Professional Massive Nerd

Jazz had noticed it was getting steadily colder. He wasn’t too concerned at first. It’s how the day cycles went: they started cold in the mornings, heated up slightly by midday, then cooled off again at night. But that cycle it never warmed up. It kept getting colder.

Thicker clouds rolled in. They were so dark it was difficult to tell what time of day it was.  

Jazz swore when he saw dark clouds gather more and more on the horizon. One of the major downsides of the planet's lack of any presence was the absence of weather prediction systems. Or any other satellite.

Jazz could only assume there was a storm coming. He couldn’t even be sure that it was going to hit them. But it was always best to prepare for the worst. This planet had severe weather. It was just unfortunate that what looked like a serious storm was rolling in while they were visiting.

Jazz pinged Chromedome’s short-range comms. He sent a quick message off telling the other mech to head back to camp soon. Chromedome responded with a short confirmation. 

Jazz headed down to the shore. He wanted to get his time-lapse cameras. They only had so many of those, and he didn’t want to lose them to a storm. The winds were starting to blow harder, and he pressed his plating in tightly. He revved his engine in an attempt to get heat to circulate better. 

It worked, but the biting cold was uncomfortable. 

He grabbed their remaining seaside equipment and started to leave. The waves crashed harshly against the shore. The sky was starting to grow darker as the planet's sun was covered with thick dark clouds. 

He could practically feel the cold burrowing into his plating. 

Jazz looked out toward the water. In the distance, he could see the storm getting closer and closer. The clouds were moving aggressively toward the direction of their camp. Jazz frowned. 

He saw a flash of blue-grey. It was the larger mer. Jazz let himself stay still for a second as he watched the creature dip its head out of the water. Instead of hopping onto the rock, like it and the other Mer normally did, it turned around to look out at the open ocean. It seemed to look out towards the clouds. It ducked back under the water quickly. It never came back up.

“You got the right idea, buddy,” Jazz whispered to himself, “Hope to see you again soon.”

Jazz turned to leave. 

He climbed back to camp. He walked quickly and carefully. It was starting to snow. It was making the stony outcropping even slicker than it normally was. Jazz’s climb was slow and careful. He didn’t want to slip on his way back to camp. He pushed himself up and over the ledge.

The air around him was dropping rapidly in temperature. The snowfall was picking up and falling heavier. The dark clouds were pushing inland. The sky was growing darker and darker. He walked through the fresh snowfall back towards the remains of the settlement.

He made it back to their little claimed building. He faintly saw a light shine through the small window. It flickered as something crossed its path. Jazz vented in relief.  

Chromedome had been wandering off more and more. Or it had seemed like he had. Jazz had caught the mech staring off at nothing for small periods of time. Chromedome definitely seemed distracted by something, but Jazz had no idea what it was. 

Jazz wanted to find out.

He hoped the mystery was going to be something to keep him busy. At least it was something to keep him entertained while they waited the storm out in the tiny building. Jazz fought off the dread at not knowing how long the snowfall would last. 

There was a chance it could last for the rest of their time on this planet. He just hoped that wasn’t going to be the case. It would make their extraction horrible. It would delay their pickup window. If that happened, they would have to start rationing fuel. Not to mention how short the documentary would be.

Jazz winced and just hoped for the best.

The door to the building they had claimed resisted as Jazz pushed it open. The fresh snow was already making the mechanism lock up again. Jazz felt the slightly warmer air rush over his frame as he managed to push the door open. Jazz entered quickly and shut the door behind him. Bits of water dripped off his frame as the ice and snow that had clung to it rapidly melted.

“That storm looks pretty nasty,” Chromedome said. 

The other mech stood up and greeted Jazz at the door. 

“Felt pretty nasty too,” Jazz joked. 

Chromedome’s visor dimmed for a split second, “Any idea on how long it’s going to last?”

“No way to really know,” Jazz admitted. “No satellites, and no way to predict the weather pattern.”

Chromedome vented harshly. He slowly walked over to their small pile of supplies and sat down next to the heater. Jazz followed suit. The inside of the building was warmer. But not nearly enough for it to be anything close to comfortable. Jazz was already starting to feel the cold again.  

