Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Brainstorm flicked on the digital microscope and drummed his fingers on the benchtop while he waited for the connection to the screen to configure. Zeta Prime was supposedly highly invested in the New Institute...that didn’t seem to be reflected in funding for scientific instrumentation.

At least they had a few digital microscopes to work with. He preferred to work with them over traditional optical microscopes, which were hell to use if you had a visor; the digital model transmitted everything under the scope to a monitor where he could work without giving himself a headache.

He picked up his prototype with a pair of tweezers and placed it in the clamp under the scope. Watching the screen, he used the keypad to wiggle the stage around until the needle’s tip came into view. He checked the shape of the barbs against the photographs he’d taken of the pre-testing model. Then he twisted the dial on his battery pack and the barbs retracted flush against the needle. Brainstorm grinned.

His theory was that the flaring barbs would make it easier for the mnemosurgeon; it'd grab to the neural net and steady the needles so that if their hand shook they wouldn't ruin the injection. But engineering barbs with sufficient durability was proving to be a challenge. None of his prototypes had made it through the rounds of testing at the autopsy department. This was the first one he'd gotten back with all its barbs intact.

Brainstorm hopped on a rolling stool and kicked off, grabbing his desk to stop himself from running into the wall. He rifled through the pile of datapads, why did he have so many datapads, until he found the one with his most recent batch notes. He kicked off again back towards the microscope and flicked out a hand lens to check the tag on his battery pack.

The alarms blared and Brainstorm startled so badly he nearly fell off his stool. The obnoxiously familiar voice of Insidon cut in after a few seconds. "Attention staff, there is an oncoming spyplane sweep. All nonessential equipment must be deenergized and all personnel are to proceed to the underbunker. If you are currently in operation, please push the panic button in your cube. Someone will be by to assist you. This message will repeat...Attention staff, there is an oncoming—"

Brainstorm got up dropped his datapad on the workbench in disgust. How was anyone ever supposed to get anything done when they were being continually interrupted? He kicked the stool out of his way as he went back to power down his terminal.

Something clattered and then there was the awful sound of glass shattering. Brainstorm winced. That would be his successful prototype. He looked over his shoulder and, sure enough, the fragging stool had caught on the line to the battery pack and the whole thing had taken a swan dive over the edge of the workbench. Great.

"I am a genius," he informed the empty room. He crunched over the broken glass to power off the rest of his equipment and paused at the doorway to sweep the bits of glass that had gotten stuck in his boots back onto the floor. He'd deal with all that later.

The overhead lights in the hallway were already dimmed to half power, emergency lights flashing red in a protocol Brainstorm liked to call "Make Evacuating As Difficult As Possible".

He was sticking close to the wall so that any security in a hurry didn't trample him, so it was maybe a little bit his fault that he knocked over the mech as he was exiting one of the surgical suites. Only a little bit his fault though, he was going to portion 40% of the blame to the lighting and 55% to the mech not watching where he was going.

He went down like an MTO in a drop plane.

"Whoops," Brainstorm said. "Let's get you upright." He offered the mech a hand and nearly got stabbed for his trouble. They were still wearing their surgical needles, clip-ons, looked like. Brainstorm adjust his approach and pulled them up by the elbows.

"Thanks," the mech said, looking overcharged as Brainstorm had been the night he discovered you can drink weapons-grade nucleon. He must have been in the middle of surgery when the alarm went off.

"No problem, no worries," Brainstorm said, shifting to the mech's side to help him walk. "Do you have a...spotter? An assistant? You know, someone helping you out." Who can take your stumbling aft off my hands.

"Hmm?" They hummed vaguely. Well that was helpful.

There were almost to the steps before someone rescued Brainstorm from his mnemosurgical dead weight. Not that he had anything against the mech—he was a perfectly affable dissociated uncoordinated pile of limbs.

"Chromedome, there you are," someone hissed. Trepan. One of, like, two people in the mnemology section Brainstorm knew on sight. Trepan frowned in annoyance when "Chromedome" failed to respond.

"I found him in the hallway," Brainstorm supplied helpfully. "He's gonna be okay, right?"

"He's fine," Trepan said, grabbing the mech by the back of the neck and pulling him forward. "Trainees. They always panic when they hear the alarm and forget the disengagement checklist. Even the more promising ones." With a practiced motion he pulled the mech over by the helm and slid his needles his neck. Brainstorm looked away.

"Trepan?" The mech sounded less slagged out of his mind than he had moments earlier. "Where am I?"

"You're at work. We're on lockdown and you botched the extraction procedure. I had to pull you out." Trepan said shortly.

"Sorry," he said. "I just—"

"Come, we can talk later. When we're not in a public hallway," Trepan said. Brainstorm thought was a great idea and slipped around the pair and down the stairs. Brainstorm found himself a nice quiet spot in the evacuation bunker and sat down to work on refining his latest design. It was important that the needles be able to automatically retract if the surgeon wasn't thinking straight. He hadn't thought about that earlier. He’d have to add that to his list of planned improvements.

Brainstorm knocked at the door and shifted his briefcase under his arm to check his notes. Another graduating trainee, another set of needles to fit. Brainstorm was ready to have this over with already—he had a spark signal disrupter he was writing up funding proposals for. It would be so useful, if he could only get anyone to acknowledge his genius and potential. He hadn't gotten pulled into the engineering section because he'd been really good with needles.

The door slid open and Brainstorm waved, still searching his notes for the trainee's name. "Tumbler?" he asked.

They huffed a laugh. "I like you already. You're Genitus, right? Trepan told me you'd be coming to fit me with my integrated needles."

"It's Brainstorm, actually," Brainstorm said. He lowered his notes and paused for a moment, trying to place the face. The trainee from the lockdown drill. "Wait, weren't you Chromedome?"

Chromedome threw up his hands and sat down on the berth. "I take it back, I don't like you. My name is Tumbler. Everyone calls me Chromedome."

"Well, I don't see why. Based on our interactions so far, "Tumbler" seems like an excellent name. Very apropos," Brainstorm rambled.

Chromedome squinted at him, clearly not making the connection.

"I ran into you during a lockdown evacuation last year. Knocked you flat on your aft," Brainstorm supplied helpfully.

"Oh. That was you. Sorry, my memory of that whole thing is pretty fuzzy." Chromedome put his hand to his chin contemplatively. "So my name is appropriate because I can't stay on my feet. And your name is appropriate, I assume, because you're good at thinking of dumb puns on the fly."

"Excuse you," Brainstorm said hotly. "My name is because if you give me five minutes and a thing that needs inventing I can invent it in triplicate."

Chromedome nodded. "Humble, too. Why would you need three different versions of a thing? Wouldn’t it be better to invent it once?"

Brainstorm put his hands on his hips. "Do you want to get drinks sometime?"

"What?" Chromedome squinted even more skeptically than he had the first time. "Are you hitting on me?"

"What? Primus, no. I've got one love and it's my work." Brainstorm said. "Besides, you're not my type. No, I meant do you want to hang out in a platonic socializing context? I've been stuck in New Institute purgatory for over a year and I have determined via extensive testing and rigorous application of the scientific method that every single person here is exceedingly tedious. Not even worth talking down to. You seem to be the exception to the rule."

"Oh." Chromedome looked at him blankly for a minute. He shook his head, as if brushing aside some errant thought. "Yeah, I'd like that. I don't have much free time but....sure."

"I suppose I should start fitting these," Brainstorm said awkwardly, shaking the briefcase in his hand. "Your bespoke pokers await."

"Yeah, I might need them eventually," Chromedome agreed. He watched as Brainstorm opened the case and laid out his supplies. "I kinda figured they'd have a medic actually put the needles in."

Brainstorm snorted. "Like I'd trust those cretins with my precision engineering. Don't worry, this isn't going to hurt very much. Don't even need to use a sensorblock," Brainstorm said, picking up one of his scalpels and bouncing it cheerfully in his hand.

Chromedome looked vaguely off-color. "But these ones do go...in the fingers, right?"

"Uh-huh. Well, they rest in the back of the hand. But there are channels that we'll put in through each finger segment so that the needles can extend. And then the electrical system for each needle has to be deepwired into your sensornet so that you can control the trigger mechanism and the injections..." Chromedome really did look like he might be sick, so Brainstorm relented. "I'm having you on, Chromedome. I'm just here to fit you for the needles. I still have to manufacture your custom set and then they'll have an actual medic do the surgery."

"You—" Chromedome threw his hands in the air. "You fragging gearstripping liar! You were freaking me out on purpose!"

"Yeah, your face was pretty hilarious when you thought I was about to slice your hands open with a box cutter," Brainstorm said.

"You are an aft." Chromedome glared at him. "I can see why nobody wants to go drinking with you."

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

"Brainstorm," Chromedome whined. "This isn't necessary."

"Oh?" Brainstorm gave a passing surgeon a jaunty wave as he pushed the stool along. Chromedome covered his face with his hands. "Well, if you feel like you have your ship legs, by any means—get up and at 'em! I'm not wheeling you around for my health."

Chromedome didn't take him up on the offer, which was a relief. He's already maneuvered Chromedome onto the stool twice and it was like trying to shove a minibot into a suitcase—limbs everywhere. Besides, they were nearly there.

Brainstorm rolled them up in front of the door lock and waited while Chromedome triggered the optic scan. The blank steel door slid open with a squealing noise that made Brainstorm want to open up the walls and start doing preventative maintenance. He’d make a note to poke at the maintenance crew later.

For how, he rolled his friend into the berthroom. Once Chromedome's pile of limbs were safely on the berth, Brainstorm sat down on his lab stool and put his feet up.

"So what the hell was that for?" he asked conversationally. "You know you can't hold your engex. And your sudden urge to drink me out of nightmare fuel aside, you're being...glum. More so than usual." He thought it over. "Something happen at work?"

"I can't talk about it," Chromedome said. "It's classified."

"Like that's ever stopped you before." Brainstorm waved his hand dismissively.

"Well, yeah." Chromedome said. "It has? We never talk about my work."

Brainstorm thought it over and, yes, now that he thought about it, they didn’t really get into the nitty gritty about what Chromedome did on the day-to-day. Which was not something Brainstorm usually minded, he preferred to keep his mnemosurgery as theoretical as possible. But now there was a puzzle to be solved. "Well, today's the day! What is it? Some Decepticons with some really gnarly memories? Had they been to one of Megatron's poetry recitations? Were they a—"

"Don't," Chromedome said, throwing his arm across his face. "Two trainees died in surgery yesterday, okay? And I got to do their autopsies before we handed the bodies over to medical."

"Well, slag." Brainstorm thought that over. "Why you? You're barely out of being a trainee yourself."

"I'm on autopsy assignment, I was the one up," Chromedome said with a shrug.

"Still, that's...awful. Did you know them? Did I know them?"

"You probably didn't—they were brand new. One of them had asked me directions to the commissary the other day because he'd gotten lost. Soma and Cajal."

Brainstorm definitely didn't know them. Okay, he didn’t know many of the mnemosurgeons well. Any. Present company excepted. They tended towards the...standoffish. The senior surgeons had all come out of the original Institute—and Brainstorm was less than convinced by their contrition for the old days. Then the new surgeons and trainees seemed to have been recruited from the least sociable dregs of the science academy.

He murmured something about not knowing them but it being a damn shame, or whatever you were supposed to say when two newsparks kicked it and your friend had to read their dying thoughts.

He paused for a beat. "Wait, why is that classified?"

Chromedome waved his hand at him in what was definitely intended as a shushing motion. "Yell that louder, why don't you? Tumbler is giving away classified information to his pushy aft of a friend."

"Just answer the damned question, you know I can't handle suspense. It's bad for my constitution."

"It's classified," Chromedome said, suddenly serious, "because we have no idea why they're dead. First theory was some sort of assassination, but there was nothing like that in their memories. They were just...in surgery. And then they were dead. We'll see what the medical autopsy comes back with, but as of right now I have no idea what killed them."

Silence filled the room like a bubble of rapidly expanding pressure, until Brainstorm had to pop it or risk suffocation. "That's not good," he said faintly.

"Yeah," Chromedome agreed.

"Could be, uh, you know, a terrible coincidence?" Brainstorm suggested. "Bad batch of knockoffs, internal wiring short-circuited?"

"Brainstorm, you know I know you’re cold constructed, right?" Chromedome asked. "Like I said, I don’t know. But something killed them."

"You don’t think it was...doing mnemosurgery, do you? You are playing around with electric signals in the brain, if you shocked yourself the wrong way I can imagine it going...poorly. Could be something to do with the neural interface with the trainee needles, do you think? I should review the design, make sure there’s not too much resistance on the bridge between the charge injectors and the neural mesh…"

"If you think there’s a chance, definitely. Trepan said that he'd never seen anything like it at the old Institute so...yeah," he finished awkwardly. "Yeah."

"Yeah, of course, I’ll run up a model and do some testing tonight, just as soon as I sober up." Chromedome looked so relieved to have someone offer up a solution that Brainstorm was tempted to not ask the question that was on the tip of his tongue. "What if it’s nothing with them and nothing with the needles? What if it’s mnemosurgery itself?"

Chromedome shook his head. "Don’t be absurd. If mnemosurgery killed people Trepan would have heard of it."

"Yeah but what if? If mnemosurgery killed people, what would you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Chromedome, we're discussing hypothetical risk of sudden and inexplicable death when doing mnemosurgery. You know, mnemosurgery. The thing you do for a living. Most people have an aversion to ending up suddenly and inexplicably dead, Chromedome."

"Yeah, I guess."

Brainstorm shuttered his optics and counted to ten. Someday he was going to meet a person with less self-preservation instincts than Chromedome. Probably shortly before that person cut off their own arm with a chainsaw.

Chromedome shrugged. "I mean, I’d keep working. There’s a risk of dying no matter what you’re doing, better here than up there getting shot at."

"I don't get you," Brainstorm said, setting the stool to twirl and pulling his legs in. "What's so great about mnemosurgery? Is it a power trip? Are you secretly a voyeur? I want this explicated, Chromedome. I don’t like the inexplicable."

Chromedome stared at the ceiling for a bit and Brainstorm wondered what brush-off answer he was about to make up. "I've always been interested in mnemology, even before I knew the Institute was real. I mean, was there a single reason you wanted to do engineering? Or did it just...fit? I could tell you some slag about how when I was a detective I would fantasize about being able to know the truth—the real truth—when everyone was always lying to us, but I don't think that's it. And now I'm here and I've been given this opportunity to learn something so far above my station. I'm helping the war effort in a way almost nobody can do."

"I can understand that a little, I guess," Brainstorm said.

"Anyway, I'm not worried about that happening to me. I've been doing mnemosurgery for months now and nothing has gone wrong—whatever happened to those two was clearly a freak accident. I'm sure the senior staff will be looking into it and, when they've figured it out, they'll let all of us know."

Brainstorm looked up from his reading as the door slid open. "Oh, there you are. Finally."

"Brainstorm, what are you doing in my lab?" Chromedome asked, shouldering past him and over to the workstation.

"Looking for you, obviously," Brainstorm said. "I knew you'd come back to work eventually, you're a workaholic."

