Tuning In? Are You Sure This Isn't Static?

That drive back home was an ambush and here you are now in a dark empty room and at the spymaster's mercy. He's dragged you into some unknown quarter of the base with something special in mind... You'd crumble under interrogations, your memory banks replay a failed interview session ending in tears spilled.

The expressionless Decepticon sat before you, between your frames a simple table with a lit lamp. You fidget in your chair uncomfortably. This is the end and you know it.

Soundwave slides a datapad to you, your profile & basic information on display. He taps the section named Past Occupation(s): it brings up a gallery of many-cycles past you recall fondly.

Before the war, you were but a face amongst the crowd. A simple daytime trade took your early cycles as stated on your file - night cycles were dedicated to you pursuing art.

Your art was making sex toys. Handcrafted, painted, modded to satisfy a bot's needs. You ran a site buried in the darker corners of the Cybertronian internet, visitors would send forth a special request or purchase one of your premade molds.

Back to present, what of Soundwave? As far as you know, he doesn't seem to be the type to chase pleasure... This may become your execution day being deemed a degenerate by Soundwave.

You're just a soldier. Nobody would miss your presence.

"Query: Experience in creating toys for personal pleasure." The monotone rattles your spark, you nod fearfully.

"Request: Personalised toy with specific features. Effort will be rewarded, negotiable terms for compensation." Soundwave continues to detail the dimensions of his design.

The mech came prepared with pictures for reference as well! The footage is heavily edited but you're definitely looking at a mostly purple bot with a sizeable spike. If you squint past the censored areas, you know there's a gun instead of a hand on one side and a soft yellow optic glow somewhere.

Hang on, that sounds like a certain mad scientist...

You didn't hear the majority of Soundwave's design breakdown but you do remember:

"Request: Top Secret. Punishment imminent if work discovered by other Decepticons."

You hope your frame doesn't display amusement at the Decepticon TIC requesting a rather realistic replica of Shockwave's spike & valve.

... It's not every cycle you find out that the spymaster is in berth with the equally feared scientist! You could have sworn they were rivals for the longest time.

Nevermind all that, you can't help but feel some excitement that you can test those skills once again. You hope the first toy made in forever won't disappoint!

...time lapse...

You sit in the mess hall consuming your daily ration with anxiety.

It's been several cycles since you handed the completed request over to the spymaster. You have your digits crossed Soundwave doesn't send you to salvage for spare parts. The doors to his personal quarters open and out steps a somewhat glowing Soundwave.

You make no comment about the subtle scent of interface and think blank thoughts. Several other Cons present also do the same.

Soundwave comms the request as completed and he sends over a list of things you're allowed to ask for compensation.

You heave a sigh of relief. You're not going to go offline!

Soundwave collects his daily ration from the dispenser and makes his way out of the mess hall. As he leaves, you receive a private comm from the bot himself:

Replicas: In near perfect likeness. Soundwave: Very satisfied. Desire: Separate request to propose.

Once again, you find yourself in that same room with Soundwave. What's different is the extra chair. Now that Soundwave had gotten his toy, what more could he possibly want? You feel the lamp's warmth on your digits as you patiently wait for Soundwave to lay out this new request.

Was it a spare needed in case of property theft? Or did you somehow overstep your boundaries when asking for several more cycles worth of vacation?

The last 5 nanokliks was Soundwave silently scrolling through a datapad and sorting files. Surely this couldn't be all he was up to...

Expressionless as ever, Soundwave retrieves another datapad from his subspace. His hand touches the side of his helm; He sends out a comm link to some other bot.

You hear stomping and a rather animalistic screech. Something kicks open the door like it weren't made of hard steel sheets. The clanking pattern clues you into a certain Seeker making his presence known as usual. You need not turn your helm to figure out who it is but you do so anyway because the bot could eat you alive for breakfast.

The room's door swings shut behind your newfound addition. You salute Starscream in greeting, a nod is what you receive in return.

Starscream takes his seat at the table beside Soundwave. It's down to business.

It begins with a sceptical Starscream asking you about Soundwave. Apparently, Starscream was out snooping around and happened to find the spike & valve replica. The fool had managed to get spotted by Soundwave who needed to retrieve some datapad from his habsuite.

Soundwave fills in the gaps with a replay of the security footage within his habsuite: You see Starscream and Soundwave get in a mild tussle. You figure the discovery leads to Starscream wanting to steal the item to sully Soundwave's image. Their fight ends in the jet ditching the item & running out of the room.

