedome knew Trepan wasn’t the only mech who liked the work they did. Chromedome personally wished he had never been reassigned to learn under Trepan. He missed his old life. He missed not hating what he had to do. Chromedome did not like his function.

Trepan hummed as he walked up beside Chromedome. The two of them looked at the grey paint of the mech on the slab under them.

“It’s a shame; he probably was killed by one of those rebels. It would have been good to know at least one of their identities.”

Chromedome forced himself to nod.

“You always were one of my more promising students, you know that?” Trepan said.

That same smile was still on Trepan's face plate.

“Sir?”

Chromedome felt uneasy.

Trepan turned slowly towards him. Chromedome only managed a single step before Trepan surged forward and knocked him to the ground.

“You really are one of my best students,” Trepan said. He tutted.

Chromedome heard Trepan’s needles slide out of his digits. He felt a jab at the back of his helm. Chromedome’s frame went limp. He could feel Trepan testing out his limits. Pushing against Chromedome’s processor.

“The Senate fell,” Trepan said. “Not good for any of us, especially those who would be more willing to spill some secrets.”

Chromedome bit back shock. He didn’t have time to worry about that. He pushed against the changes he could tell Trepan was making. Trepan was rushing. He could never call the work his mentor did sloppy, but what he was doing to Chromedome’s processor was far from his normal standard of work.

“Your spark was never in this Tumbler,” Trepan sighed dramatically. “You’ve always had a talent for this. But I know you wouldn’t stay quiet. Maybe in a few vorns if you're still around somewhere, I’ll come find you. Maybe.”

Chromedome was losing out against the rapidly piling commands in his processor. Panic was already fading. Memories were already being hidden away from him. He still fought. He still did his best to keep that anger and betrayal in his processor.

“I just need you to go somewhere far away. Doesn’t that sound nice? Maybe you’ll even take a few risks you wouldn’t have before.”

Chromedome didn’t-

He didn’t want that. He had a life here-

“Do you?” He didn’t know who was talking. A voice calmly whispered over him. “You’ve lost so much here. How many times have you had your spark broken now?” Chromedome heard a laugh.

“Leave. Go as far away as you can. Don’t come back.”

-----

Chromedome onlined. His processor felt clear. But he couldn’t be sure of that. Water rushed around him, and his arm burned. Everything was dark around him.

The only thing he really processed was a burning rage. If he survived this, he was going to offline Trepan himself.