The silence was already starting to drag on. 

Jazz reached into one of the boxes and pulled out an Energon ration. 

“You find anything interesting in that abandoned comms building?” Jazz asked. “Before I came in?”

Chromedome tapped a digit against his forearm. The other mech looked like he was deep in thought. 

“That's a no?” Jazz asked.

Jazz sat down on the ground and pushed himself close to the heater. He slowly and casually sipped on his ration. He made himself look cool and collected. He didn’t want Chromedome to think he would have a negative reaction if the other mech did find something.

Jazz was just too curious. He had to know.

Chromedome’s shoulder armor dipped down. 

“No, I might have found something,” He admitted.

Jazz was just excited to hopefully have something to talk about. He had only just met Chromedome. He hardly knew anything about the mech outside of what he had put in his bare resume. Jazz knew he worked as an enforcer, but that was the limit of it.

Chromedome reached into his subspace and slowly pulled out a data pad. 

Jazz widened his optics underneath his visor. He had only seen a few models that old. All of them were in the central archive in Iacon, and were fiercely protected by the archivists there.

“That thing is ancient. Does it still work?” Jazz asked.

“It turns on, but I haven’t been able to get through the encryption on it; whoever owned it made their own algorithms.”

Jazz’s systems were itching with excitement. He was going to tear into that thing and find out what exactly was on it. It was probably something boring, maybe city plans or communication logs. But even that would be such an exciting glimpse into the elusive history of Gelu.

“Can I?” Jazz asked, “I have a buddy who shared a few things with me on this type of thing.”

Chromedome hesitated before offering the data pad to Jazz.

“Just be careful; it’s a miracle this thing still boots,” Chromedome said.

Jazz nodded. He gently wrapped his digits around the data pad. He traced along the seams and found a connector port. Jazz carefully relaxed a seam in his arm and pulled out a cable. He connected to the device.

Jazz still had some less-than-legal algorithms installed in his systems. Even some Orion had made before he was prime. They were useless to him. He never worked with data like Orion did. But he kept them around as a reminder. Whenever he missed Orion, he just thumbed through every little program his friend had ever shared with him.   

Jazz tilted his helm as he got through the first screen. The login page used old, outdated algorithms that were easy to bypass. After that, though. There were more complicated custom programs. 

Jazz was impressed. If the mech who owned it wasn’t already dead, he would have loved to hear about how such a complicated algorithm was running on such a simple piece of hardware. 

The thing was, it was simple hardware. Ancient. It could only encrypt something so well. Even with the impressive custom encryption, it would have a hard limit on what it was capable of. It would have been amazing to see what this colonist could have done with more modern systems.

Jazz worked through the encryption slowly. Trying a few different programs. He started with lower-level, simpler scripts. Jazz was familiar with cracking some impressive encryption for the work he did for the primacy. He wasn’t able to bypass it.

Jazz switched to some of his more aggressive programs. Lines and lines of code that were created to dig up encrypted dirt on the Senate. Jazz let some of those programs attack the device. It was still holding out pretty well. But he was happy to see it making progress. 

The lock screen disappeared. Jazz smiled. Files started to fill up the screen.

“You cracked it?”

“Yeah, impressive for an ancient piece of hardware,” Jazz said.

Chromedome looked impressed, but he mostly looked curious. Jazz was eager to dig into the files. It wasn’t Jazz’s find, though. He could wait a bit to dig into it. He offered the data pad back. 

“You want to take the first look at the files?” 

Chromedome stared down with a brightened visor at the offered data pad. He slowly moved his servos to grab it, and Jazz let him. 

Jazz watched eagerly as Chromedome scrolled through the files. Chromedome was silent as he slowly scrolled down. Jazz leaned back against the wall and waited.

“I think this was a journal,” Chromedome said. “Some data logs are running back before the colony; the earliest entry is definitely reading like a journal of some sort.”

“What’s it say?”

“Talks about how he was assigned to the colony without his partner. At least initially, he talks about starting an appeal process.”

“Sad,” Jazz muttered, “Wonder if the mech ever got here before the colony fell?”