Soundwave shuts off his holovid. You face Starscream who bears a mildly annoyed frown at the earlier retreat.

"Soundwave: Acknowledges Starscream's tenacity. Seeker: Will not stop until desired outcome achieved. Meeting today: Soldier will provide Starscream with custom toy like with Soundwave."

It turns out you thought wrong initially...Starscream tried to steal the toy because he wanted one. The Seeker is unfazed, he rolls his optics at Soundwave.

Starscream's not surprised about the replica resembling Shockwave (he has your fancy decal of Shockwave's name to thank), it didn't seem to be a turn off for him either.

You nervously speak to your 2nd-in-command, "Would you like a spike & valve set or one in particular?"

Starscream looks like he wants your head from the bright flare of his faceplates. He composes himself before saying "Spike preferred only."

Guess the SIC loves to ride as he loves to fly, no judgement there.

It's your next question that gets an extra reaction: "Would you like me to model it after a bot you know?"

Starscream acts as though you asked him to bare his spark to you, a lowly soldier. You didn't, but he's agonising over who to choose.

"You don't need to give an answer right now, but all I require are measurements & pictures if you can give me any."

Soundwave's presence isn't exactly useful as he could read both your minds to know who it is.

Starscream turns to face the TIC, "Not one word of this meeting to anybody. If anything gets leaked, you're burning with me."

Soundwave doesn't flinch, a blink of his visor suggests he shall comply with that. Soundwave slides the datapad he had earlier and gives it to Starscream.

"Datapad: Compile measurements and reference images to liking for production to start."

Starscream swipes the device and shoves it into subspace.

"You. Soldier. I shall contact you when I've sufficiently laid my designs out. Until then, do not try to engage me. If you will excuse me, that dumb buckethead is demanding my presence & Soundwave's in the war room." He gets up and leaves, Soundwave says goodbye before following.

Once again, you're alone with the warm lamp.

Your spark had never been more restless since the meeting with the SIC & TIC. Soundwave was proper satisfied with his commission, thanks to him being very detailed in his design specs & what he wanted to feel out of using the toy. Truly the best kind of customer you could ever have (overlooking the threatening presence he had behind the visor).

Starscream however, was temperamental. A storm that could rise at a moment's notice but dispel just as quickly. From your perspective, Starscream always opposed the seat of power - Megatron - by any means necessary. Many rude insults, questioning Megatron's fitness to lead, the warlord's judgements at battle... You wonder how Starscream maintains that lustrous finish & colour despite the filth that he spouts.

If that were you to your own superior, you'd be compacted into cannon fodder & used to shoot down some poor Autoscum. No, you're thankful Prima has the grace to let you stay sane online all these cycles.

With a slow intake, your mind wanders which lucky mech caught Starscream's fancy. With a spark like Ol Screamer's, you secretly hoped his pending reference images could shed some light. Or, his written schematics hopefully don't end up sounding like a chittering turbofox with a broken vox box.

Your HUD had a ping. Its sender was Soundwave:

Starscream: taking various efforts to prepare reference material. Soldier: be prepared for antics.

...Was it too late to send Starscream a commission guide?

...time lapse...

The day of you beginning to partake in manufacturing Starscream's sex toy started several cycles after a return patrol. It was an easy victory this time for the Decepticons, those Autobots ran away with more blast wounds than you could count. Back in the debrief hall, your Air Commander rattled on to the Warlord about how this victory was due to the great planning & definitely not the guns blazing. Megatron couldn't care less, he ordered Soundwave to handle affairs as the grey mech departed for his private quarters. Soundwave had those who participated in the earlier raid stay to assist in sorting their spoils, which included yourself.

A wordless ping got you to face the TIC, you made your way over. Out of his subspace was a familiar looking datapad. You stood with it in your servos for a good minute until the looming TIC had to not-so-warmly nudge your processor out of the clouds.

Your waiting & derma chewing was just a file click from ending. You'd been spending your free time coming up with toy designs that you'd barely spent a lick of it all second guessing Starscream's fancy. You personally had it down to Megatron, and ... disappointingly only Megatron. A part of you was pretty insistent on it being Megatron, you couldn't explain why.

Starscream's datapad wasn't too hefty, the stored data was just a little less than Soundwave's. You chalked it up to just image quality. The excitement would wait until this evening when you were off duty.

...time lapse...

It was time. Your desk berth had never been cozier with the awaiting datapad in servo. With a final encryption check, you opened the gateway to a layer of Starscream's secret side.