"Brainstorm, please, what could you possibly need to tell me that couldn't wait—"

"Seventy-two hours? Because that's how long I've been waiting for you to show up at your hab suite. Shift schedule said you were off rotation but I checked every single place you go—here, your hab, my hab, my lab, the commissary and...yeah, that’s about it. No sign of you anywhere."

"Oh, has it been that long?" Chromedome said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry. Ran into someone and got to talking, lost track of time."

"Flummery! That is absolute flim-flam flummery. Chromedome, mate, I love you but the idea of you talking to someone for seventy-two hours is truly unbelievable. The Chromedome I know barely manages three sentences consecutively before he starts trailing off in long "contemplative" silences. Who were you even talking to?"

"Oh, fuck you," Chromedome said. He picked up a UV disinfection wand and pointed it pointedly at Brainstorm. "For your information, I was talking to Mach."

The name was familiar but Brainstorm wasn't getting a face. "Mach."

"Yeah, one of the new guys," Chromedome said. "One of Prowl's covert-ops spy types. Little spyplane; black with gold wingtips."

"Oh, that Mach." Brainstorm said. He wasn't a fan of the small attache of spies who were bunkered at the New Institute—he didn't trust people who lied for a living. But he especially didn't trust Mach. "The knave. The feckless scoundrel. The ignominious scrounger. That Mach."

"Were you doing vocabulary puzzles the whole time you were waiting for me?"

"Your new friend is a thief and a sneak," Brainstorm said stoutly. "I caught him in my lab trying to make off with a highly volatile solvent."

"I'm sure he had a good reason," Chromedome said. "I'll have to ask him about it sometime. He tells the funniest stories."

"You have no taste in companions," Brainstorm declared. "Wait—"

"Nope, you said it!" Chromedome was probably grinning under his faceplate; the aft. "Yeah, you and Mach. My disreputable duo."

"How do I rank equally with a stranger you met three days ago?" Brainstorm wailed.

"I meant, you're the only two people I talk to. Speaking of—Brainstorm, you know I love talking to you, but I do have to actually do work at some point. Given that I'm on shift."

Shifts. Genius didn't work on a schedule. Brainstorm had, for instance, invented two different motion sensors while waiting for Chromedome to show up. And solved several vocabulary puzzles. "Oh, very well," he said, "but the next time you want to disappear, send me a comm or something? I thought maybe you'd dropped dead at work."

Even mentioning the ongoing trainee-sudden-death syndrome mystery didn't seem to burst Chromedome's blissful bubble. Brainstorm made a graceful exit and pushed "tell Chromedome about his idea for a motion detector that could identify people by their gaits" back in his calendar. Maybe he'd have a working prototype by then.

Interesting people, Brainstorm reminded himself, don't get bored. He checked his comm messages but there was still no reply from Chromedome.

Brainstorm didn't really want to do more work; all his current ideas were still percolating in the back of his brain module. He could recharge, or he could drink. Or he could...damn, the Institute really was a depressing place to work. It beat being blown to bits in an infantry charge but...yeah.

It wasn't like there was nothing to do. Brainstorm opened up his copy of ’The Metallurgist's Handbook’ and settled in to read. The information would probably come in handy eventually. He found a great quote right away and went to send it to Chromedome, then paused. The last whole string of messages in their conversation had been his, with a few sparse one word replies scattered in. Brainstorm erased the message and tried to focus on his reading.

Chromedome would remember he existed eventually, once the novelty of his new "best friend" wore off.

Brainstorm squinted at the ceiling in the darkness. He was awake. Why was he awake? His chrono told him that it was still six hours until his wake-up time, so he couldn't see what might have—

Oh.

"Hey. Hi. Brainstorm, right?" A tiny spyplane with gold wingtips jumped down from the emergency exhaust vent, landing with a graceful bend of his knees. "Oh, sorry, were you recharging?"

Brainstorm spread his hands in demonstration, hoping the berth and the plugged-in infuser and the lights off might help them get a clue. "Mach, I presume?"

"That's me!" They bounced on their heels, tapping their fingers against their legs. "You're Chromedome's friend, right?"

"I guess so," Brainstorm said with a shrug, scooting back against the infuser case where he kept a miniaturized pathblaster for safekeeping. Spies who came to wake you up in the dead of the night were not to be trusted. "Haven't seen him much lately."

"Oh, he talks about you all the time. ‘Brainstorm thinks this’ and ‘Brainstorm said that’ and ‘If Brainstorm were here he'd say’. Nonstop." Mach didn’t smile, per se—visor and faceplate didn’t leave you much to work with—but he conveyed his amusement quite clearly with his hands and still-bouncing heels. "Can I ask you your advice?"

"About Chromedome?"

"Yeah."

"Well you're already here, why not? Sit down, make yourself comfortable," Brainstorm said with an edge of sarcasm that appeared to go entirely over Mach's head. Then again, Mach was pretty short. Mach climbed up onto Brainstorm's desk chair and then sat on the edge of his desk, using the chair as a footrest.

"So Chromedome asked me to be his conjunx endura," he said.

Brainstorm waited a moment for any additional context. None seemed to be forthcoming. "Excuse me?"

"Conjunx endura? You know, a sparkmate," Mach said.

"I know what it is! It's everything else in that sentence I was confused on."

Mach nodded seriously. "I have no idea what part of the sentence could be confusing you."

"Context, please," Brainstorm said, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead. "Are you and Chromedome in a romantic relationship?"

"I...don't...know?" Mach said with a shrug. "Can you give me some clues? How would you know if you were in a romantic relationship?"

He seemed actually serious about the request. Brainstorm wracked his brain for a useful description. There were some things you didn't expect to have to explain while half-asleep in your berthroom, talking to a stranger your best friend was apparently intent on bonding with.

"Okay, uh, clues. Well, the big one would be that someone has used the "L" word—that'd be "love"—or the "S" word—"sparkmates". That kinda thing. Other than that, lots of physical closeness? Emotional intimacy? Weird sparkfeelings when you think about them? Would you want him to be your partner in life?"

Mach nodded very seriously. "I don't know. Some of those? Chromedome definitely says he loves me a lot. I didn't think he meant like that. And we spend a lot of time together, he likes holding hands, I think I like it too—"

"Okay I don't actually need to know all the details—"

"Emotional intimacy? I guess there was the mnemosurgery, but you probably meant on a routine basis..."

"The what?" Brainstorm slipped suddenly off the stable ground of assuming your best friend wouldn't use brain surgery to make someone fall in love with him. How bad of a judge of character could he be?

"Oh!" Mach clamped his hands over his faceplate, as if to shove the words back in. "That was supposed to be a secret. You don't have any surveillance equipment running in here, do you?"

"I don't surveil myself, no." Brainstorm saw him moving to ask another question and cut him off. "And yes, I swept for bugs. I don't think Axotomy and all them need to listen to me while I'm off-shift."

"You wouldn't tell Chromedome I told you, right? I'm supposed to keep it a secret but," he flapped his hands anxiously, "I need your help to figure out what to do."

"I can keep a secret," Brainstorm said.

"Yeah, but will you keep a secret? This secret, specifically."

"I promise I will never tell anyone, cross my spark," Brainstorm said. But he wasn't ruling out slugging Chromedome without context if circumstances warranted. "Please explain the thing I will never tell anyone."

"So I'm not normal," Mach said, matter-a-fact. "According to the folks at the thawing facility I'm ‘defective’." He made little air-quotes as he said it. "I'm not good at subtle or slowing down or figuring out why people do the things they do. But I'm good at stealing and I'm the best at getting past security scans so," he shrugged. "I thought that was good enough? Until I went to recharge in my room and woke up in my brain with a stranger inside." Mach squinted. "Have you ever had mnemosurgery done on you?"

"I have not," Brainstorm siad. And I will not, my thinking whatsits are just fine the way they are thank you.

"Well, Chromedome says usually you don't feel anything. But if the surgeon wants, they can bring the subject up into consciousness with them. And that's what he did. He told me that he'd been ordered to smooth out my personality so I'd be more ‘normal’."

"But you're an Autobot!" Brainstorm protested.

Mach quirked an optic at him. "Yeah?"

"Mnemosurgery is supposed to be the thing we use against...other people. Them. Decepticons."

"Oh, Stormy," Mach reached over to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder. "That's really sweet."

"He tried to brainwash you?"

"No, that's what I'm trying to tell you. For one, it wouldn’t be "brainwashing", they didn't order him to do anything to my memories. Just personality adjustment. But more importantly, Chromedome didn't. He got in my head and used that as cover to warn me. Then he helped me figure out how to pass better, so they wouldn't send me to a second surgeon."

"Right," Brainstorm said. "But how do you know he didn't mind-whammy you and then pretend he didn’t?"

"Well I'm still like this," Mach said, gesturing at himself. "I think he's better at his job than that. Or—oh! You mean, ‘how do I know he didn't brainwash me into falling in love with him?’ Well...yeah. I'm not in love with him? He's in love with me. That's why I'm here for your advice."

"Primus, I am lost." His head was still reeling from the idea that Chromedome, his Chromedome was apparently brainwashing Autobots. That seemed like the kind of thing you should tell your best friend. Actually, it seemed like the kind of thing you shouldn’t do, period, but if you were doing it you ought to mention it to your best friend. He wasn’t really sure how to handle the revelation that Chromedome had a love life on top of that.

Really, what had he been thinking? That Chromedome was just going to interrogate dead people forever? He was going to have to take some time to process this, preferably without any tiny thieves watching him flail. Brainstorm focused back on the conversation at hand—Mach was zooming away on his one-mech conversational freight train.

"Chromedome says he loves me. He asked me to be his conjunx endura, so he’s probably serious about that. But I don't know how to—I don't think this feeling is love yet. I think it could be? But I'm not ready. And even if I was, I don't know if this whole sparkmate thing is a good idea. He needs so much love and support and I'm me and I can't be his everything like that."

"I think you've answered your own question," Brainstorm said. "You're not ready. Tell him that."

"Can it be that simple?"

"Yeah," Brainstorm said, letting all his years of complete inexperience in all spheres of romance of all kinds roll off his back. "Sometimes it's that simple. And as for the second half of what you said—maybe remind Chromedome that he has other friends? Well, another friend. I can help carry some of that."

The elevator chimed again and Brainstorm checked the display. Getting close. He understood theoretically that the New Institute had been built as an underground bunker for security reasons but noody needed this many levels. Had they been trying to tunnel to Vector Sigma and got discouraged, then used the resulting excavation project to build the facility?

He pressed himself into the front corner of the elevator as the doors opened, where he wouldn't be visible to any passers-by. After a beat, the doors closed again. Brainstorm hopped up and caught the access hatch on his first try, then awkwardly clambered out onto the roof of the elevator. He kicked the door closed behind him and braced himself for the lurch of it going back into motion.

Sure enough, the elevator started down with a jerk. He jumped as the top of the alcove appeared into view.

He rebounded off the wall and his momentum nearly carried him back into the chasm, but a pair of hands—one average, one tiny—steadied him.

"Hey Stormy," Mach said. "Did you bring anything to drink?"

"You know," he said, brushing himself off and sitting down on the railing of the maintenance alcove with as much dignity as he could manage, "most people have a sensible fear of heights. Heights or enclosed spaces. Heights or enclosed spaces or getting caught sneaking around on government property. I'm just saying, you could hang out in your berthroom or something."

"But this is our special spot!" Mach said. He was cuddled up on Chromedome's lap, the glass in his hand half the size of his head with two absurd neon curly straws sticking out of it.

"It's nice to have your own space," Chromedome said, in a tone that said Mach likes sneaking around and I like Mach being happy. "But if it makes you nervous, we could hang out in your room next time."

"I wasn't saying that I'm scared," Brainstorm protested. "I am merely passing the time by pointing out your eccentricities."

"Ooh, I want to go next!" Mach said. "Let's start with Brainstorm and the fact he never brings anything to drink when we hang out."

"Hey!" Brainstorm protested. "Just because I haven't finished my color-and-flavor changing engex recipe yet doesn't mean it's not going to be a smash hit once I'm done with it."

"Hey now, hey now," Chromedome said. "It's fine, I brought plenty. Let's not start."

"Ah, our chief brangler wrangler is at it again. No fears, Chromedome, me and Mach are merely engaging in what is commonly referred to as ‘sporting’."

"Brangler wrangler?" Chromedome repeated, squinting skeptically at him.

"Are you okay Chromedome?" Mach asked, reaching up to pat the side of his face. "Headache?"

"I'm fine."

"Do you need a nap?"

"I'm fine, Mach," Chromedome said softly. "I don't want to waste out time together fighting over the same stupid slag over and over."

"Oh! I get it. You're worried." Mach stood up and planted his hands on Chromedome's shoulders. "It's an easy mission and I'm the best there is. I'm gonna come home to you."

"You can't know that."

"I'm gonna come home," Mach repeated. He leaned close and whispered, but Brainstorm could still hear every word. "And then you should ask me to be your conjunx again, okay?"

Brainstorm cleared his throat. "I'm still here."

"Do you feel left out?" Mach asked sweetly. "I could be mushy with you too, if you wanted."

"Can I please have something to drink before you two start canoodling again?" Brainstorm asked, holding out his glass. "I need something to do to pass the time while you're being gross."

Mach threw a straw at his head, which somehow led to a spraying-people-with-straws fight, which finally dispersed the awkward tension that always seemed to build up like static while they were apart. Once they were thoroughly engexed, inside and out, the conversation settled down to freewheeling badinage and what-ifs. Brainstorm found himself swinging his legs over the edge of the alcove, listening to Mach explain in excruciating depth how he would break into the New Institute "if the facility was taken over by Decepticons or something".

"You couldn't use the freight elevator," Chromedome protested sleepily. "They would totally see you."

"Well, not the delivery elevator. Sometimes the Institute's headhunters have to bring people in and there needs to be plausible deniability, see? So there’s an elevator entrance just for them that’s a huge security camera blindspot. So step one, I'd need to have you with me and you'd have to hijack one of the headhunters when they were entering the facility."

"Wait, I thought this was if the facility was taken over by Decepticons," Chromedome said.

"Oh yeah. Well, if it were Decepticons, I'd just wait until they opened the main entrance to do some Decepticon-ing and then dive inside. Go supersonic down the main hallway on the first floor. Then use some tabescite to dissolve through the floor—"

Brainstorm snorted. "Mach, are you plundering my lab again?"

"Only in the hypothetical."

"Well, as a hypothetical reminder, if you need something from the lab I'd really much rather you ask. I can synthesize tabescite but it's a pain in the aft if I need it for an experiment and it's all wandered off somewhere."

"Oh. In that case you should probably do inventory again."

Someday he was going to kill this mech. This tiny infuriating mech. As it was, Brainstorm settled for throwing a straw at him.

Mach grew on him, sorta like a rust spot on a bit of unpainted machinery or chondrules accreting onto an asteroid. If you’d asked him, Brainstorm would have claimed that he was a creature of habit and he just got used to Mach being around. Or he might have made a joke about Mach’s endorsement of his color-shifting engex, which everyone else thought tasted "slimy". Really, Chromedome had been right from the start—Mach told great stories and he had an insubordinate streak that made him worth talking to.