Jazz looked up at the ceiling. He finished his Energon ration and placed the empty cube at his side.

Chromedome looked slowly over to Jazz. The motion was unnerving. Jazz pretended not to notice.

“I don’t know what would have been worse,” Chromedome said, “I think if it was me I would have wanted to be here. Even if I knew what was going to happen.”

Jazz’s face pulled into a slight frown. It was a dark thought he didn’t want to linger on.

“Anything else in the first entry that was interesting?” Jazz asked.

Chromedome tilted his helm as he read.

“Sounds like it was a bit more of a relationship than work partners, officially; that’s what he’s calling him, but it seems like it was more than that.”

“Must have been different castes,” Jazz said sadly, “Colony was established right around when the caste system was starting. They might have been afraid to rock the boat. Easier just to say they were work partners.”

“Maybe,” Chromedome said.

“You got anyone waiting for you back home?” Jazz asked. 

Chromedome was still reading through the data pad. He didn’t pause in his scrolling.

“Not really. I don’t really remember anything from my last vorn. I was in a work accident. I tried reaching out to old coworkers, but they said I transferred out, wasn’t particularly close to anyone there, but if I had someone I got close to in the last Vorn, they haven’t reached out.”

Chromedome didn’t sound very bothered by it. Or at least he didn’t on the surface. He was a strange mech to read. Sometimes his emotions were easy to pick out, but he had noticed times where he just went completely numb in his inflection and actions.

“That’s rough, mech,” Jazz said sadly. It was mostly genuine.

He stopped himself from digging deeper. As much as he wanted to. He wanted to know more about whatever Chromedome was reading.

“What about you?” Chromedome asked.

“Me?”

“Yeah? What? You asked first.”

Jazz frowned. Chromedome looked up from the data pad. 

“I’ve got a few mechs I’m close with, not a Conjunx or anything though. I was too busy to really ever think about even finding someone.”

“Same,” Chromedome said, “If the right mech came around, though, I don’t think I’d mind.”

Jazz had been too busy fighting behind the scenes with Orion for so long. He never really had time to think about stuff like that. He was always more concerned about his allies' safety. It wasn’t something he needed to worry as much about anymore.

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d mind either.”

The two of them lapsed into an awkward silence for a while. Chromedome was wrapped up in whatever the data pad was telling him. Jazz was curious to hear about what the mech was reading. But he was willing to be patient. He at least trusted Chromedome to bring up anything he deemed interesting. 

Jazz privately hoped to get his own turn digging through the old files. 

Maybe if he were lucky, the last owner stored some photos to show his partner. It would be interesting to see what the colony looked like when it was still standing.

Chromedome’s vents kicked into higher gear. He leaned forward. “Interesting,” He muttered.

“Find something good?” Jazz said eagerly.

“Maybe,” Chromedome said.

“He’s talking about how a mech went missing,” Chromedome said quietly. He adjusted his hold on the data pad and placed a servo on the underside of his helm. 

“How’s that interesting? It’s sad, but the conditions here are pretty harsh. Easy enough for one mech to slip into the ocean.”

“The data pad’s owner said the mech was acting strange, muttering to himself. One morning, he just never showed up to complete his assigned tasks.”

“Does it say what happened to him?”

“I’m looking for that,” Chromedome said. 

Chromedome started to scroll faster. 

“This is bizarre,” Chromedome said, baffled.

“How so?”

“He just starts casually mentioning the missing mech again. Three cycles later, no mention between then and this entry about them finding him. If anything, he complains about a pile-up of work even though they had all been working overtime.”

Jazz tilted his helm. That didn’t sound normal.

“Huh.” 

“Weird,” Chromedome muttered, “It’s almost like he forgot he was gone.” 

“Maybe he wasn’t missing for that long?”

“No, he mentions him explicitly going missing; Rewind even mentioned being concerned about it. Then it shifts a few logs later to the mech being back like nothing happened. If he was that concerned, I would have assumed he would have left a note about him being found. He even mentions the same mech getting a virus the next cycle and missing his shift.”

“Freaky,” Jazz said.