The data contained a mixture of texts, schematic drawings & colour palettes. Starscream seemed to bleed through the datapad as you read through page after page. You felt the obnoxious splashes of colour detailing how Starscream desired to have the toy base customised to possess blended colour palettes of his trine - an interesting idea you had to admit. The colours of the shaft however were foreign to you, it was rare to see a fellow Con who spotted white, red and blues. The drawings were hard to stop looking at, you never pegged Starscream for an artist and yet the technical drawing seemed like he could have sketched your very molds from thin air. The numerous side comments about what Starscream wanted the toy to do was also rather useful, each seemed to justify a particular feature on the overall toy he was proposing. If not for the explicit nature of this document, you'd have liked to frame it somewhere to keep forever.

Getting over the joyfulness that Starscream was giving good art direction, you went over the document again. In all your cycles of commissions taken (albeit the last one during your golden era was several millennia ago), Starscream was exemplary.

You pride yourself in being able to deliver, but you feared the Air Commander's reputation. Control was always what he strived for, and you were fighting a losing battle to demand anything else from him. You figured to open with at least a response regarding the plan; you say to yourself to just think back to how you'd interact with Soundwave.

Ending your daydream, it was now the time to act. Cycling a slow intake with a quick chronometer glance, you wrote your response to Starscream to discuss several matters. Luckily for you, he was also online & some prompt replies were sent your way. Very business-like, none of that 'Starscream the Diva' obvious in the contents of each message. Taking it as a personal win, discussion was open & running. It ended with an agreed time frame & compensation of time off duty.

You'd hand Starscream a prototype. He tests the prototype. Starscream sends you feedback. You get on with making the final product or another prototype to test.

An easy oil cake to swallow, you think quietly.

Megatron is relaxing underneath a bright afternoon sky on his own comfortable sun lounger. It's just him and the Terrans nearby who are spending the time playing. Megatron is on a brief vacation, nothing can possibly prompt him to get off the comfy lounger.

You should know, his placement of the lounger happens to coincide with the water sprinkler programming. Megatron gets the equivalent of a 'light summer rain' within the time the sprinkler runs. Megatron's sensors do acknowledge the moisture lightly coating his frame, he pays no attention to it. Weather predictions have been factored in such that the sun will eventually shine upon this very location and help evaporate some of the droplets.

You should also know that, somebody happened to be flying a video drone overhead. Said drone comes attached with an unfathomably detailed camera. The sun illuminates the supine Cybertronian.

The almost silent drone just floats, taking in the breathtaking mass of grey with sparkles of refracted light.

Still little to no movement from the hulking form of Megatron. The drone descends from its aerial location ever so slightly, keen on a closer view of the specimen. A few clicks & whirrs from the drone don't get a response from Megatron. With optics offline, Megatron turns his position and the drone continues capturing footage of a peaceful ex-warlord.

That drive back home was an ambush and here you are now in a dark empty room and at the spymaster's mercy. He's dragged you into some unknown quarter of the base with something special in mind... You'd crumble under interrogations, your memory banks replay a failed interview session ending in tears spilled.

The expressionless Decepticon sat before you, between your frames a simple table with a lit lamp. You fidget in your chair uncomfortably. This is the end and you know it.

Soundwave slides a datapad to you, your profile & basic information on display. He taps the section named Past Occupation(s): it brings up a gallery of many-cycles past you recall fondly.

Before the war, you were but a face amongst the crowd. A simple daytime trade took your early cycles as stated on your file - night cycles were dedicated to you pursuing art.

Your art was making sex toys. Handcrafted, painted, modded to satisfy a bot's needs. You ran a site buried in the darker corners of the Cybertronian internet, visitors would send forth a special request or purchase one of your premade molds.

Back to present, what of Soundwave? As far as you know, he doesn't seem to be the type to chase pleasure... This may become your execution day being deemed a degenerate by Soundwave.

You're just a soldier. Nobody would miss your presence.

"Query: Experience in creating toys for personal pleasure." The monotone rattles your spark, you nod fearfully.

"Request: Personalised toy with specific features. Effort will be rewarded, negotiable terms for compensation." Soundwave continues to detail the dimensions of his design.

The mech came prepared with pictures for reference as well! The footage is heavily edited but you're definitely looking at a mostly purple bot with a sizeable spike. If you squint past the censored areas, you know there's a gun instead of a hand on one side and a soft yellow optic glow somewhere.

Hang on, that sounds like a certain mad scientist...

You didn't hear the majority of Soundwave's design breakdown but you do remember:

"Request: Top Secret. Punishment imminent if work discovered by other Decepticons."