The ceremony was a disaster. Brainstorm was the only guest and it was really for the best, given that Chromedome startled so badly at being asked that he nearly fell down the elevator shaft. "I think when I said ‘not yet’ he thought I meant ‘not ever’," Mach confided in him later.

It took Chromedome years to settle down about Mach’s line of work—literal years where Brainstorm could tell whether Mach was out on assignment by whether or not Chromedome showed up at his habsuite after shift, too full of nervous energy to stay in his room alone. Brainstorm didn’t recharge much those days, neither of them did. But they got used to it and Mach coming home after missions became a thing they took for granted.

He'd been in the shuttlebay to take delivery.

He’d ordered some supplies and they’d been scheduled to arrive that day and so he’d been in the shuttlebay, waiting for them to show up.

He’d considered, later, what an absurd happenstance it was that he just happened to be there at that moment.

One of the security mechs, Volley, swooped into the shuttlebay. He had something in his arms. Someone. The front of his frame was streaked pink with fuel and his hands were soaked to the wrists. Brainstorm always remembered his hands. He saw Brainstorm and yelled "Get a stretcher! I've got a fader."

Brainstorm was already rushing to the emergency kits by the blast doors. He pulled the lever, opening the chamber and bringing up a comm line with medical. Brainstorm dragged one of the stretchers out and tried to remember how they unfolded from their storage mode.

On the other line, a medic asked what their emergency was.

"We've got a fader incoming," Brainstorm said, finally getting the last of the catches open. "Minibot. Volley found him. We're bringing him to you now." He picked up the comm and jogged to meet Volley, who’d stopped at the doors out of the shuttlebay.

Brainstorm pulled the stretcher up in front of him. "Come on, mate. Patient on the stretcher."

Volley didn't move. His optics were overheating at the edges, light sparking through. His hands were shaking. He was an MTO who'd never seen combat.

Brainstorm put his hand on the mech's shoulder. "Patient on the stretcher, Volley. We can still save him."

Volley exhaled and uncurled enough for Brainstorm to lift the patient out of his arms. His tank churned. Gold wingtips. He wouldn’t have known him otherwise.

"Hey Stormy," Mach whispered.

Brainstorm spoke into the medical comm as he started pushing the stretcher at a run. "Patient is Mach of Tetrahex; sparktype vitreous-positive. Perforated spark. Major fuel loss. Did you get that?"

"We have someone en route," the medic promised. "Is the patient awake? Keep the patient awake if at all possible."

Brainstorm tossed the comm over to Volley, who'd finally snapped back into motion. "You talk to them," he snapped. "Mach. I'm right here. We're going to get you to the medics."

Mach coughed wetly. "Don't think that's going to do much good, Stormy," he said. "I need you to call Chromedome, okay?"

"Of course," he said, wheeling them into the elevator. Volley, following close on their heels, punched in their security code to switch the elevator to emergency mode. Brainstorm had been doing his best to tune out his security report, but couldn't help making eye contact with Mach at the word "torture".

"Turns out Megatron doesn't like spies," Mach said. "And he especially doesn't like spies that report to the mnemosurgery department."

"Mach, I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't do anything."

"I'll make the call," Brainstorm promised. The elevator doors opened to a mob of medics, who pushed him aside to take patient and stretcher. Nobody bothered to say a damn thing to him, but Brainstorm hustled along after them. As he went he brought up comms again. "Chromedome, you need to get down to medical."

Brainstorm stepped sideways to bodycheck the assistant head of mnemology. Axotomy stared at him in shock.

"I said no. That is his Conjunx. Show some damn respect."

"We are at war, Genitus," Axotomy said. Brainstorm hated it when people used his real name. Not that he needed any additional impetus to hate this smarmy-mouthed creep. "There is no time for bereavement leave at war."

"He's not even dead yet," Brainstorm snapped. "And yeah, if we were on the front lines you could hand Ch—Tumbler a gun and throw him on the battlefield and he'd probably take a few ‘Cons down with him. But Chromedome doesn't get to shoot his enemy; he has to play head games with them. And his head is not in the game right now. He's one junior mnemosurgeon. You'll manage without."

Brainstorm stopped himself short of threatening to fight the assistant head of Mnemology. Barely.

"You're very protective. Tumbler is lucky to have you as a friend. Convey my condolences to him," Axotomy said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. He walked away.

Brainstorm gave himself a minute to stop steaming before he went back inside.

Underneath the mass of life support equipment, Mach looked even smaller than he had before. Chromedome had left the chair to kneel beside the berth, his hand covering Mach's. The medics had cleared out of the room and the lights were dimmed.

Chromedome was crying. Brainstorm hesitated.

"Stormy's back," Mach rattled.

Chromedome glanced over. "Is he gone?" He asked.

"Yeah, he's gone." Brainstorm said. "Should I go too?"

"Stay. Please." Chromedome said. "You've got to help me convince Mach not to give up."

"Chromedome, I'm not giving up. You heard the medic. It wouldn't do me any good—don't waste it. You only have so much to give away."

"But there's nobody but you!"

"Right now. Today. Chromedome, you're too wonderful to be alone forever. They'll be others after me."

"Never." Chromedome swore. "There isn't going to be anyone after you because you're going to make it. You're going to be fine. Just drink it."

"Innermost energon isn't a miracle cure, Mach said. "Tell him, Stormy."

Finally Brainstorm caught sight of the vial clutched in Chromedome's fist. He sighed. "Chromedome, you can't make Mach take it. That's his decision."

"I'm offering it—"

"And I can't accept."

"Domey." Brainstorm put his hand on his shoulder. "It won't help. You heard the medics—his spark is ruptured. Innermost energon would strain his spark more, he'd burn out faster."

Chromedome stood up fast, like he might try and take a swing at him. Brainstorm backed up a step, raising his hands placatingly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But Mach is right."

Chromedome looked down at the vial in his hand. The glow of the innermost energon colored his hand pink.

"I'm sorry," Brainstorm said again. He spread his hands a bit awkwardly, then stepped into a hug. "You don't have much time," he whispered. "Your conjunx needs you." He'd shooed out the medics and their death clock earlier, but not before he'd seen the countdown.

"Okay." Chromedome straightened up and pulled back from the hug. "Okay."

He turned back to Mach and sank down to the floor. "You're right. I'm sorry. I just—" his voice broke and he shook his head angrily. "You made me better, Mach. You made life worth living."

"Is it cheating if I say ‘same’?" Mach asked.

"Yes, but I'll allow it," Chromedome said. "Cheat as much as you want."

"What about stealing?" Mach asked. "Can I steal whatever I want now too?"

"Anything."

"What if we stole peace? It'd be nice to be able to get a little quiet around here."

When the door opened, Brainstorm knew from the suffocating silence that Chromedome wasn't there. The room was dark; the box of Mach's possessions was still sitting on the berth untouched. All that time hacking Chromedome's door code, wasted.

Brainstorm took a circuit of hiding places he knew Mach and Chromedome had spent time together. The air vents above the commissary, the boiler room down in the sub-basement, the abandoned extension behind the autopsy wing. He found Chromedome, inevitably, in the last place he checked. The nook inside the central elevator shaft where they'd all spent so much time together.

"Hey." He said, kneeling down to shake Chromedome by the shoulder. "You awake?"

Chromedown shook his head, no bothering to power up his optics. "Go away Brainstorm."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Brainstorm said. "Buddy, it's been days. I know you need time. I am on board with you needing time. But if someone doesn't tell Axotomy and them that you're going to end up court martialed for dereliction of duty."

"That's fine."

"That's fine, is it? Chromedome, you work at the New Institute. What do you think happens to people who get court martialed out of the New Institute?"

"Dunno." Chromedome shrugged. "Preferably something fatal."

Brainstorm barely resisted the urge to slap him. "Is this what you think Mach would have wanted? For you to roll over and die?"

"What he would have wanted doesn’t matter anymore. He’d gone. There’s nothing left for me here," Chromedome said.

Am I nothing?

Brainstorm clenched his hands into fists and let his breath his out through his teeth. He couldn’t help right now; it hurt too damn much. "I'm walking now, before I say something I regret," he said. "After I call someone from security who can get you to your room."

"Yeah, security? This is Genitus. Does anyone have eyes on Tumbler of Iacon—room 396?" Brainstorm looked around the room. It was spotless. Suspiciously spotless. Like someone had gone on a cleaning bender. The box with all of Mach's personal effects was missing.

His comm fizzed for a moment—nothing in this damned place worked right—and then one of the geniuses at the control center spoke. "He left his habsuite this morning to go to work."

"To go to work?" Brainstorm asked. "Are you sure?"

"He was on duty today."

"Is he still there?" Brainstorm asked, shutting the door behind him and hustling towards the Autopsy wing. He'd asked them to keep an eye on Chromedome, not let him wander around the facility alone. What if he'd—what if—what if—

He burst through the door. Chromedome's hands were pink to the wrist, scalpel in hand. Behind him, the door alarm started bleating something about surgery in session. Brainstorm struggled to move.

"You okay Brainstorm?" Chromedome asked, setting aside the scalpel in a tray. His visor furrowed in concern as he followed Brainstorm's gaze to where it was fixed on his bloodied hands. "Unfortunate causal effect of working autopsies. Let me just clean up."

He activated the solvent spray. Brainstorm watched the pink run down the drain. Finally he managed to make the words come out. "Chromedome, what are you doing here?"

"Are you okay, Brainstorm? I'm at work. I'm doing work. At work. I'm told it's a thing people do."

Brainstorm opened his mouth to say something and then thought better of it. He'd wanted Chromedome to push through his grief. He hadn’t said "tell me when you start working because I'm scared to death about you", though a good friend might have guessed that. But Chromedome had always been a bit oblivious.

"I really do need to get back to this," Chromedome said, frowning apologetically. "I am so behind right now. We can get together later, though? Drinks after my shift is over?"

"Sure," Brainstorm said. "It'll be good for us to get together, remember the good times. Mach would have wanted a wake with lots of hard engex and debauchery."

Chromedome paused at shaking the solvent off his hands. "Mach?" He sounded confused. "Who's Mach?"

"No. You fragging didn't." Brainstorm whispered, horrified. He pushed past Chromedome to the light on the other side of the surgical slab. In the blue of the UV the fresh needle marks on the back of Chromedome's neck jumped out like a punch to the face.

"What are you talking about Brainstorm?" Chromedome asked. "Are you okay? First you burst in here like someone's chasing you and now you're—you're being weird. What's going on?"

"Mach of Tetrahex. He died a week ago."

"Never heard of him."

"Chromedome, he was your conjunx endura."

"That's ridiculous."

"Tell that to the needle marks in the back of your neck."

Chromedome craned his neck, as if he could see over his own shoulder somehow. "Brainstorm, I've always had scars there. You have to experience mnemosurgery as a patient before they let you do your first live reading."

"Yes, but—" Brainstorm stopped himself. That wasn't the point. The point was that there was something Chromedome didn't remember that he needed to remember. Arguing wasn't going to fix that. "Read me."

"What?" Chromedome started at him.

"Read. Me. If you don't believe me, I've got all the proof I'll ever need right up in here." He tapped on his forehead for emphasis.

"Brainstorm, this isn't the kind of thing you should do for a joke—"

"Good. Because I'm not joking. Mach deserves better than this." Brainstorm looked around. "Should I sit down? There seems to be a body in your workstation."

Chromedome shook his head. "None of this makes any sense. Why would anyone—"

"Not anyone, Chromedome. You." Brainstorm said. "You were looking for an escape. I was afraid that meant suicide. I didn't realize it could have meant this. You couldn't handle the grief, so you made it go away."

"I would never do something like that."

"Read me and tell me that again."

Chromedome hesitated. "You're serious," he said flatly.

"I hope that's not your way of saying ‘mnemosurgery is excruciatingly painful for the recipient.’ But yeah, I'm serious. Would you be able to tell if my memories were implanted?"

"Yeah. External memories are very distinctive. They've got a certain...taste to them. They never quite fit. Harder to pick out, the more skilled the surgeon."

"Yeah then do it." Brainstorm pointed to the chair by the desk. "Should I sit down?"

Chromedeome glanced at the greyed out body on the slab. "Yeah, that'd be best." He walked over to the room controls and dimmed the lights while Brainstorm went to sit. "Active mnemosurgery can cause light sensitivity," he explained.

"It's not excruciatingly painful, right?" Brainstorm asked. "I'm not backing out either way but I would appreciate a bit of a heads up so I can steel myself if that's the case—"

"It's just a pinch," Chromedome said. Gently, he laid one hand on Brainstorm's shoulder to steady him and splayed the fingers of his other hand against the back of his neck.

Brainstorm restrained himself from the urge to babble questions. He didn't want to find out what happened when a mnemosurgeon was distracted while trying to inject.

He trusted Chromedome. He trusted him. Still, all of a sudden he couldn't help thinking of all the things he didn't want people to know. Focus on Mach. Focus on Mach. That's what he's here for.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Chromedome asked. "You look really anxious."

"You're taking so damn long. The suspense is making me jittery. Just get on with it." Brainstorm snapped.

"Okay." There was a pinch, like someone had flicked him in the back of the neck and then the floor fell away beneath him. Brainstorm grabbed for the chair but found that there was no chair. He was in his alt mode, pushing hard for the horizon. Below him the darkness bloomed with bursts of light; explosions and exchanges of fire. He dragged his optics away and focused on the horizon. Don't look, don't look—

"Relax, Brainstorm.This isn't real, this is just your mindscape," Chromedome said. He was floating off Brainstorm's flank, apparently motionless as the ground hurtled past beneath them.

"I didn't think I was going to see you," Brainstorm said.

"People don't, usually. But I'm here as your guest, you get to pilot," Chromedome said.

"How?" Brainstorm asked.

"It's intuitive," Chromedome said. "Just think about what you want to remember and...drop into it. More literal with you than most folks."

"Drop down there?" Brainstorm asked, as a chain of explosions lit up the ground.

"It's not real," Chromedome reminded him. "Just think about a memory and let yourself fall into it."

Brainstorm powered down his optics and thought of Mach. He didn't know what memory he should focus on, there was just so much—

"You really think this stuff will do anything?" Mach asked.

Brainstorm's optics jolted on and he found himself in his lab, with Chromedome at his side. There was another him in the room, busy spraying a canister of silver paint over Mach's arm from where he sat on the workbench.

"Ye of little faith. I have been thinking about this paint for years," Brainstorm said with a flourish of the paintcan.

"Well I've been thinking about stealing the Matrix of leadership for years, doesn't mean it's ever going to happen."

"Mach!"

"I'm not going to steal it. I just think about it sometimes. Anyway, how does fancy camouflage paint relate to mnemosurgery? I thought you were the engineer for mnemosurgery."

"Well, it's not like I've always worked at the Institute," Brainstorm said. "I bounced around a bit between Operation: Solar Storm and here. For awhile there I was working as a courier at Kith Kinsere. Plenty of airtime to think about all the people who wanted to shoot you dead if they could see you."