It rang true of rumors he had heard from Optimus. About some of the shadier Senate activities. Rumors about bots having things done to their processors. The strange behavior some poor bot who crossed the Senate would have after mandatory therapy. It was a horrible thought to think some of that might have come from here.

Jazz already knew strange things happened here. The technorganics alone made it easy to assume other experiments could have been run even on the bots living in the colony at the time.

“These entries just get more bizarre the further along I go,” Chromedome muttered.

The storm raged outside. The sky had long since gone dark. The wind howled, and he could hear the snow and ice pelt the side of the building. The only light source they had was the data pad and a few scattered lanterns. That and the biting cold left the atmosphere of their little shelter feeling grim.

If Jazz was a weaker mech, he might have even been scared. But he was more interested in what could have happened. Anything that was done to the bots that were here couldn’t happen to them. The ones messing with the colonists had gone offline when the rest of the colonists vanished.

“The mech used images initially, but sometime after the third week, they started getting sparse before disappearing altogether. Then the logs kept getting shorter and shorter. At the start, they were multiple pages; where I am now, it's maybe a few paragraphs.”

“Could have just gotten busier, maybe,” Jazz suggested. “Always lots of work to do for a small colony like this one was,” Jazz wasn’t completely sold on his own theory yet.

Privately, he thought this was bizarre. He was going to report this back to Orion for one of his contacts to look deeper into.

Chromedome tapped a digit against the data pad’s screen, “Something about it just doesn’t seem right to me.”

Jazz wasn’t sure either. It sounded weird to him. If one of his old buddies had started acting like that, it would have been suspicious no matter the workload. 

“I mean, it’s already pretty well known this colony was doing some shady science; who knows what they could have been doing to the mechs that lived here. Could have even messed with their processors.”

Chromedome was silent. He kept his visor so firmly on the data pad that Jazz wondered if there was something wrong with him. 

“Chromedome?”

The mech remained silent. His visor dimmed. Jazz slowly stood up and walked over.

“Chromedome? You alright?”

Jazz pushed himself up. Chromedome still didn’t move. Jazz took a few steps until he stood over the other mech. He remained still. He remained silent. The only sound Jazz could hear coming from his frame was the quiet running of fans. 

Jazz slowly reached a servo out.

“You alright?” Jazz asked.

Still no reaction. Chromedome was still stiffly staring down. Unmoving.

Jazz placed a hand on Chromedome’s shoulder armor and gently shook him.

“Hmm?” Chromedome snapped his helm up toward Jazz. “Sorry, I don’t’-”

Chromedome used a free servo to gently scratch at the back of his helm.

“I must have gotten a little lost in the reading,” Chromedome said flatly.

“You must have gotten really lost in it; I don’t even think I’ve seen my archivist friend zone out that hard at a data pad,” Jazz said.

“Do you want to take a look at it?” Chromedome asked.

“Are you at the end already?”

“No, but I think I need to take a break from it for a bit; I might try to recharge.”

Jazz took the data pad from Chromedome.

“I’ll give it back to you after you come out of recharge,” Jazz promised.

“Okay,” Chromedome still sounded flat.

There wasn’t any emotion or variation in his vocalizations. Jazz decided to just assume he was strange for now.

Chromedome adjusted his position against the wall, and his visor dimmed. His frame sagged against the wall as Chromedome entered a recharge cycle.

Jazz sat back down in his own little corner. The space was small, cramped, and dark. It brought up memories of harsher cycles for him on Cybertron.

Jazz flicked his gaze down at the data pad. The last entry Chromedome was looking at was a short one. The owner of the data pad, a bot that called himself Rewind, left a short message. He had gotten communications from Cybertron that the next transport to the planet would have his partner on it. But it was Deca-cycles away from even leaving for Gelu.

There were sparse records publicly available for this planet. But Jazz knew it didn’t last very long.

“Dominus, I don’t know if you were lucky or not,” Jazz mumbled to himself.

Rewind is an imperfect copy of a digital cryptid. Blaster copied himself a few times so he wouldn't be as lonely. Over time, Rewind and the others have taken on personalities and lives of their own. Rewind even made himself a passively convincing human body. He spends most of his time existing in physical space, documenting the more strange phenomena and locations of Earth with his partner Chromedome.

