Chapter Text
Numbers.
It was a terrible thought (was it) but the logic made the most sense to him, and one answer on top of another explained mysteries once locked to most—inadvertently ‘explained’ through faith half the time, and Shockwave concluded that the universe was governed not by Gods or greater powers but the patterned chaos of said logic and numbers. And his answer: everything would be better off if sentient life did not exist.
The numbers explained that well.
But Megatron did not care. Of course, Shockwave knew he did not care. The Decepticon tyrant was on a war path for conquest and domination, fueled by a past ruined by societal failures and made worse by the silver mech’s growing madness.
Case in point: Megatron was a logical example to Shockwave’s growing theory of their race’s status as order’s perpetual cancer—the tyrant had proven his sadistic nature, often without a shred of rationale, and was more attributed to the rage of animals when cornered. But Megatron did not care about Shockwave’s endless thoughts: as long as the scientist produced the tools and weapons for the Decepticon conquest, well, Shockwave could think whatever he liked.
Like those birds who pick bugs off of the backs of wilder-beasts down on Earth; Shockwave had no complaints otherwise.
The Decepticons were all, as Thundercracker put it fondly, crazy in one way of another. What was crazy? Shockwave supposed that the seeker meant that nearly all the members were societal outcasts through the collective perception of their unwanted, inept personalities and he’d be inclined to agree with him. The Decepticons were crazy.
The Lord Megatron had utterly transformed from his cycles as miner D-16 and sat on an ebony throne of corpses and helms under his righteous thought of Godhood and justice; his second-in-command, Starscream, worked in the constant cycles of betrayal out of his own self-preservation, defense, and fear of being loved proper (and, to Shockwave, seemingly enjoyed the abuse inflicted upon him by Megatron at times); the other two seekers, Skywarp and Thundercracker, had no real loyalty to Megatron but stuck around anyway, as though attracted to the noise of war and all; Blitzwing and Astrotrain were both personally enamored by the onslaught of Megatron’s violence and each other for that matter—a perfect marriage in their madness; Slipstream was vicious in that way, which made her feel more powerful than others, and the Decepticons proved to be the perfect outlet for her exercise; Sunstorm was a walking radioactive generator and needed to be locked away deep in the labs or else he’d infect and burn every mech alive, and Acidstorm just wanted to watch the universe melt between his servos.
And then there was Soundwave.
Shockwave struggled to make sense of Megatron’s faithful officer of communications so it was easier for him not to think about him at all. It, at least, eased his overworked processor.
After logging in his research hours for the cycle, Shockwave felt faintly contemplative and felt the urge to leave his lab for once—a rarity of moods that came in the occasional spell, which the scientist chalked it up to a mechanical failure from the empurata he undergone in the stellar cycles of the past (they must have failed to completely suppress the empathetic region of his processor). He looked up from his grand terminal, over towards the back dark of his lab where some of his assistants sat at their computers, illuminated by just the dim light of the monitor screen—reflections of spark pulses and processor waves on their masked face plates.
The computer wiring ran beneath the floor and hooked to large glass cylinders filled with supplementary energon liquid on the sides of the lab—organics extracted from dominated, colonized planets visited by Decepticon forces. These strange fleshy forms twitched and trembled in their sedated sleep but, nonetheless, stayed very still in their watery suspension.
And the only sounds that accompanied the scientist in his lab was that of digits typing rapidly on digital monitors, the low hum of spark pulses, and the occasional soft bleep of an air bubble from an organic in one of the test chambers. The mechanical symposium of logical singing, Shockwave’s only aid to the wandering processor pains that emerge on the occasion.
Though, for some unexplained reason, he could not quell the odd (anxiety) in his spark. And that could not be explained through numbers alone.
“Doctor,” echoed one of his masked assistants from the back level of the lab. He lifted his helm up, as though curious by the scientist’s sudden stillness in a lab where he usually was seen working around the clock. “Does something displease you?”
“Displeasure is not an experienced or necessary attribute I acknowledge,” Shockwave uttered cold and riveted his singular optic towards one of the organics in the test chambers—a blemished-pink quad-pedal creature with protruding fins on the arms and legs, and a slither of gills on the fat neck. It’s eyes were slightly opened, pupils murky white, and stared back at Shockwave like a bloated corpse in the water. “I am attempting to process a thought.”
“Understood, doctor.”
“Tell me: what is your philosophy on our race?”
“Decepticons?”
“Race, not party.” Shockwave gestured to his body, to his servos, and finally his face plate. “Our make. Our history. Our presence. The very precedent of a Transformer.”
The assistant stammered for a moment, as though caught off guard by Shockwave’s sudden inquiry, and he began to look over his data pad even if there were no notes pulled up. “I mean, if you wished to know my opinion, doctor, I’d say that we as a race are thriving. Besides this long, exhausting war with the Autobots, the universe is right at our servos. Planets to conquer. Societies to rewrite and change. And civilizations to have bend the knee to our might. We’re just picking up the mantle left behind by our predecessors and reach our earned peace.”
“Ah, but you speak of nature, not philosophy.”
“Nature, doctor?”
Knowledge had lead to this paralysis and Shockwave could not blame his Decepticon peers for finding the truth with a stunted reaction. Making it look like he were intrigued suddenly by the smaller control terminals by the test chambers, he walked over and began to idly flip through the status readers while most of his team looked on.