"A courier, eh?" Mach perked up, suddenly interested. "So you've not always been a boring shut-in?"

"Excuse you," Brainstorm said. "Who here is doing who a favor?"

"We don't even know if it works. And it better dry clear, I don’t want to wander around looking like a shiny tin can."

"It'll work," Brainstorm promised. "Only the best for my best friend's Conjunx."

This wasn't what he'd wanted to show Chromedome. Brainstorm tried to think them into a different memory and the scene smeared around them. The floor dropped out beneath them and Brainstorm grabbed for Chromedome's hand to steady him.

"You okay?" Chromedome asked.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Brainstorm said.

Chromedome looked over his shoulder and frowned. "I don't think this is where you wanted to go. You look...new."

Brainstorm spun around and found himself in the killing fields outside Ultrix. It took a moment to find himself among the bodies, but there he was—with a hole the size of someone's fist through his abdomen, hands pressed weakly over the wound. As he watched, a bulky red soldier picked his way over the bodies, a scanner in hand reading for lifesigns. He paused when he saw Brainstorm.

"Oh, Genitus," his old CO, Carrel, said. "At least you made it." He knelt down beside him and opened up one of their first aid kits.

"Yeah, I'm doing great," Brainstorm gritted out.

"I was watching you this time. You know you didn't hit any of the Decepticons," Carrel said. "You're supposed to be shooting them."

"Bad luck," Brainstorm said. "Bad aim."

"That would be more convincing if you'd fired your weapon," Carrel said, sliding one hand under Brainstorm's back and lifting him to slide a fusible patch under him. He wrapped it over the wound and heated it to seal the wound.

"Whoops."

"I'm not going to court martial you, Genitus. It's a waste of everyone's time. But I can't have a sniper who doesn't shoot people. I'm going to recommend you to Posthaste for courier work. Use those wings of yours."

Brainstorm reached up to grip Carrel’s hand. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Courier work is second only to field medics for non-combat casualty rates." Carrel pulled him to his feet. "Command thinks they know what everyone was made for. I figure that's how we got ourselves in this mess."

"Brainstorm." Chromedome shook his shoulder. "This isn't what we're here to see."

"Right." Brainstorm shook his head. "He's dead, you know. They're all dead."

"Brainstorm. Focus." Chromedome put his hand over Brainstorm's visor, blocking out the view. "It's easy to get sucked into your emotions at the time of the memory or to end up bounced around like a pinball. There was something you wanted to show me. What was that?"

"Mach." Brainstorm said. "I needed to show you Mach."

"What do I need know about Mach?"

"He loved you." Brainstorm said.

"Stormy, don't go."

Brainstorm cursed. He pushed Chromedome's hand away and found himself back in the medibay's surgical suite. Mach was lost underneath the mass of surgical equipment and swarming medics but Brainstorm was there, kneeling awkwardly at the head of the berth with one hand squeezing his.

"I won't go," Brainstorm promised. "I'm right here."

"Thanks." Mach whispered. "I've always been afraid of dying alone."

They were watching the scene from the corner of the room and Brainstorm wondered how they could hear everything so clearly. He wondered how his brain knew to construct the room from a different angle. He wondered how he could slip them back out of this memory before anything worse happened.

"I'm right here." Brainstorm promised. "Mach, I am so sorry."

"What for?" Mach asked.

"The paint. It was supposed to keep you safe—"

"Stormy. The paint was fine. They tracked my spark signature inside the base," Mach said. "You didn't cause this."

"Mach!" Chromedome cried, staggering into the room and collapsing by the berth.

Brainstorm grabbed for his Chromedome. "Make it stop," Brainstorm said. "Please."

Chromedome dragged his optics away from the scene in front of them and must have seen something in Brainstorm's face, because his frustration softened into pity. He waved his hand and everything froze.

"Give me a minute," Brainstorm said, tipping his head back to open up his intake. He felt like he was overheating. This was inside his head, how did his body feel so awful?

"We can stop," Chromedome said. "I believe you, Brainstorm."

"You haven't even seen anything good," Brainstorm said. "I've got to show you the things you should remember. The good things"

"Do you want me to just go in alone?" Chromedome asked. "You don’t have to relive all this with me."

"Yes. Primus, yes."

"Are you sure? I know it’s a lot of trust to—"

"Just do it," Brainstorm said.

The room around him winked out and then Brainstorm powered on his optics. He was sitting down in a chair and his head hurt like hell. He was in Chromedome's lab, the lights obnoxiously bright but the walls reassuringly solid.

Behind him, Chromedome said, "What did I do?"

Brainstorm turned to find Chromedome sunk down to the floor, staring at his needles like he'd never seen them before.

"I think it's pretty obvious what you did," Brainstorm said, as gently as he could. "And I can't say I wouldn't have been tempted, if I were you."

"Yeah, you might have been tempted, but you wouldn't have done it," Chromedome said.

Brainstorm couldn't find it in him to lie. Chromedome looked up, face grim at his silence.

"I'm so sorry," Chromedome said. "For leaving you to grieve for him alone."

"Don't be ridiculous, you remember now—"

"I've seen your memories," Chromedome corrected. "Mine are beyond retrieval. So I know what I should be remembering, but that's not the same. I know I loved him. But that’s gone now. I’m sorry."

"We just have to keep on going, like Mach would have wanted. Come out with me tonight. We'll have a drink, a proper wake for Mach," Brainstorm said.

"Yeah," Chromedome said. "Good idea. Just give me a bit, okay? I need some time to process this."

Brainstorm stepped into the commissary and looked around. He'd hurried over after he got Chromedome's ping, even though he'd been lying down most of the day with a terrific helmache. He wasn't sure if it was the mnemosurgery or the stress, but if he hadn't made a promise neither Megatron nor Zeta Prime nor the promise of a readable scientific explanation for mass displacement could have pulled him out of his nice dark habsuite.

Chromedome waved at him from across the bar. He looked...better. Chipper even. Brainstorm wondered how much he'd already drunk—there was only a single cube out on the bar but the bartenders here were scrupulous about clearing away empty drinks as soon as your fingers left the glass.

"Brainstorm, finally." Chromedome grinned. "I was worried you weren't coming. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

Brainstorm froze. "You saw me this afternoon, Chromedome."

Chromedome frowned. "Did I? I can't remember. I was really busy at work today, I must have forgotten. I don't know how I let myself get so far behind, but there is just a mountain of work on my to-do list."

"Chromedome, why are we here?"

"Here here? To drink. Catch up a bit."

"Nothing else?"

"What other reason would we need?" Chromedome asked.

It was the first time Brainstorm considered whether he would have been better off never meeting Chromedome. Being alone at the Institute, no friends to die or break his heart. Things would have been simpler, that way.

The first time, but not the last.

"So the important thing to remember is that all three of the smelters you have to work with are deceptive spawns of glitches, but they're bad in different ways. I put little paint markers on the doors to help me remember. The red door and blue door are going to try to kill you because the ventilation is all screwy. I recommend not using either of them. And then green door on the end tends to jam up when you're trying to pour the ore into the chamber and I swear I have put in maintenance requests every forty-eight hours for the past month and nobody's so much as glanced at it—"

"I'm sorry, are you okay?" The newbie was squinting at him with great skepticism.

"What? I am in perfect health, I assure you. Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Brainstorm considered if perhaps he’d gotten a bit off topic. There probably wouldn't be any reason the mech would need to use any of the smelting furnaces in the subbasement during his first day on the job.

"You're not, like, mad at me for taking your job, right? I didn't ask to get assigned to the mnemology department, I swear." The newbie wrung his hands, shifting a bit awkwardly on his feet. Pivot, that was his name. Pivot was a solid looking mech, not the frametype you'd expect for the science-y lot. Brainstorm would have bet his favorite hand lens he transformed into a transport van. A boring black transport van.

Brainstorm wasn't "supposed" to be a scientist either. He wondered how Pivot had ended up here, taking his job as head of R&D for mnemology. As a department of one, the sole engineer was automatically head of R&D. He waved his hands apologetically. "Not at all, not at all. I didn't dream of needles when I was a protoform, you know," he said. He’d never actually been a protoform, but that was on a need-to-know basis. "Come on, sit down, I'll grab you a drink. This is probably all my fault, actually. I requested a transfer to weapons development. I was getting bored doing the same thing day after day."

He pulled over his favorite stool and then realized there really weren't any other seats in his little cubbyhole lab. Former lab. It was going to be Pivot's lab, now. He waved for Pivot to sit and climbed up onto the lab bench to fetch the engex he'd been saving up in the ceiling vent.

"You're sure you're not angry? Because I don't feed people I like volatile liquids that have been exposed to who-knows-what kind of noxious laboratory fumes. No drinking in the lab, no drinking things that have been exposed to stuff in the lab, that's my watchword. Though actually I don’t drink at all. Engex makes me sick." Pivot babbled, drumming his hands on his knees as he awkwardly perched on the seat. He needed a good shine, whatever regulation polish he'd been using was leaving blotchy streaks over his black finish. Brainstorm could hook him up with a good supplier.

"Suit yourself," Brainstorm said, plucking a flask off the drying rack to fill up. Pivot spluttered in horror as Brainstorm took a sip. The smoky flavor gave it a nice rounded taste. Brainstorm capped the bottle to take with him to his new lab. "I'm only going to be three floors up, so if you have any questions or you can't find anything, just give me a ping. I'm told my lab notes can be...challenging, sometimes, so there's no shame in asking questions. The folks you're working with are a reclusive lot, but they've never given me any trouble."

"Nobody I should be worried about?" Pivot asked, in the voice of a person who worries about everything.

"Like I said, I haven't had any trouble. Except for getting someone to do some fragging maintenance on the facilities here. Oh—not someone you should be worried of but if you could do me a favor?"

"Of course, yeah."

"Tumbler of Iacon—everybody calls him Chromedome. He's my friend. Keep an eye on him for me?"

Someone banged on the door and Brainstorm watched his creation, carefully made through hours of work and painstaking precision, tumble to the floor. It made a terrific noise as the pieces clattered and rebounded. The reprehensible bungler outside continued banging.

"Brainstorm! Open up, I need to talk to you!" Chromedome yelled.

"You just ruined my experiment!" Brainstorm yelled back. "It was sensitive to vibrations!"

"...is it going to kill us all? Should we issue an evac alert?"

"No, but I'm going to kill you," Brainstorm snapped, striding over to the door and pulling it open. "Ping me next time."

"I did, you weren't answ—" Chromedome paused and narrowed his eyes. "Are those...empty energon cubes? What were you doing, stacking them?"

"No, I was not "stacking them", I was attempting to beat my personal record of tallest unsupported tower of energon cube packaging. It takes incredible skill to get above sixteen levels, I’ll have you know."

"Don't you have work to do?"

"Yeah, it's down in the materials synthesis committee. They're deciding if my new propellant is ‘cost effective’. Anyway, if you're so worried about my productivity, why are you here interrupting me at work?"

Chromedome ushered Brainstorm inside and shut the door behind him. "I need to ask you something. Something important. Do you know anything about the conjunx ritus?"

"Do I know anything about what?"

"The four acts, Brainstorm. The conjunx ritus."

"No, sorry, I heard you fine. I just—where's this coming from? Academic interest?"

Chromedome looked around and leaned close. "Not exactly but—you have to keep this a secret, alright? I don't want to scare him away."

Oh slag.

Brainstorm remembered that stupid blissed-out expression. It had tended to materialize when Chromedome started going on about Mach's virtues. "I think I've met the one. I've got to get this right, Brainstorm. What if I mess it up and he doesn't want to be with me? I would ask someone else for help but—nobody I know has a conjunx endura."

"When the hell did you meet this guy, Chromedome? I saw you...okay, I saw you nine days ago. But you definitely didn't mention that you were dating anyone nine days ago."

Chromedome crossed his arms across his chest. "We met yesterday. But! I just know he's the one. He's sweet and he's funny and he enjoys listening to me talk about my work and—he's just perfect, Brainstorm."

"Yesterday? You met yesterday?" Brainstorm put his face in his hands. "I think you need to slow down, Chromedome. There's no way to ask someone to be your conjunx endura after a single day without scaring them off. Wait a week—wait, no. Wait a month. Maybe six. Some people wait a couple decades."

"Decades?" Chromedome squeaked. "Oh no. No, no, no. Someone would have snapped him up already. A perfect mech like Pivot? He'd be settled into a sweet relationship with someone who's less of a—"

"Pivot?" Brainstorm repeated faintly. "Big boxy transport van Pivot? Stole my job Pivot?"

"You hated that job. He said that you said something about me, so he came to introduce himself and we just...ended up talking all night. He's just wonderful."

"That's great," Brainstorm said faintly. "I'm really happy for you but, uhh, I don't really know anything about the conjunx ritus," he lied. "Wait a few weeks, for sure. Maybe look it up on the net. Read some books. In the meantime, I just remembered something very important and time sensitive I'm supposed to be doing so—sorry, sorry, talk to you later—" he shoved Chromedome gently out the door, ignoring his protests. He locked the door behind him and went back to sit at his lab bench.

Frag, he should have predicted this might happen. He should have planned for it. What was he supposed to do now? Should he try to tell Chromedome about Mach again and hope this time he could face the truth? But to what end? Mach was gone and if Chromedome had a chance to be happy with the new guy....but maybe Brainstorm had a duty to tell Pivot about Mach. He would want to know if it was him and there was a chance that Chromedome might one day...

Brainstorm reached over and snagged an empty energon cube. He didn't want to sit on this with an empty tank.

There was a comm message blinking on his HUD. Brainstorm checked his chrono and, yep, it was, in fact, unreasonably early. And he was off duty. He swiped away from the message and tried to settle back into recharge.

Another comm message pinged. Brainstorm sat up with a growl of annoyance. Whoever had used the urgent tag on their comm to override his "do not disturb" had better be dying or he was going to introduce them to his new portable flamethrower and also a sense of common decency.

The message was from Chromedome. So was the earlier message. Brainstorm clicked in, his brain lurching up to speed.

«Hey, sorry to bother you but I need help getting to my medical check-in.»

«No, seriously Brainstorm. I need an assist.»

Brainstorm rolled his optics. Not dying then. «Were you drinking last night? Also: do you know what time it is? Frag off.»

«I wasn't drinking. Brainstorm, please. I'll owe you a favor.»

«You already owe me approximately 1,998 favors; I'm not sure what benefit I could get out of additional debenture on your part. So what is the problem exactly?»

«I can't get up.»

«This feels like the set-up to a joke, but I’m too tired to expand on the comedy that is your life. Why don’t you ask your conjunx for help?»

«He isn’t my conjunx, Brainstorm. We’re taking it slow. And I don’t want to worry him. Just come over here and help me walk to the medstation. If I miss another weekly check-in they're going to make me do a physical.»

«You want me to get out of my berth, during my assigned recharge time, to help you walk to a medstation. So that you can be cleared for work, which you are obviously incapable of doing. So that you can avoid getting medical leave that you obviously need?>

«I don't need to stand up to do mnemosurgery.»