Chromedome was a human, he's currently a Grey. He assumed Rewind was a human too, right up until Chromedome was taken by a rouge Grey scientist.  After a rough adjustment period he decided to live away from the Grey, and spends his time traveling with Rewind. 

Rewind and Chromedome assisted in a botched attempt at capturing a Decepticon they found wandering around near another creature's territory. It was technically partially successful. 

Chromedome had learned a few consistencies in his functioning. One of the first was that no matter what, arguments would happen. It didn’t matter how well anyone got along with anyone else; arguments were an unavoidable part of social interaction. 

Being alone in tight quarters with a mech he barely knew was a good way for an argument to break out from even the smallest thing.

He was expecting some sort of fight to happen. But, he had expected it to happen over what type of ration they were eating, or argue about the day's schedule. Something small, or inconvenient, or maybe even annoying.

In Chromedome’s opinion, this was not a small thing. In fact, the subject of their argument was a rather large thing. A large giant monster that had almost dragged them into the ocean. He was calm. He figured that his almost demise hadn’t settled into his processor yet.

“Why wasn’t that thing in the files you wanted me to read?” Chromedome said. 

The two Mer they had been observing had vanished back into the ocean. Chromedome was eager to get away from the coastline. Away from whatever that thing was.

“I didn’t think we would actually see a prototype; they should be extinct,” Jazz looked out toward the ocean. He shook his helm. “I would have put it in the brief if I thought they were still around, don’t get me wrong. We’ll just have to be more careful near the shore.”

Chromedome silently stared at the back of Jazz’s helm.

“Just be more careful?”

Chromedome knew he should have been more upset. He should have been arguing more. It was just hard to express. Nothing ended up happening. He still felt distant anger. But it was muted.

Jazz’s shoulders dropped.

“Come on, I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing,” Jazz said.

Chromedome followed behind Jazz as they started the short trek back to their camp. 

“Are there any other potentially dangerous animals I should know about? Maybe a giant winged creature that will carry me off?” Chromedome said flatly.

“I didn’t know it would come out of the water; we’re both fine,” Jazz waved a servo casually. He started climbing back up the cliff face.

“Jazz, we could have been dragged off.”

“Probably not? It wasn’t able to go very fast on land.”

Chromedome groaned, “Please just let me know if there are any other horrible creatures that would eat us on this planet.”

“Anything else would be deeper sea life, and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know we have no way of going down into the actual ocean.”

“Why are they even called prototypes?” Chromedome hoisted himself onto an outcropping on the cliff.

“The Senate thought they were prototypes the colonists made before they made the Mer.”

“Descriptive name,” Chromedome said.

“Some Senate scientists that came after the colony fell managed to kill and dissect one; specifics are locked away, but the report concluded they wouldn’t be able to survive on Gelu long term, they couldn’t breed, and the temperatures here were too harsh,” Jazz said.

Chromedome couldn’t imagine why so many records related to this planet were sealed. He was almost tempted to reach out to some of his old coworkers to see if they had access to some of the sealed information. It was an urge he was already fighting back. He didn’t have any way to pursue a case here. Even if he did, he wasn’t an enforcer anymore.

“How pleasant,” Chromedome said.  “You ever wonder why so many records related to this planet were sealed?”

Jaz scratched at the back of his helm, “Not really. If I wondered about everything the Senate sealed, I don’t think I’d have time to think about much else.”

The two of them climbed to the top of the cliff. Jazz kept walking back toward their little camp building.

“I might try to look through some of the other buildings,” Chromedome said.

“Really? Why?” Jazz asked. “Don’t you want to warm up for a bit?”

Chromedome shrugged, “The cold isn’t bothering me much. I need some time alone to calm down from almost being eaten.”

“Fair enough,” Jazz said quickly.

Jazz shot him a look before they separated. Chromedome relaxed as soon as Jazz managed to push the door to their camp open.

Chromedome drew his plating in closer to his protoform. He hoped the inside of the other buildings would at least be a little bit warmer than outside. Chromedome walked quickly toward another building. 