You hope your frame doesn't display amusement at the Decepticon TIC requesting a rather realistic replica of Shockwave's spike & valve.

... It's not every cycle you find out that the spymaster is in berth with the equally feared scientist! You could have sworn they were rivals for the longest time.

Nevermind all that, you can't help but feel some excitement that you can test those skills once again. You hope the first toy made in forever won't disappoint!

...time lapse...

You sit in the mess hall consuming your daily ration with anxiety.

It's been several cycles since you handed the completed request over to the spymaster. You have your digits crossed Soundwave doesn't send you to salvage for spare parts. The doors to his personal quarters open and out steps a somewhat glowing Soundwave.

You make no comment about the subtle scent of interface and think blank thoughts. Several other Cons present also do the same.

Soundwave comms the request as completed and he sends over a list of things you're allowed to ask for compensation.

You heave a sigh of relief. You're not going to go offline!

Soundwave collects his daily ration from the dispenser and makes his way out of the mess hall. As he leaves, you receive a private comm from the bot himself:

Replicas: In near perfect likeness. Soundwave: Very satisfied. Desire: Separate request to propose.

Once again, you find yourself in that same room with Soundwave. What's different is the extra chair. Now that Soundwave had gotten his toy, what more could he possibly want? You feel the lamp's warmth on your digits as you patiently wait for Soundwave to lay out this new request.

Was it a spare needed in case of property theft? Or did you somehow overstep your boundaries when asking for several more cycles worth of vacation?

The last 5 nanokliks was Soundwave silently scrolling through a datapad and sorting files. Surely this couldn't be all he was up to...

Expressionless as ever, Soundwave retrieves another datapad from his subspace. His hand touches the side of his helm; He sends out a comm link to some other bot.

You hear stomping and a rather animalistic screech. Something kicks open the door like it weren't made of hard steel sheets. The clanking pattern clues you into a certain Seeker making his presence known as usual. You need not turn your helm to figure out who it is but you do so anyway because the bot could eat you alive for breakfast.

The room's door swings shut behind your newfound addition. You salute Starscream in greeting, a nod is what you receive in return.

Starscream takes his seat at the table beside Soundwave. It's down to business.

It begins with a sceptical Starscream asking you about Soundwave. Apparently, Starscream was out snooping around and happened to find the spike & valve replica. The fool had managed to get spotted by Soundwave who needed to retrieve some datapad from his habsuite.

Soundwave fills in the gaps with a replay of the security footage within his habsuite: You see Starscream and Soundwave get in a mild tussle. You figure the discovery leads to Starscream wanting to steal the item to sully Soundwave's image. Their fight ends in the jet ditching the item & running out of the room.

Soundwave shuts off his holovid. You face Starscream who bears a mildly annoyed frown at the earlier retreat.

"Soundwave: Acknowledges Starscream's tenacity. Seeker: Will not stop until desired outcome achieved. Meeting today: Soldier will provide Starscream with custom toy like with Soundwave."

It turns out you thought wrong initially...Starscream tried to steal the toy because he wanted one. The Seeker is unfazed, he rolls his optics at Soundwave.

Starscream's not surprised about the replica resembling Shockwave (he has your fancy decal of Shockwave's name to thank), it didn't seem to be a turn off for him either.

You nervously speak to your 2nd-in-command, "Would you like a spike & valve set or one in particular?"

Starscream looks like he wants your head from the bright flare of his faceplates. He composes himself before saying "Spike preferred only."

Guess the SIC loves to ride as he loves to fly, no judgement there.

It's your next question that gets an extra reaction: "Would you like me to model it after a bot you know?"

Starscream acts as though you asked him to bare his spark to you, a lowly soldier. You didn't, but he's agonising over who to choose.

"You don't need to give an answer right now, but all I require are measurements & pictures if you can give me any."

Soundwave's presence isn't exactly useful as he could read both your minds to know who it is.

Starscream turns to face the TIC, "Not one word of this meeting to anybody. If anything gets leaked, you're burning with me."

Soundwave doesn't flinch, a blink of his visor suggests he shall comply with that. Soundwave slides the datapad he had earlier and gives it to Starscream.

"Datapad: Compile measurements and reference images to liking for production to start."

Starscream swipes the device and shoves it into subspace.

"You. Soldier. I shall contact you when I've sufficiently laid my designs out. Until then, do not try to engage me. If you will excuse me, that dumb buckethead is demanding my presence & Soundwave's in the war room." He gets up and leaves, Soundwave says goodbye before following.

Once again, you're alone with the warm lamp.