Brainstorm sighed and stood up. "Alright, that's it," he muttered. He unplugged from the infuser case and coiled up the leads before heading off down the hallway, still typing.

«I'm coming to you. Give me five.» It took him a little under three minutes, he hadn't factored in the complete lack of elevator traffic at stupid-o-clock in the morning. He didn't bother to knock when he got there, just punched in the door code real quick and stomped inside.

"Alright, that's it!" Brainstorm declared. Chromedome was sitting on the floor, one arm up on the berth like he was trying to hold himself up. He squinted at Brainstorm in confusion.

"That's what?" he asked, voice slurred.

"You and me are going to the medstation," Brainstorm said, kneeling to get one of Chromedome's arms around his shoulder so he could help him stand.

"That's what I was asking you to do," Chromedome said. "You could have just said ‘yes’."

"I'm taking you to the medstation because you're not well, you idiot." Brainstorm staggered to the door and glared at Chromedome. "Do you know what's wrong? Are you the least bit concerned about it?"

"Haven't been recharging well," Chromedome said with a shrug that nearly made Brainstorm lose his grip. "Probably that. Been really tired lately."

"Okay, well, ‘really tired’ and ‘can't stand’ are not the same thing." Brainstorm leaned Chromedome up against the wall while he called for an elevator. "What would you be doing at work that's so important?"

"Oh you know, work stuff," Chromedome mumbled. "I'm just so far behind Brainstorm. I don't know how I got so far behind but...I just need to focus, dig out. I don't have time to be sick."

"You can't get caught up on work if you're dead, you idiot," Brainstorm said. "We’ll see what the medics have to say."

Mnemosurgeons had to report to a medical check-in once weekly and get cleared to stay on the surgical roster. It was supposedly to prevent the use of circuit speeders, because injecting in two directions at once was a solid recipe to leaking brain module out your optics. Brainstorm hadn’t gotten a straight answer from Chromedome on whether circuit speeders were involved with the whole "trainee sudden death" incident, but it would explain things.

Anyway, the medics were in a wing adjacent to central command for the mnemology department. Command for the New Institute was a bit rigidly hierarchical and, in the case of the mnemology department, built around six senior surgeons who’d won their way back into favor from the original Institute. Conveniently, their offices were right in a row:

Trepan (head of the training section, Chromedome’s assigned mentor):

"What do you mean, you cleared him to work?" Brainstorm fumed. "He couldn't stand up! What's the point of a weekly health screening if you pass the walking dead with flying colors?"

Trepan folded his hands on his desk pointedly and waited. "Are you done?"

"Depends what you have to say. I reserve the right to yell more later," Brainstorm said, pacing.

Apparently Brainstorm did not reserve the right to yell more later, because Trepan shooed him out of his office with the assistance of a guardian droid. Which was cheating. That was fine. Five more jerks to yell at.

Pavlov (training section coordinator):

"You'll be happy to hear that there was nothing seriously wrong with your friend," Pavlov said, not even looking up from his datapad. "He had a charge imbalance in his sensornet that was easily corrected by the medic at his screening."

Brainstorm wasn't a medic, but that didn't sound like a not-serious problem. "And how did that happen? Is that a thing that you see happening often to folks? Or is that just a thing that happens to mnemosurgeons?"

"We have seen no evidence that mnemosurgery harms the health of our surgeons—"

"Then why are there health screenings for mnemosurgeons?"

"If we didn’t conduct screenings I wouldn’t be able to say there was no evidence, because we wouldn’t be collecting data," Pavlov said.

Brainstorm wasted a few minutes trying to talk to him, but Pavlov was like a brick wall of nonsense. Eventually they wound themselves down to the most annoying excuse: the chain of command. Pavlov suggested Brainstorm go talk to Chromedome’s assigned mentor and, when told that he’d already talked to Trepan, shrugged uselessly. Brainstorm walked out in a huff.

Insidon (supervisor for field operations):

"I’m sympathetic, Genitus," Insidon said. "But I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. I’m not a medic, nor am I Chromedome’s supervisor. Maybe try speaking to them?"

Most. Annoying. Excuse.

Luvox (second supervisor for field operations):

"I have an appointment right now, actually," Luvox said, waving his hand dismissively. Brainstorm could barely see him over the shoulders of the enormous Guardian Droid blocking the doorway. "The name Tumbler doesn’t ring a bell—try talking to someone in his direct chain of command."

Ranvier (head of mnemology department):

Not at his desk.

Axotomy (deputy head of mnemology department):

Was Chromedome’s supervisor, which at least meant Brainstorm wasn’t going to hear that stupid fragging chain of command excuse again. On the other hand, Axotomy was the most tedious mech ever forged.

"Genitus, you are a very good friend, but you are not a medic, nor are you qualified to make medical determinations. If the medics said that Chromedome was cleared to work, that was a judgement based upon their medical expertise."

Brainstorm crossed his arms across his chest. "Cool, can I talk to them? I just have a few questions about their ‘judgement’."

"Brainstorm, there is far too much actual work to be done in this facility for you to waste the time of all my staff," Axotomy said, blatantly ignoring that he was not the head of mnemology. Pompous git. "I would appreciate it if, in the future, you could take your concerns to your chain of command instead of distracting members of my department. I will be notifying your supervisor as such."

Oh, for Primus’s sake.

"Oh, I’m sure they’ll be horrified to hear that," Brainstorm said sarcastically. He basically never saw anyone in his chain of command. Engineers were less a linear hierarchy and more a equal-opportunity chaotic mess.

"Out." Axotomy pointed at the door. "You will watch your tone with me, Genitus. Your supervisors are very happy with your work and so I have tolerated you interrupting my business and questioning my authority. But I outrank them. There are plenty of places for a bright engineer on the front lines."

Brainstorm considered three or four pithy replies and clamped his mouth shut. He gave Axotomy a sharp nod and left the office.

Brainstorm had been trying to avoid Pivot. It was nothing personal; the mech was probably perfectly nice. Nice and personable. But, after Mach...Brainstorm thought it was best to stay away.

But he had offered to help Pivot in a work context, so when a message came in about double checking needle quality control, Brainstorm made himself put aside the project he was working on and head downstairs to his old lab.

When he got there, Pivot was a mess. He was leaking emotions like a ruptured chemical containment unit, too overwhelmed to get a sentence out without crying. It took a few tries to figure out what Pivot was trying to say: that a surgeon had died and Ranvier had called him in to claim it was due to a manufacturing error in the needles he'd fitted.

"I don't know what I did wrong," Pivot said miserably, taking a sip of med-grade energon Brainstorm had broken out of his emergency pack. Pivot didn’t drink engex, because of course he didn’t. "Nobody told me there was a chance someone could—"

"You have the needles?" Brainstorm asked. He didn't really know what to do with feelings, but he'd had years and years of experience staring at needles under a microscope. Brainstorm checked them over, inside and out, from the conductive end to the deep wiring interface. "There is nothing wrong with these," he said.

"Why would they tell me there was something wrong if there was nothing wrong?" Pivot asked.

"I think they were just guessing. Had the surgeon recently had new needles fitted?"

"Yeah."

"There you go, easy scapegoat. You're new, the needles were new, no need to look into the problem any further." Brainstorm hesitated. Chromedome had asked him not to tell Pivot what had happened...but there was no reason he had to say it had been Chromedome. "I had a surgeon who was showing unexplained symptoms of something—weakness and difficulties with motor control. The official medical team brushed it off and, when I tried to complain, I couldn't get anyone in command to listen to me. Like they didn't even want to hear the possibility there was something going wrong."

Pivot rolled his glass in his hand thoughtfully. "Well, they do mnemosurgery too. They've got a strong incentive to not believe there's anything going wrong. Cognitive biases and all that."

"Exactly."

"If there's something putting mnemosurgeons at risk, that means there's something putting Chromedome at risk," Pivot said. He snapped his fingers. "We should investigate. If we can present Ranvier and all them with actual data they'd have to listen to us. "

Brainstorm wasn't so sure about command listening, but he wasn't about to walk away from a mystery. He and Pivot talked, decided on a strategy. Decided to keep things low-key. Decided to not say anything to Chromedome.

"But he deserves to know!" Pivot protested.

"He already does know," Brainstorm said. "That's my point, he's in denial. He'll just try to talk you out of looking into this—wait until we have something concrete to show him."

They agreed to meet back up in four days, to give them both time to collect data.

Over those four days, Brainstorm found excuses to work on a new and promising gait analysis system that he installed "for testing" in a few facility hallways. Coincidentally including one leading up to the mnemosurgical department, where he decided to station himself for data collection. Chromedome pulled him aside on day three, but not to inquire about Brainstorm's promising science experiment, for which he had several unassailable explanations. No, inevitably, Chromedome was worried about Pivot.

"He's told me he was busy last night and the night before," he said. "Do you think he wants to break it off? Did I do something wrong?"

"Chromedome, sometimes people are just busy," Brainstorm said, not mentioning the ever-increasing lag time for Chromedome replying to his messages ever since he’d started hanging out with Pivot.

"You don't think he's mad at me?"

"If I see him, I'll ask," Brainstorm promised. "But it's probably nothing."

"Well, it's not nothing," Brainstorm announced.

"You can say that again," Pivot said, raising his hand in a little half wave. He was wearing goggles and gloves and for a moment Brainstorm forgot some people actually used protective equipment and assumed it had to be a bizarre fashion affectation. Then his brain caught up with him and he remembered that Pivot didn’t even drink engex. Of course he used goggles when working with the lab equipment.

"I could say it again, but I don’t see why I would," Brainstorm said, sitting down on the second stool. He wondered where Pivot had gotten it and why he’d never considered getting a second place for folks to sit in his lab.

"For emphasis, presumably," Pivot said. He took off the goggles. "Okay, so, to get right into it—there’s a whole bunch of people who are sick and they all think they’re the only ones."

Pivot’s plan had been to play straight with what Ranvier had told him—and tell the various surgeons on his rounds that there had been a manufacturing defect in the last batch of needle fittings which might be associated with neurological symptoms. Somehow Pivot’s...Pivotiness lured several mnemosurgeons into opening up based on that pretense.

"Mostly I was getting exhaustion, trouble remembering tasks, and trouble keeping straight which memories were their memories, which definitely seemed to be the thing they found most distressing." Pivot shrugged. "Not that I wouldn’t be freaked out if I started remembering being a Decepticon. Two mechs mentioned chronic aches in their arms that seemed to center around the deep wiring connection point and got worse during surgery."

"None of that sounds fatal, but it does sound consistent with my findings. My, uh, attempts to test engex tolerance weren’t a great success—there were some mechs drinking at the commissary each night but almost no mnemosurgeons. But my gait analysis cover did yield results! I found that mnemosurgeons walk considerably more slowly on average than spies, headhunters of facilities maintenance. They also walk more slowly after their shifts than they did beforehand to a greater extent than any of those other groups. I also saw three different mnemosurgeons fall or nearly fall during our study period."

"Interesting," Pivot said, nodding like he was actually hoping Brainstorm was about to pull out some graphs. Brainstorm decided he liked this one after all. He pulled out all the graphs he’d prepared, just in case, and let Pivot ooh over them for a bit.

"The other thing I noticed," Pivot said, once he was done geeking out over data visualization, "was how consistent everyone was in their rationalizations. They all said they hadn’t mentioned any of these concerns with the medics and they seemed pretty distressed by the suggestion. They were certain that either they were messing up fundamental techniques or that they had some personal incompatibility with mnemosurgery that would lead to them getting sent away if they came forward."

"Huh, that is a weird coincidence. Not a big sample size, though," Brainstorm said, steepling his hands and trying to think. "Most mnemosurgeons were trained by the same couple trainers, maybe they’re biasing people to be afraid of coming forward with complaints? I think we’re going to need more data. The stuff you said, about cognitive complaints, that definitely sounds like somehow doing mnemosurgery is impacting the surgeons’ brains. That’s definitely not supposed to be possible."

"I agree, we need more data." Pivot nodded. "But we should probably present what you found to the senior mnemosurgeons first."

Brainstorm boggled at him. "Did you miss the part where at the beginning of this we decided to keep things low key and talked about how the senior mnemosurgeons are probably in denial and would have good reason to suppress this kind of research?"

"Look, I’m not an idiot. I kept a copy of my research on a datastick and I made sure to give my presentation separately to three different people, so that if one of them wants to suppress the results they’re going to have to go through the other two."

"Who, exactly, did you tell? What did they say?"

"Ranvier, obviously. Trepan, because he’s the one running the training program. And then Insidon, because you’d mentioned that he seemed the most sympathetic when you were trying to talk to them earlier. I mean, none of them said much. Trepan and Ranvier accepted my explanation that the needles I’d made definitely weren't the cause of death and they said I should keep looking into this and have you bring them your findings. Insidon was busy, he excused himself to go to a meeting halfway through. Seemed very anxious."

"Right. Great. We’re going to be murdered and our bodies are going to be crushed in a trash compactor," Brainstorm announced, moving aside some stuff on the table so that he could lightly beat his head against it.

Pivot patted him on the head with his ridiculous gloves and said, in what was probably meant to be a soothing tone, "Woah, woah, I’m supposed to be the anxious one here. We’re not going to get murdered for doing our jobs, Brainstorm."

"Well maybe not murdered. Demoted and sent to haul rocks in Altihex. Axotomy said as much last time I tried to talk to him."

"Pfft, as if. You’re, like, a genius. They’re not going to send you away. Now, if somebody gets mad they might send me away, but I doubt it. Why would they have told me to keep working on my research if so?"

If me and Pivot get sent away, Chromedome is going to be all alone. Frag it.

Brainstorm stood up and offered Pivot a hand to shake. "It’s been real, Pivot. If we’re still here tomorrow, let’s meet again and put together a more formal research strategy."

Pivot shook his hand, squinting skeptically. "See you tomorrow then?"

"Tomorrow."

Chromedome steepled his fingers and considered the small cubical object on the counter in front of him. "Is this an alarm clock?" he asked. "I have a built-in chrono, you know. I'm not an antique."

"It is an alarm clock," Brainstorm agreed. "You can use it to assess whether it's a reasonable time of day to call someone before you start sending me messages. And, more importantly, it's a great cover." He looked around and put his finger to his faceplate to remind Chromedome to keep his voice low. Brainstorm knew there weren't any bugs in the room, but there were definitely some in the hallway. "This way you can keep it out by your infuser case and nobody will think anything of it."

"What else does it do?" Chromedome asked.

"Let me," Brainstorm said. He picked up the cube and spun it around, looking for the edge he'd marked in white. He tapped that edge on the table and then held it up as the cube split open, revealing a communicator. "See?"

"So it's...a communicator. I have one of those already, Brainstorm," Chromedome said, baffled.

"Yeah, but this one is special. If you need to reach me, anytime, anywhere, this communicator has the frequency for a pickup I've had specially wired to my audial. High powered, encrypted frequency, blah blah technical stuff."

"We work in the same facility Brainstorm."

"We might not always," Brainstorm said. "Look, hopefully you'll never need it. But if you ever do? Now you've got it. Think of it as a just-in-case present."

"You're a bit paranoid, sometimes," Chromedome said.