There were only a few buildings left over from the settlement. The one they had claimed was on the smaller side. It only had one room. It was cramped, but the small space made it easier to keep warm. Chromedome imagined a mini con must have lived there. He couldn’t imagine a full-sized mech living there.

Besides that building, there were only two others. One was larger. A partially broken satellite tower stood on its roof. Elements of a climate control system peeked out under layers of snow and ice on the roof. 

The stairs were in good condition, but they were covered in layers of ice. Chromedome gripped the rail hard and ascended the metal stairs slowly. As he got closer to the entrance, he saw a darkened window. It reflected the midday sky. Chrome pressed his helm into the window and tried to look inside. He couldn’t make out any details. The glass was heavily tinted. 

Chromedome continued walking and stood in front of the door. It was sealed shut. There was an access panel, but without power, it was useless. Chromedome stretched his arms over his helm. He pried his servo into the door and hefted. He strained his frame against the door and heard a creak. 

He pushed harder, and the door started to move. After some time, and with too much force, the door was open wide enough for him to slip inside. Chromedome shuffled sideways into the building. As soon as he was in the dark space, he adjusted his visor. 

The room looked frozen in a panicked time. Smashed data pads had been left on the floor. Chairs were pushed over. Items littered the floor. It was like walking into a crime scene. 

His processor was already trying to spin up old protocols. He shut them down aggressively. He scanned over the room, looking over the crushed items. The data pads looked like they had been crushed or stepped on. There were terminals and desks in the room, too, but they were toppled over and crushed.

He saw a flash of light reflect from under one of the remaining desks. He kneeled. He saw another data pad; this one was still intact. It was ancient. It was older than him, and it was probably older than the bots that designed him. He felt like he was holding something that belonged in a museum.

Chromedome delicately held it in his servos. He dragged a digit around the edges of the device and found a button. He tapped gently against the datapad. He never quite pressed the button down. He stared down at the screen and into his reflection. 

He contemplated the chances of the device even holding a charge after all of this time. He swept a look around the room. He wondered how it was still there. He was surprised there was anything left. He would have thought the Senate would have taken any equipment to figure out what had happened to the colonists. 

Curiosity won out. He depressed a digit into the button on the side of the data pad. He heard a quiet click, and the device let out a shrill noise before the screen flashed. Chromedome was shocked to see the device actually power on. 

It was locked, but the data pad was practically an antique. Any algorithm used to encrypt it would long be considered defunct. He flipped the data pad towards his visor and scanned the edges. He transformed one of his digits and plugged into the only port he could find. His processor tore into the encryption with ease. 

It wasn’t one he was familiar with directly, but a newer version was used by his instructors to demonstrate breaking weak encryption. The key was short, and there were only so many options for it to be. Chromedome removed his digit and watched as the device unlocked. 

“Rewind, huh?” The bot who had owned the data pad had his name and colonist profile in the top corner. 

It was a little morbid to imagine how long ago this mech would have died. Long before Chromedome came online. Drowned beneath the waves of this icy planet, along with however many other bots where assigned to live here. 

He flicked through file names absentmindedly. He tapped on a random one. He let out a frustrated huff through his vents when he was met with another layer of encryption. 

Chromedome thought it was going to be a minor inconvenience. He was surprised to find the secondary encryption to be much stronger than the first method. The algorithm looked custom-made. It should have been easy to crack with how old it was, but his programs were struggling with it.   

Chromedome unplugged and gave up on accessing it that day. But he stored the data pad in his subspace. He hoped to keep working during his downtime. He thought it would be a good way to take a break from working on the documentary. If he learned anything about what had happened to the colonists, he would consider it a nice bonus.  

It was enticing to have a mystery to solve. Chromedome didn’t miss his old function. He didn’t. He wasn’t supposed to miss it.

He shook his helm and diverted his attention away from thoughts that would go nowhere. He kept scouring the abandoned space. He found other data pads, but they were all destroyed. Broken into small pieces. Any other piece of computer equipment was similarly destroyed. 

Chromedome jerked when he heard quiet pede steps echoing on metal. He twisted around and saw Jazz standing in the doorway. 

“Find anything interesting?” Jazz asked.

“Lots of broken computer parts, some broken data pads.”