"Anybody who works here and doesn't end up a little paranoid has been walking around with his optics powered off," Brainstorm said. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there is some skeevy stuff afoot here."

Brainstorm couldn’t remember ever going to a facility meeting that included everyone. There were meetings for the engineering program, sure. And he presumed that the headhunters and the spies and the mnemosurgeons and the security bots all had their own meetings as well. Important information about the facility itself was usually transmitted via memos.

They had all gathered in the underbunker that was used for emergency lockdowns; there was nowhere else that was large enough to hold them all. Someone had built up a little dais at the far end. Between the sea of shifting kibble and jostling mechs Brainstorm could see Trepan, Ranvier, Luvox, Axotomy and Pavlov standing up on that dais. He wondered where Insidon was. Brainstorm had never liked any of them, but Insidon was his least un-favorite. He'd never given the impression that Brainstorm wasn't fit to kiss the ground he walked on, let alone change out his needles, which was more than he could say for the others.

He hoped this was going to be short—he’d woken up with a pounding headache and a comm message from a weapons engineer in Petrex asking him to elaborate on the potential military applications for his new biometric gait analysis software. Brainstorm was sure he’d had a justification in mind when he’d been developing it, but he hadn’t written it down and now it was just...gone. Sometimes he got overly excited about an idea and forgot to think of an application for it, these things happened, but it was really annoying to have to scramble to justify them post-facto. Maybe it could be used for programming security systems?

Someone brushed up beside him and Brainstorm turned to see Pivot, an apologetic smile on his face. "Do you know what this is about?" he whispered.

"No clue," Brainstorm whispered back. "Where's Chromedome?"

"He had a headache," Pivot said. "I told him to rest; I'll let him know whatever this is about afterwards."

"That's sweet of you," Brainstorm said. Pivot was a sweet guy. Brainstorm was still trying to keep his distance but they’d run into each other a few times after their failed research project. He remembered being so sure that they were going to find some link between mnemosurgery and that bot’s death, but the data just didn’t back it up. If there was nothing else you could trust in life, you could trust your own data. It ought to have been a relief to be wrong, but Brainstorm mostly felt embarrassed.

"He needs someone to tell him that he doesn't always need to push himself," Pivot said. "I wanted to ask you—" he frowned. "You keep turning down my invitations to hang out and that’s fine. I can respect that. But you weren't in love with Chromedome, right? I know you're good friends and I don't want to be a wedge between you two."

"Oh Primus, no. Definitely not in love with Chromedome," Brainstorm said, shaking his head. The crowd around them was bubbling into murmured conversations as they grew impatient for whatever was about to happen to start happening. Still, it was a more public place than he'd have wanted to have this conversation. "I like being friends with him but I cannot exaggerate what a bad couple we'd be. If I had time for relationships, which I don't."

"So you're not—"

"You didn't do anything. I just lost someone close to me a few years ago and it hurts sometimes, seeing you two so happy together." Brainstorm shrugged. It wasn't quite a lie. "Don't tell Chromedome, okay? He doesn't know about them."

"So is that going to be a no on you coming to our ceremony then?" Pivot asked.

Brainstorm grimaced. He was wearing his faceplate, but Pivot must have caught the expression.

"Pfft, okay. No pressure. Well, heads up that Chromedome is probably going to ask you soon. We were thinking this week but then he's been having those headaches—"

"If I could have your attention please," Ranvier said, voice echoing out on the PA system. The crowd quieted down as Ranvier waited for silence with a steely expression on his face. "Thank you," he said. "I understand you all have work to attend to; we won't keep you here long. I have the unfortunate duty of announcing that Insidon of Pescus Hex has died. He suffered spontaneous spark failure last night. There will be a memorial ceremony in two hours in the hangar bay, if you wish to attend."

Spontaneous spark failure? Brainstorm squinted skeptically. That wasn't a thing that just happened to people, not without some heavy circuit speeders involved. He hadn't pictured Insidon as the recreational medicinals sort. Maybe...but their results had been conclusive. No link. Brainstorm was a person of science, not conspiracies.

Ranvier waved Trepan up to the podium.

Trepan adjusted the microphone, making a horrible squealing sound. "As some of you know, there have been a number of deaths within this facility. Most of these were within the surgical department; trainees or recent graduates and we had every reason to believe the issue was one of substance use or poor technique. We arranged weekly medical check-ins for the surgical department, but found no evidence of injury in any surgeons—including Insidon."

Ranvier thanked Trepan and stepped back to the microphone. He said, "Now, Insidon was no amateur. He developed many of the mnemosurgical techniques that form the lifecord of our art. Given that, we will be requiring all workers in this facility to attend weekly health check-ins. It’s possible that Insidon was assassinated. It is possible that there is some environmental hazard that has gone til now undetected. I understand this will cause some inconvenience but I remind you that everything we do here we do for the Autobot cause.

"Furthermore, I will be requesting our engineering department develop a more comprehensive security system such that threats can be responded to before they endanger persons at the facility."

"Pfft," Pivot said dismissively. "Security theater. That'll definitely solve the problem."

Brainstorm agreed, but he didn’t want to encourage Pivot by agreeing. He might have taken it as an indication that Brainstorm wanted to be friends with him.

"I don't see how that's going to solve the problem, it's already dark," Pivot said, voice tinged with panic. Brainstorm looked around the darkened server room. No sign of Pivot, but there was Chromedome, sitting by one of the wall panels they'd opened up. He hadn't realized their "all-hands-on-deck" situation had extended out of the engineering department but he wasn't about to complain. The damned security system upgrade had dragged on for most of a year and was taking up more of engineering’s time than any of their actual work.

"Sweetspark, just try it," Chromedome said softly. "Power your optics down, okay? Right now you can see that it's dark—"

"I'm not a sparkling, I’m not going to forget that it's dark because my optics are off," Pivot snapped.

"Pivot, trust me, okay?" Chromedome said.

"Okay, okay, I’m trying it," Pivot said. There was a moment of silence. "Okay now it’s dark and I’m still stuck in a wall and I can’t get out. Okay. Okay. No need to panic. Not going to panic," he said, clearly panicking.

"You’re not trapped, sweetspark. You walked in there and you can walk right back out if you need to," Chromedome said. "Really. If you tell me how to do it, I’ll do the wiring for you—"

"No, I can handle this," Pivot snapped. "Sorry. I don’t mean to snap, I’m just—why did the control grid have to get put inside the walls? And why do I have to be so scared of fucking everything?"

"Okay, remember the vid program we were watching last night? The hero’s love interest—"

"His name is Venture."

"Yes, right, Venture. He was stuck on the catwalks above the smelting pool and Venture is scared as hell, right? So he freezes up and doesn’t move. That’s a good instinct, isn’t it? Because the reason he’s afraid is that he saw the scientist—"

"The scientist’s name is Voltways."

"Thank you, yes, Voltways. How are you so good at remembering names? Anyway, he’s afraid because he saw Voltways fall through the catwalk in the opening act. Freezing up is a learned response triggered by a sensible fear." Chromedome was getting into his speech now, hands waving with emotion.

"Are you telling me that what I need to do is have you swoop in on a chain hanging from the ceiling and kiss me midair and then slip and nearly fall into the smelting pool so that I’m forced out of my panic by the need to rescue you from a horrible melty death?"

"No, I’m telling you both that it’s okay to be afraid and that you can’t power through it by thinking about your fear more and more until you explode. You need to think about something else."

"Something like ‘Afterwatch: Smelting Pool Vortex of Insanity’?"

Chromedome smiled. "See, you’re too damn smart for me. How are you feeling now?"

"Uh, okay? Scared, but better?"

"Do you think you can do the wiring or do you want me to take over? Because nobody has to know if you’re not ready."

Brainstorm decided that probably he could come back and check on the power supply wiring later. He probably should have decided that several minutes earlier, but nobody had to know that but him.

They were a sweet couple. It had taken him time to see the appeal in a mech that anxious and high strung. Pivot was sweet and he cared a lot and he wasn’t going to get Chromedome into any trouble. If they kept their heads down, maybe they’d all make it out to the other side, after Zeta finally stamped out this terrorist uprising.

They were on lockdown again, which was normal. Annoying, but normal. There were perennial fears that Decepticon spies would locate the New Institute, so any time one of their sweeps passed overhead the entire place had to pack up, power down and go hide in the underbunker. Brainstorm figured it was rubbish—they were too deep and the upper floors were too well shielded for any aerial sweeps to detect them.

Anyway. Lockdown: routine. Chromedome not showing: irregular. Irregular and suspicious.

Pivot was a worrywart, so he and Chromedome were usually some of the first people downstairs during a lockdown. They weren't in their usual spot, holding hands and looking mushy. Brainstorm walked a circuit and decided that they weren't anywhere in the room.

Brainstorm retreated to the doorway and, after checking for any busybodies watching him, sidled through to the other side. Security teams would be sweeping the hallways for folks who weren't downstairs yet, but Brainstorm could never get a decent signal from the underbunker. He hustled to the control room for the smelters and closed the door behind him, bringing up his comm. "Chromedome, where are you?" he hissed.

"Why do you ask?" Chromedome said, after an interminable wait. He sounded casual, suspiciously casual.

"It's a lockdown and you aren't down ," Brainstorm hissed. "Where are you?"

"Oh, slag." Chromedome said. He repeated the fact that it was a lockdown, presumably for Pivot's benefit. Where in the pit were they that they hadn't noticed the facility was on lockdown?

"Chromedome, are you outside?"

"Shh!" Chromedome whispered.

"You're outside during a lockdown? Chromedome, what the frag? If you're outside when the sweep goes over they're going to see you."

"Well it wasn't a lockdown when we left," Chromedome said. "Frag. Brainstorm, could we get an assist? We'd left the shuttlebay door propped but the lockdown sequence sealed it behind us."

"I can't believe this. You. And Pivot. Outside. Pivot? I trusted Pivot to keep you from doing anything half-brained while I wasn't watching. ‘Don't leave the facility without authorization’, it's the one rule that actually makes any sense around here." He checked the hallway, then scurried out towards the emergency stairs. Elevators would all be on lockdown, but he could jimmy the door to the stairs.

"Look, are you coming or do I need to call Trepan?" Chromedome asked.

"I'm on my way," Brainstorm said.

It was a near thing, breaking into the shuttlebay. He’d been on the team installing the new security system—which was the only way he’d known to get out his UV light and sweep for the laser grid by the landing area. Luckily that tech was designed to detect Decepticon intruders and could be persuaded, with a little finagling, to ignore friendly Autobot spark signatures.

When he finally yanked the side door open Chromedome and Pivot nearly knocked him down the stairs in their haste to get inside. Brainstorm grabbed for the railing and then for the...prop sword that Pivot had dropped while trying to stop Chromedome from falling.

"I thought you weren’t going to come!" Chromedome gasped.

"I thought we were going to die," Pivot said.

"What in the name of sanity were you two doing out there?" Brainstorm asked, waving the prop sword.

Pivot blushed, throwing his arm around Chromedome’s shoulder. "It was our anniversary. We wanted to do something special."

"Sneaking around outside?"

"Pivot wanted to see the sunset," Chromedome said. "It’s been five decades, you know. Pivot deserves the world, but I figured if a glimpse of the sky is the best I could do...it’d be worth it." He bumped helms with Pivot, face sickeningly fond.

Pivot squeezed his hand and smiled at Brainstorm. "Also we wanted to reenact one of the scenes from the Afterwatch trilogy. It’s perfect up there. Whew! Near death experiences are invigorating! Let’s get downstairs before someone notices us and we have to explain the prop sword," he suggested.

"I was trusting you to keep him out of trouble," Brainstorm said.

"The near-death experience bit kinda snuck up on us," Pivot said. "Up until then it was a wonderful evening."

Brainstorm stood at the controls, watching the gauges as the smelting pool rose in temperature. Gas injection, ventilation, pressure sensors...he kept his eyes fixed on the little spinning dials and firmly away from the viewport. There was a seat but sitting down like he was melting a load of scrap would have felt disrespectful. At least he’d talked the bereaved down from joining him in the control room. They were waiting outside in the anteroom instead. They weren’t making any noise—the ceremony had been earlier, there were no speeches left—but Brainstorm felt incredibly fidgety knowing they were in the room beyond.

Pivot should have been the one operating the smelting furnace, but he'd never gone back and actually shown Pivot how to work the smelters, had he? Just given him a long list of warnings that were now long past their use-by date.

Chromedome was out there, waiting. Twice unlucky now. Brainstorm didn't know anyone else who'd completed the Ritus a second time and Chromedome had managed to lose both of them. At least he wasn't alone this time. Slag, that was an awful thing to think.

Brainstorm's optics flicked over to the viewport again before he could stop himself and he cringed away from the line of coffins. He was going to have to force himself to look at them, if he was going to operate the controls on the crane. An easy job—lift the coffin, pivot over the smelting chamber, release. Frag. Pivot.

It had been an accident that Pivot died. The Decepticons had planted the contaminated corpses hoping to kill mnemosurgeons, clever enough to realize that the Autobots had been scouring Decepticon casualties for military intelligence. Pivot had been investigating one of the early casualties and had pricked himself removing their needles. At least Brainstorm hadn't been there to see it this time. At least Chromedome had time to say goodbye as he’d slowly wasted away in the medibay.

The dials were all reading "ready to go" but Brainstorm wasn't ready. Once he was done with this he was going to have to go back out and talk to Chromedome. He didn’t really have a plan, except that he had to prevent a repeat of what had happened with Mach.

He’d stay with Chromedome, he decided. If he’d let him. Brainstorm could work remotely, they could stay holed up in Chromedome’s hab suite for weeks, until Chromedome could deal with the pain.

Maybe he was worrying for nothing. Chromedome had a lot of time to come to terms with what was going to happen to Pivot. Maybe all that time would make him strong enough to carry on.

But first, Brainstorm needed to be strong and do the fragging thing.

He walked out of the control room feeling half-dead. The bereaved were all still standing around, and they stared at him expectantly. Was he supposed to say something? Wasn’t there some counsellor or at least some neo-primalist wannabe who could say something banal and comforting?

"It’s done," He said. "I’m sorry for your loss and—" he paused, scanning the room. "Where did Chromedome go?"

Everyone pointed towards the door.

Brainstorm hissed in frustration. "Okay, someone else is going to have to step up and do the speech. Sorry."

Then he ran.

He made the logical assumption that Chromedome was probably headed to the closest elevator in the subbasement. The lowest levels of the Institute had been built for rapid evac, which is to say the hallways were just wide enough to transform and fly, if your jet mode was compact enough. Safe? No. Stupid? Extremely. But Brainstorm caught up with Chromdome faster than you could say "flight-alt modes prohibited indoors" and just in time to catch him walking out of the armory.

"Catch" was, perhaps, an exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that Brainstorm saw Chromedome, rapidly applied reverse thrust to avoid taking his head off, nearly ran into a wall, transformed back into his root mode and landed on his aft, skidding for several feet along the floor. In reaction to this series of events that could certainly have landed Brainstorm in a morgue, Chromedome ducked and then kept walking.

"Seriously? Seriously?" Brainstorm yelled, climbing to his feel and jogging to catch up with him. His legs were burning like he’d just lost a layer of paint, but there wasn’t time to be self conscious. Chromedome was holding a plasma gun.

"Woah, hey," Brainstorm said, ducking between Chromedome of the elevator door. "What is that for?" He pointed at the offending weapon, which Chromedome had definitely just stolen from the armory.

Chromedome met his optics and stared. "It’s for shooting people. What do you think it’s for?"

"Who, exactly, do you plan on using that on?" Brainstorm asked. "It’s not like command is going to give you permission to head out onto the front lines and go on a rampage of revenge. You know that."

"Yeah, I know that," Chromedome agreed. "But I don’t need to go to the front lines, because we have Decepticon scum right here in this facility." He lunged past Brainstorm to hit the elevator call button.

There were Decepticons in the facility—POWs who were temporarily transported in from the prison camps. Brainstorm wracked his brain for any other ‘cons that Chromedome might mean and came up empty. "I can’t let you do that, Chromedome. It’s wrong. They’re just footsoldiers, they had nothing to do with what happened. You don’t want to do that—"

"You don’t know what I want!" Chromedome yelled, shaking him by the shoulders. "And you certainly don’t know anything about how I feel."

The elevator pinged behind him and Brainstorm stretched out to block the doorway. "Chromedome, you know Pivot wouldn’t have wanted this."

"Don’t say his name. You hated Pivot," Chromedome hissed. "Besides, what difference does it make if they die here or on Garrus Five or in an infantry charge in the middle of nowhere? Dead is dead is dead and every Decepticon deserves to die for what they’ve done."

Brainstorm considered protesting that he hadn’t hated Pivot, but there was really no point. Chromedome wasn’t listening to reason right now. "Chromedome, as your friend, I’m not going to let you do this. Please. Just put the gun down."

Chromedome tried to shove past him and Brainstorm shoved back, sending him stumbling a few steps. Chromedome lifted the plasma gun, hand shaking. Brainstorm stared him down, spark blazing. "Chromedome, shoot me or don’t. But I’m not going to let you destroy yourself like this."

Chromedome sank down onto his heels, dropping the gun on the floor with a clatter. He wrapped his hands around the back of his helm. "I couldn’t keep him safe," he said. "I should have been able to keep him safe. I couldn’t do anything for him."

"You did everything for him," Brainstorm said, crouching down to move the gun away. "You were there for him while he was alive; you were his everything."

"What does that matter now?"

"He was loved, Chromedome. He was loved and so, so lucky. You had a thing most people never get, don’t cheapen it by pretending that didn’t matter. But you’ve been taking care of Pivot for a long time—now it’s time to take care of you. You’re hurt, Chromedome. Let me help. Let someone help."

"You can't help me," Chromedome said. "Nobody can."

His hands moved down from the back of his helm to the back of his neck.

Brainstorm lunged to grab his wrist but it was too late. Chromedome's needles slid in and his optics dulled, chin nodding towards his chest.

He'd thought he'd have a little more time, that Chromedome would have been held back by his presence. He'd fucked it up, somehow. He'd made him feel cornered and desperate and now there was nothing to do except hold him up so Chromedome didn’t fall over and sever his lifecord.

"I hate him. He's awful," Chromedome complained. He waved at the bartender to refill his drink. "Look at him, just standing there in the corner like a creep, watching me."

Brainstorm looked over. Sure enough, there was Scattergun, standing by the wall with his arms crossed over his chest and a serious expression on his face. He was handsome, for a motorcycle frame. Sharp jawline, red biolights bright against his black plating. If Brainstorm hadn't been with Chromedome he might have been tempted to offer to buy him a drink. But there was really no chance Scattergun would accept, given that: "He's your bodyguard Chromedome. He's supposed to watch you."

"Why do I need a bodyguard?" Chromedome moaned.

"I don't know, because the Decepticons are out to get mnemosurgeons? You remember what happened to Insidon. And Ranvier. And all those poor guys who got poisoned." Brainstorm waited for the nod that indicated Chromedome still remembered the poisoning incident. He wasn’t sure how much Chromedome had lost when he blanked the stuff about Pivot. "I mean, I wouldn't be a fan either, but I like having you around. Nobody else buys me drinks."

"You're fragging cheap, you are," Chromedome said. "What are you going to do with all the credits you're saving, sit on them?"

"I'm just saying, we could be drinking for free if you were just willing to try the engex I distilled in my lab—"

"—on the equipment you use to make nerve toxins? No thank you." Chromedome pointed at Scattergun and the bodyguard tipped his head up, watching them like a hawk. "Okay so maybe I need a bodyguard. Why do I have to get a humorless gearstick like that? You know he checks my berthroom for explosives? It's like living with Red Alert."

"Give it time, he'll probably lighten up. Everybody gets a little intense when they start a new job. Plus, he's totally your type."

"My what?" Chromedome choked on his drink.

"Dark frame, piercing optics, good with his hands," Brainstorm said. "Oh come on, don't make me pretend I haven't seen you mooning over every mech with midnight frames and contrast biolighting. Give it a week or two and you'll be snogging Scattergun in the—"

"Nope! Never. There is zero chance of that ever happening because even if he is—" Chromedome looked around, leaned close and hissed "—stupidly attractive, he's still an arrogant humorless gearstick and I am not wasting my first kiss on him."

Brainstorm glared at the door panel. He'd definitely reprogrammed Chromedome's door to let him in without needing a password and here it was, encrypted again. He rolled his optics and sat down to hack the door. Some people would say "you should just knock" but he'd planned on sweeping in and surprising Chromedome and that was what he was going to do.

Finally, he got the door rejiggered back to his preferred security settings. He gathered up his stuff and pushed the door open with his hip. "Guess what time it is!" he crowed as he swept inside.

Scattergun threw himself in front of Chromedome and two guns appeared like miracles from somewhere behind his shoulders. The guns stayed perfectly steady, pointed at Brainstorm's chest. Ah, so, not the time to reveal that his flavor-shifting energon tasted amazing if you lit it on fire.

"Scatter, it's Brainstorm," Chromedome said from where he was now shoved between the corner of the berth and Scattergun's shielding frame. Chromedome put a reassuring hand on his shoulder wheel. "We're safe."

Scattergun dropped his gaze from Brainstorm's, lowering the guns to his lap. "Sorry," he rumbled. "I shouldn't have let my guard down just because the door was locked. Anything could have—"

"Scatter." Chromedome said, squirming out from behind him to stand on the berth in front of his bodyguard. "It's fine. You're allowed to relax for a minute, you know." He reached down and tipped up Scattergun's chin with one hand before leaning down to—

"Oh shoot, I just remembered," Brainstorm said, covering his face with his hands. "I needed to go to the airlock. And throw myself into deep space. Sorry, I'll come back later."

"You're making your friend uncomfortable," Scattergun said, voice muffled by the kiss.

"Are you shy Scatter?" Chromedome murmured.

Brainstorm backed away, bumping into a table and then the wall before he managed to get safely out the door and get it closed behind him. He shook his head, trying to displace the mental image. Called it.

The door opened up beside him and Brainstorm jumped. Scattergun was there, but at least his guns were safely out of sight. He looked a bit bashful, which made Brainstorm think that maybe he wasn't going to be immediately murdered. "Did you need something?" Scattergun asked, voice neutral and professional.

"Uhh, nope." Brainstorm said. "I just walked into the wrong room by accident. Poor sense of direction."

Scattergun smiled. He had fangs. Brainstorm hadn't noticed that before. He didn't know anyone but Decepticons who had fangs, it was a very Con aesthetic choice. "You are a terrible liar," Scattergun said softly. "I can see why Chromedome likes you. Please, in the future, try not to startle me. I will feel terrible if I blow your head off."

"Noted. And, uhh, congrats? Congratulations. Have a great night," Brainstorm said. "Nice meeting you, Scattergun."

He ran.

"I need to talk to you about Scattergun."

Brainstorm leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. Chromedome was practically vibrating, so he could about see how this was going to go. He'd been expecting it for weeks now. "You want to talk about the guy right outside the door? The one who just swept my lab for weapons even though I'm a weapons engineer?"

"He'll give them back," Chromedome said. "And we can talk quietly. Sorry. He just takes his job really seriously."

"I've noticed," Brainstorm said. "So, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Do you know anything about the conjunx ritus? I think he might be the one, Brainstorm." Ouch. Direct hit, straight to the spark. "I've done a lot of reading but I want it to be perfect. Scattergun deserves perfect."

"Okay, can we take three giant steps back and talk about this?" Brainstorm said. "You've only known Scattergun for, what, three weeks? Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Chromedome narrowed his optics. "You looked him up," he said accusingly.

"Yeah, you're my best friend," Brainstorm said. "I take it you know what's in his service record."

"He defected from the Decepticons. I hate the way people hold that over him. Any of us could have ended up on the wrong side."

"Chromedome, that's not my objection," Brainstorm said. "I'm just saying, why did he get assigned to the New Institute of all places? Why would they risk giving him access to so much critical military intelligence unless...."

"Don't even say it," Chromedome said, poking Brainstorm in the faceplate. "Don't you dare say it."

"He's hopelessly loyal and he's in love with you and, given where we work, I think it's important to ask."

"The institute did not brainwash someone into falling in love with me!" Chromedome shouted. "Fuck you. Am I really that awful that you can't believe someone would like me back on their own?"

"Domey, I didn't mean it like—"

"He's clean, if you need to know. No tampering. He’d wondered that himself, so I checked. He is a former Decepticon, after all," Chromedome growled.

"Okay, okay, it was just a question." Brainstorm held up his hands. "So he's in love with you and you want to be with him, what's the hold up?"

Chromedome sat down, finally. "I have to do something big. Something dramatic. I need help brainstorming it."

"Ha, ha, very funny. Why not just ask him words with your mouth? Why does it have to be a whole production?"

"I can't just ask him. He puts so much effort into his mixes, I don't want him to think I'm not willing to put the same kind of time and effort into this relationship—"

"Wait, back up. Mixes?"

"Mixtapes?" Chromedome said. He waited a beat and then prompted, "Music?"

"Wait, strong and silent has been wooing you with bootleg music?"

"Shhh!" Chromedome glanced at the door. "Shut up, Brainstorm, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone. And they're not ‘bootlegs’, they're mixtapes. It's different."

"How so?"

"Well, the point is the way the songs are ordered and selected. Also, they're rerecorded off his internal playback; you pick up the hum of his spark and all that mixed with the music. It's more...intimate. Also, sometimes there are messages in there. Sometimes he speaks over an instrumental piece."

"Mushy," Brainstorm said. "Okay. Well, if that's the name of the game, why not make a mix for him and tell him you want to do the conjunx ritus that way?"

"I can't," Chromedome said, flopping over dramatically. "He's been doing this for years and he's really good at it. If I tried it would be an amateurish nightmare, Brainstorm. He'd hate it."

"Chromedome, you've got it bad," Brainstorm said. He thought it over. "Why don't you just wait a few days for Scattergun to propose to you instead? He's probably listening in and has heard most of this conversation so, you know, hint hint Chromedome wants to be your conjunx."

Chromedome glanced over at the door, horrified. "I'm going to die."

"I don't see why you have to be the one to propose," Brainstorm said. "You're terrible at it."

"Huh?" Chromedome looked over. "What?"

Brainstorm lied on reflex. "Just extrapolating from this trainwreck of a conversation. Look, if Scattergun likes you it's not because of your deep knowledge of the conjunx ritus or your speechmaking skills. Sometimes less is more, you know?"

Chromedome looked back at the door. "I don't..."

"Just go," Brainstorm said. "He's waiting for you."

It didn't matter what had gone before, he reasoned with himself. The important thing was that Chromedome had a chance at happiness. He just hoped it'd work out this time.

The war got worse. The Prime went mad and was deposed, "gunshot that killed a civilization" and all that. The Decepticons conquered the planet and the whole facility went on lockdown for five intolerable days. When it was over, there was a new Prime and Iacon had been liberated and nobody was quite sure what was going to change at the New Institute because of it.

But apparently someone talked Optimus Prime into keeping business as usual. He visited, once, briefly. There was a speech in the underbunker where they’d all holed up during the lockdown. He talked about his hopes for democratic solutions that would undermine Decepticon support—apparently he was calling it the "Grand Convocation", which was a ghastly name. The inner circle—Luvox and Trepan and Axotomy—presided over the event and showed the Prime and his soldiers around a bit afterwards. Brainstorm wondered what kind of sanitized summary they gave.

Things did change, after that visit, mostly for the worse. Energon supplies were low and everyone ended up on split rations. The commissary bar closed shop and engex was formally banned. There was a new Ethics Committee for the weapons department, who took immense pleasure in rejecting all of Brainstorm’s best ideas as forbidden by the ‘Non-Conventional Weapons Act’. Section 19 of the Autobot Code, apparently. Brainstorm hadn’t been aware there was a code—possibly there hadn’t been or possibly nobody had cared. Brainstorm had looked it over and decided everything to do with the New Institute was probably in violation of Section 19. Apparently they were useful enough that they were exempt from Ethics Committee oversight.

Overall, the New Institute was becoming a terribly dreary place to work. There was a curfew every night and, to conserve fuel being spent on "unnecessary movement", living quarters were relocated to be next to people’s workspaces. The hallways were dead as the abandoned commissary bar, except for the medics walking their rounds. They’d decided to switch from having folks visit the medics to having the medics come round to everybody, presumably because the medical check-ins were pointless and people kept skipping them.

Time got away from him and Brainstorm didn’t see much of Chromedome for the next few years. WIth all that had been going on, he wasn’t sure how much he could blame Chromedome’s new conjunx for that. It didn’t sting as much, the third time around. Brainstorm had struck up some digital friendships with other engineers outside the New Institute and he had his work to keep him busy.

Still, when he got Scattergun’s comm late one night, he didn’t hesitate to break curfew to hurry over. Chromedome was his first friend, after all.

"Thank you for coming, Brainstorm," Scattergun said.

Chromedome's room had transformed into a sickroom. Worse. It looked like a hospice ward at a medcenter.The lights were dimmed and there was music playing, soft and soothing. The berth had been moved so that a chair could be positioned next to it, the head of the berth elevated so Chromedome was somewhere between lying down and sitting up. The leads for his infuser case were taped down with white tape, and there was a set of safety caps over his fingertips, the sort Brainstorm had designed to stop novices from accidentally extending their needles in recharge and stabbing themselves.

Brainstorm fell into his chair and reached out to take Chromedome's hand in his. It was stiff and cold, like he was touching an empty. "What happened? Why isn't he at the medstation?" Brainstorm asked. Chromedome looked like he was deep in recharge; only the coldness of his frame gave away that there was something wrong. That and the concern in Scattergun's face.

"We've been to the medstation," Scattergun said. "They sent us back here. Apparently he ‘overexerted himself’ and ‘needs to recharge’. I'm going back to talk to them. Stay here with him?"

"Scattergun, wait. What do I do?"

Scattergun paused in the doorway. "If he wakes up, tell him where he is. Tell him who he is. Keep him safe till I'm back."