Jazz walked fully into the space. He kneeled and held one of the destroyed data pads in his servos.

“Wonder if the colonists did it on purpose,” Jazz mumbled. 

“Why would they do that?” Chromedome asked. 

Privately, he couldn’t help but wonder the same thing. The destruction did seem intentional. 

“Wish we had someone to ask,” Jazz said. “I’m not a fan of the conspiracy documentaries that have been done for this planet, but I do wonder what happened to all of the mechs here.”

“I do too,” Chromedome said. 

He didn’t mention the intact data pad he had found. He wanted to keep it to himself for the time. A private thing to look into. It wasn’t a case. He told himself. It was a personal project. Thinking about it like that almost made him eager to get started. He hadn't felt this mentally excited to do something in a while. He didn’t want to think about the last time he had felt like this. It was already giving him a processor ache. 

He wanted to start working on it, but he wanted to do it in private. He didn’t want Jazz to take the data pad from him. He was worried Jazz would take his project away. Chromedome promised himself that when he got it unencrypted, if there was anything of interest for the documentary, he would share it with Jazz.

Chromedome racked his processor for an excuse, or a way to be alone even for a little bit. His visor dimmed when he came across an idea. 

“Is it all right if I borrow the drone?” Chromedome said. “I think I might try to take it for a spin.”

“You want some company?” Jazz asked. 

The other mech was still looking around the ruins of the room. 

“No, it should be boring anyway.” Chromedome paused, “Besides, maybe you’ll find something in here that I missed, could even be some intact hard drives in here, maybe some data sticks if you look hard enough,” He said.

“Maybe,” Jazz said, “You sure you want to head off on your own?”

“Positive, besides, there had to have been some record the colonists kept on the wildlife here, right?” 

Chromedome was trying to get Jazz to take the bait. He just hoped he wasn’t overselling it. 

“Some of that information could have been kept here,” Jazz traced a digit along one of the desks that lined the room. “This does look like some sort of communication center. They would have kept a lot of data here.”

Jazz seemed to already be looking into the ruins on the floor. 

“I’ll meet you back at camp soon,” Jazz said. 

Jazz waved him off as he pushed through some debris. 

Chromedome felt a call. Or maybe he thought it was just an urge to be alone. Either way, he felt like heading back down to the shoreline. Or at least near it. It was secluded; it was private. Chromedome just promised himself to stay far away from the shore in case the large creature from earlier decided to come back. He sat down on the last outcropping that led down to the shore. When he sat down, his pedes almost touched the beach.

Chromedome itched to dig into his subspace and to pull out the data pad he had found. As soon as he was sure he was alone, he pulled it back out. He passed the first screen with ease and made his way back to the spot where he had gotten stuck. He wasn’t built for this type of data work, but he had hoped since the algorithms were older that he stood at least some chance of breaking the encryption. 

He got more lost in the work than he would have liked to admit. 

He flinched when he heard something near him. He flicked his helm up and looked around. His first assumption was that Jazz had snuck up on him. 

He was not mentally prepared that one of the two Mer had snuck up on him. The smaller white one. It was practically right next to Chromedome. Staring up at him from the base of the stairs. Chromedome could almost feel its gaze on him. Or more accurately, on the data pad in his servos. 

Chromedome slowly moved the data pad, and the Mer followed the motion. He slowly moved to put the data pad back in his subspace. He hoped that if it wasn’t in his servos anymore, the Mer would loose it's attention on him and go back into the ocean. 

The Mer pushed itself up as the data pad went into his subspace. He hoped it was going to turn around. Instead, it almost glared at the boulder Chromedome was perched on top of.  The Mer pushed itself forward and started to drag itself up. Chromedome scooted back.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Chromedome said to himself. 

The Mer slipped and fell back down. It screeched as it landed.

Chromedome laughed. 

The Mer rolled over. It dragged its claws against the ground. Chromedome watched as it grabbed a rock. Then he winced as it reared its arm back and threw it. It knocked against his helm. 

“Hey!”

Chromedome wasn’t about to chase an animal down. But he did watch it as it almost seemed to laugh. It pushed itself across the beach and slid back into the water. Chromedome didn’t move to follow it.