"Has this happened before?"

Scattergun nodded, mouth a tight line. "If anything changes for the worse, call me right away."

And then he was gone, like a moody protagonist in a cheesy vidshow. Brainstorm tried to be charitable; he'd probably be feeling a bit short if his conjunx was mysteriously unwell and unconscious. Still, he had questions. A lot of questions. And he could hardly ask Chromedome to answer questions while he was unconscious.

With nothing better to do, Brainstorm pulled out his datapad and decided to do a little searching. Back in the day he and Pivot had done the research, concluded that the little blips he’d been seeing in Chromedome’s health weren’t related to mnemosurgery. But maybe they’d been wrong—maybe even if there wasn’t an epidemic amongst mnemosurgeons there could still be something wrong with Chromedome. Because what could it be besides the mnemosurgery—Chromedome didn't do anything else.

He couldn’t find anything about mnemosurgery. Or at least, nothing on the open net. But most of the surviving pre-war medical archives were poorly indexed, so he couldn't be sure there wasn't something lurking in there. Anything from the first Institute would have been classified, which helped him...not at all. He put the datapad aside and tried to think.

Why Chromedome, specifically? For half a second he imagined Scattergun having done something. A Decepticon pretends to defect, gets assigned into the most hated branch of Autobot intelligence, starts taking out the Autobot operatives. But Brainstorm didn't actually believe anyone was that good of an actor—and it wouldn't have made sense. Scattergun hadn't known he'd be assigned to the New Institute when he defected. And he wouldn't have called Brainstorm for help if this was some evil plot.

So it had to be something else. Brainstorm didn't know anything about Chromedome's medical records, because he wasn't a creep. Chromedome was Cold Constructed, but so were most of the surgeons. Maybe something to do his low reserves of innermost energon? Brainstorm vaguely remembered someone telling him that the reservoir of innermost energon provided a buffer that protected the spark against the demands of the sensornet. Something like that.

There was a knock at the door and Scattergun walked back inside. "Any change?" he asked.

Brainstorm shook his head. "Any luck?"

Scattergun shuttered his optics, spinal strut stiffening as he coldly recited, "As Tumbler's conjunx I understand you may feel that you have special insights into his life. But you are not a trained medic and you are not qualified to make diagnoses. Tumbler requires rest, not medical intervention."

"What an absolute cretin." Brainstorm said.

"I'm not a doctor or a scientist, so they assume I can't see facts when they are right in front of my face." Scattergun growled, sitting down on the side of the berth.

"What's been happening, Scatter? I hadn't heard anything from Chromedome, I had no idea he was...like this."

Scattergun grimaced. "He did not want to tell you. He insists it is nothing and that he just has to ‘power through’."

"You don't think it's nothing," Brainstorm prompted.

"When we met, sometimes he would have nightmares. Sometimes he would lose track of where he was or what he was doing. On a bad day he would tire easily and need to sit and rest on the way back from work. It just gets worse and worse. I took him home from his last shift in a wheelchair. He woke up last night and—" Scattergun rubbed at the back of his neck. "—he got confused about where he was. He thought he was at work and I was Decepticon POW."

"He tried to inject you?" Brainstorm asked, optics flicking over to the safety caps over Chromedome's fingers.

Scattergun looked sick. "He stopped. Once he realized it was me, he stopped."

"I'll talk to them," Brainstorm promised. "Maybe they'll listen to me."

"Thank you," Scattergun said. He looked over at Chromedome and his face softened. He picked up Chromedome's hand in his, smoothing circles over it with his thumb. Brainstorm didn't see anything different, but Scattergun said, "Hey sweetspark. You with us?"

"Scatter?" Chromedome asked, voice soft. "Why are you playing your apology mix?"

Scattergun glanced over at the console. Brainstorm had been tuning the music out; he certainly hadn't picked up on any lyrics. It was quiet, gentler music than he'd imagined being Scattergun's style.

"Did something happen?" Chromedome asked. "I feel like I've been shot in the head."

"That's probably from when I hit you," Scattergun said softly. "I'm sorry."

Chromedome's eyes flashed on. "You what?" He reached up and grabbed Scattergun's shoulder and used it to drag himself up to sitting. "What did I do? Babe, what did I do?"

Scattergun looked away. "You were confused. I know you would never—"

"What did I do?" Chromedome begged.

Scattergun leaned forward to rest his helm against Chromedome's. "You thought you were at work and I was a Decepticon. You tried to inject me. But you were weak and confused, sweetspark, there wasn't a chance that you could hurt me. I’m just sorry I hurt you when I panicked."

"Oh no," Chromedome pulled away. "Oh, god no."

"Look, I know you two are having a moment right now but if this gets any more awkward I'm going to be complaining about how awkward it is from the Afterspark," Brainstorm announced. "Can we skip ahead to after the tearful confessions and the forgiveness and the kissing and whatever it is conjunxes do when they have freaky slag happen like this?"

Chromedome looked over. "Scatter, why is Brainstorm here?"

"Hi to you too," Brainstorm said.

"I needed someone to watch you while I went to talk to the medics," Scattergun said.

"I told you not to worry him," Chromedome said.

"Yes, I am still here, a person who could be talked to instead of about," Brainstorm said. "By the way, Chromedome, I would love to hear what reason you have for not telling your best friend that you're headed on a one-way train to the afterspark for inexplicable reasons. Because that's not information I would have cared about or anything."

Chromedome winced. "I'm not dying, don't be dramatic. I was just worried that if you knew you'd end up marching into Axotomy’s office and getting yourself court-martialed."

"Me? Me? I'm a paragon of restraint. A model of decorum and military discipline. I would never get in a shouting match with your supervisor."

"Don't you dare give me that ‘reduced schedule’ slag! Chromedome doesn't need a reduced schedule, he needs a doctor who’s not one of the hacks you've got on payroll to look at him and figure out what in the Pits is happening to him."

"Genitus, your friend struggles to pace himself with his work, that does not mean—"

"I struggle to pace myself with my work. Some days I get nothing done, some weeks I don't sleep and stay in my lab around the clock. Guess what? I've never dissociated and mistook my conjunx for a stranger! I've never needed a wheelchair to get back to my habsuite! He's not having understandable, normal problems. He's having fucked-up weirdo problems and if you could look even slightly concerned about the fact that my friend is falling apart, that would be great."

"It's the faceplate," Axotomy said. "Makes it harder to emote. I’ve been thinking of giving it up for exactly that reason. Am I allowed to speak now?"

Brainstorm waved a hand. Go right ahead. Dig yourself deeper, you self-righteous prick.

"First, the good news. Your friend is going to be put on medical leave. He is a valuable asset and I won't see him wasted. The other good news is that you are going to walk out of this room. Now, if it were up to me, I'd be happy to write that self-righteous expression off your face and send your body down a sluice drain, but I'm told you are very valuable to your section. So you're going to be promoted far away from here. There's a remote reconnaissance project that is trying to reverse engineer some of Shockwave's latest horrors, you're going to be assigned to it."

"I won't go."

"Brainstorm, for someone who works in military intelligence you are startlingly naive," Axotomy said. A hand clapped over the back of Brainstorm's neck and lifted him off the floor. Brainstorm strained to look over his shoulder and found the Genericon bodyguard assigned to the head of mnemology. "Did you think I was going to argue with you?" Axotomy asked. "I make the rules here, Genitus of Operation: Solar Storm."

The Genericon lifted him onto the table, one huge hand squeezing Brainstorm's wrists together behind his back and the other digging his helm into the tabletop. Axotomy stood up and fluttered his fingers, needles extended. Brainstorm tried to thrash away from him but brute force and fisticuffs had never been his forte.

"Don't you dare," Brainstorm snarled.

"I could have done this quietly, without you ever realizing," Axotomy said. "It costs more this way but, in your case? It's worth it. Now keep still. For troublesome subjects I prefer to go in through the eyes."

"Hey Chromedome, how's medical leave treating you? Catching up on all the good vid programs none of us have time to watch?" Brainstorm had been excited to see Chromedome's name on his comm; they hadn't talked in what felt like forever. Of course, Brainstorm had been busy. Fieldwork was a nightmare, you had to tromp around with a whole crew of soldier-types and stop them from drinking your lab supplies and there was never a decent signal. He missed his lab. But it had been such an exciting opportunity...how could he have turned it down?

Brainstorm realized that Chromedome still hadn't said anything. "Chromedome? You there?" In the background he could hear music playing; he had a fuzzy recollection of the song that was playing. It had been…"Why is Scattergun's apology music playing?" he asked.

"They took Scatter off life support today. He's dead," Chromedome said, voice breaking. "He's dead."

The news sent him reeling. Even after what had happened to Mach, to Pivot, Brainstorm just couldn’t conceptualize the idea of Scattergun being dead. Surviving was Scattergun’s business—in Brainstorm’s head the ex-Decepticon had been invincible. "What happened?"

Chromedome took a moment, and then said, "There was an electrical fault in the door panel and when he went ahead to sweep the room...It was my fault. He hadn't wanted me to go back to work. If I'd listened to him he wouldn't—he wouldn't be—"

"You can't think like that," Brainstorm said. He got up and closed the doorway of his makeshift lab, poking his head out for a moment to check on the soldiers lounging out in the hallway. He went to his berth and sat down, wracking his brain for what to say this time, a way to fight the inevitable.

"I don't know how to be alone," Chromedome said. "You're gone now, Scatter's gone. What am I supposed to do?"

"Okay, first thing, you're not alone. I'm going to stay on the line with you as long as you need me to. Secondly, I need you to resist the urge to do something drastic. You're hurting a lot right now but remember, Scattergun would have wanted you to be safe."

"I just feel numb right now and I feel awful for feeling numb," Chromedome said. "It feels like this is something happening to someone else."

"You've probably been awake too long and you're having a hard time processing," Brainstorm suggested.

"I don't want to recharge," Chromedome said. "I feel like if I recharge I'll—Primus this sounds stupid—I feel like if I recharge he'll really be gone."

"Then stay awake," Brainstorm said. "I'll stay up with you."

"Sorry, you're...I don't want to sound like I didn't think you were a good friend but you're handling this much better at this than I was expecting," Chromedome said.

"That's because this isn't the first time," Brainstorm said. "Now please, please don't freak out on me, because there's no gentle way to say this. You are the luckiest and unluckiest bastard I have ever met. You had a conjunx before Scattergun. Two of them. They died and I was there to try to help you get through it. But you couldn't get through it, so you got out. So I'm speaking from experience when I say: I know you have two hands full of temptation right now. And Scattergun deserves better than that."

"I would never—"

"Can you tell me that? Can you tell me that for sure? That you're not even slightly tempted? That you haven't thought about how you could make it all go away?"

In the background, the song changed. Chromedome asked, "What were their names?"

"Mach and Pivot."

"And you never tried to tell me?"

Brainstorm laughed. "Oh, I've tried to tell you. I have told you. You just don't remember because you keep wiping them from your memories. That's why I'm asking you now—don't do that to Scattergun. He loved you so much and there's nobody else who can carry his memory now."

"No, of course not." Chromedome agreed. "After what he did, of course not."

The conversation ground to an awkward halt and Brainstorm tapped his fingers along to the tune of the song. Chromedome didn't seem ready to talk more about Scattergun, but changing the subject to talk about something else just seemed terminally awkward. But he couldn't hang up now. He had to think of some way to break the silence before it swallowed them—

"Do you know this song?" Chromedome asked suddenly.

"I'm not really a music guy," Brainstorm said. "Tell me about it?"

"The group is—was—one of Scatter's favorites. They're called ’Last Man Standing’, they're a couple of Autobot artillery engineers. They send out recordings via datalogs. Do you hear how the song sounds slightly off? How there are beats that are missed and some of the chords sound wrong?"

"I mean, I hadn't really..." Brainstorm stopped and listened for a moment and, now that Chromedome had described it, he could hear that. "Yeah, kinda. Very artsy of them."

"This is a recording of one of the first songs they released, redone several years later. Three of their members had died in the Tetrahex Surge and they did the performance without them."

"That's very high concept," Brainstorm said. "I never thought of Scattergun as the type."

"He loved music, all sorts. He wasn't good at expressing his emotions, at putting things into words. When he wanted to say something and didn't have the words he'd make me a mix. This one was after—I don't know if you'd heard about this? But he got in a fight once, at the commissary, back before it closed down. It was the only time I ever saw him slip out of his bodyguard persona in public. Someone at the bar must have heard he was a Decepticon and made a jibe. He dented the bar with their head, scared me half to death. I thought he was going to get reprimanded and sent away; he thought I was scared of him. I woke up the next day with this on my workbench in the lab."

The song faded out smoothly and a drum picked up a surging beat. A voice cut in, dancing between the drumbats in a disorienting rush. Brainstorm could barely pick up a pair of words strung together but he could feel the urgency, a kind of desperation. "Tell me about this one," he said.

"That's Semisonic. He was a Decepticon, up till he was executed for ‘soliciting insurrection’. He was terrified he was on the wrong side of the war, a lot of his music is about that. Scattergun said that Semisonic's work was what first made him think about defecting."

"So what's this song about?" Brainstorm asked.

"It's about a nightmare—waking up half transformed and being unable to get yourself back to yourself. Just shifting farther and farther towards something you can't recognize or escape."

"Harsh. Did Scatter like any happy songs? Maybe the self-flagellating misery mixtape isn't the right idea for this exact moment?"

Chromedome snorted. "Yeah, he liked happy songs. Give me a minute." There was the sound of tapes clattering together and then the song stopped. "I mean, all of these are sad now, Brainstorm, because they're his. This was the mixtape he made the night I asked him to be my conjunx."

A swell of synthesizers rose up out of the silence, picking out a jaunty tune. Two voices joined them in harmony. "The band is called Vroom," Chromedome said. "And this song is called 'True Love At Last.' They're a prewar band, Scattergun had a few recordings of concerts of theirs."

"What did he do? Before the war?"

"Well, he’s an MTO so...nothing." Chromdome said.

They talked for hours. Chromedome played more of his music. Most of it wasn't stuff Brainstorm would have ever listened to, but a few questions here and there and he could draw Chromedome into talking about Scattergun. Halfway through, they hit some of the first mixes Scattergun had made and Chromedome broke down. But on the other side of that Brainstorm felt like there was hope.

Eventually, Chromedome said, "Brainstorm. I know you have to go."

Brainstorm glanced guiltily at the door of his lab. People had barged in a few times, to let him know it was time to move out. Their scouts insisted on them moving camp at regular intervals for fear that Decepticon intelligence would track them down. Brainstorm had shooed them away, but he wouldn't be able to do so forever. "I don't have to go," he lied.

"Brainstorm, I'm going to be okay. I wasn't sure at first but I am. I'm going to be alright."

"I'll call back as soon as I can," Brainstorm said. "The first moment I can call back, I will."

"I'll look forward to it," Chromedome said. "Thank you for everything, Brainstorm. From both of us."

Brainstorm wasn’t sure if he believed he’d made a difference. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that next time he called they would talk about Scattergun again. But it was hard to trust like that anymore.