The science floor was his domain—everything here was constructed to perfect order, with logical reason, and in the realm of numbers; straight walls, dark colors, cold steel, sterile metal, untouched glass, glowing fluids, beeping machines, and untangled tubes. And the numbers had effectively created a perfected space of endless and boundless experimentation where not even the Decepticons could follow along—but they benefited nonetheless. And they could care less. This was nature.
“Philosophy is merely a child of nature. Nature is instinctual. Such as eating or recharging. What you speak of, this right to domination and change—that is the nature of our race. Or rather, the case with all sentient beings of intelligence. Only sentient beings like us could create philosophy from nature. So we spin this urge and need for control and order and survival into a philosophy and party—the Decepticons. The Autobots. Besides these titles, we are one in the same. Unified by our second natures. Now, what I have asked you more pertains to your own evaluation of our natures...but your affirmation of the Decepticon cause proves as such,” Shockwave started coolly, staring up at the creature encased in glass.
He could hear his assistant stiffen uncomfortably against his monitor as the others began to look around at each other. “Are you saying The Autobots are no more better than us?” He asked quietly.
“I am still not speaking about parties. I am speaking past those things. We’re all the same. A cancer, you see. The only difference is that we like to put labels on our ideals and rise to the falsehoods of mortality.”
“A...cancer?”
“Directive: ignore Shockwave.”
That electronic hum of a voice; Soundwave suddenly appearing in the doorway of the lab, his broad figure bleeding against the darkness. The red of his visor glint sharply, a hostile signal in Shockwave’s vision—paired by the mech’s steely face mask that veiled all emotion and thus, all potential weapons of judgment anyone could use against him.
Shockwave rolled his single optic—a childish show of irritation that he learned from Starscream every time Megatron gave the crew another long speech peppered with threats of deactivation upon failure, and turned his back to Soundwave.
“Leave. This meeting is private,” the communications officer ordered and waited as all the lab assistants quickly rushed out of the room. Once the door closed behind the last mech, Soundwave stepped forward with his arms crossed over his chassis chest. Shockwave wondered if the officer’s ‘sparklings’ were listening in.
Soundwave stared at him—at his back, burning black holes into the scientist’s figure. Shockwave never did get used to these long, embittered looks (but then again, nor did he get used to staring at Soundwave head-on. That face mask—he liked to wear one too, didn’t he?)
“You spread propaganda,” Soundwave said.
“Theories without evidence makes for a poor thesis,” Shockwave quipped back in kind, running his digits down the heavy glass case of the organic’s tube. Watching the small bubbles escape from it’s blubbering gills.
“Every time you speak, you demoralize the crew. Talks of cancer and mass deactivation. Do you intend to undermined Lord Megatron through such back-handed methods?”
“Have I not armed Megatron with the tools to his craft? To play war among the Autobots? I have built and created and set chaos to his command, with utter efficiency. But I am still a theologian at my spark. A theologian for the school of empirical study.” Shockwave finally turned around and greeted Soundwave standing in the darkness of the lab. And if Shockwave could smile, he imagined he did now. “Would you understand? No, I suppose not—I like to theorize and philosophize, It is my nature.”
“Advice: practice moderation,” the blue cassette mech retorted, his tuned voice echoing across the lab in cold warning before falling short of a murmuring fade.
Shockwave cocked his helm. “Why? What effect does speaking to my assistants on the nature of our existence have on the Decepticons? Is Megatron threatened by the freedom of scientific process.”
“You have been warned, Senator.”
“You have a manic obsession with control.”
“I do what is necessary for Lord Megatron.”
“Harassing his Head Scientist does not read as productive.”
Soundwave and Shockwave stared at each other across the space. It was not a surprise that since Shockwave joined the Decepticons that there has been some tensions between the two—for Soundwave, who was familiar with Shockwave’s rather publicized past before the war, had immediately become wary of the former senator’s intentions and deemed him an unpredictable agent among the Decepticons—even more so than Starscream who constantly wailed and bemoaned his place beneath Megatron’s heel.
Of course, Shockwave was impressed for the mech was right.
He was not loyal to Megatron in the slightest. He did not believe in any philosophies of right or wrong for none exist. Those were moralities—shackles used by weaker mechs to justice their actions like war, order, and control. Megatron was poor to conduct his business by these weaknesses. But Shockwave was loyal to the pure advancement of knowledge—something the silver mech had greatly promised him the space and means to practice. And thus, he stayed.
This lab was his oath to that mission. The air was maintained at a perfect sixty-five degrees exactly—no more, no less. The floor was perfectly meticulous, cleaned by the janitorial drone twice a cycle to ensure that the lab was completely sanitized at all times. The automatic doors were set on a timer where they would airlock the room after thirty nanokliks as to ensure that the environment was not altered in any way between a mech coming and a mech leaving. It was pure profession devoid of passion and muddled moralities and soiled aspirations and, as a result, only the truly dedicated may thrive in such an environment.
Soundwave would never understand. He was govern by his feelings. His attachments. Just like him.
“Are you finished?” Shockwave asked, returning to his master terminal without so much as a passing look to the cassette mech. “Or do you intend to occupy my time anymore?”
“I simply came to check on you,” Soundwave said without any pretense of his own irritation on the matter.
“Do you suspect betrayal? So as long as your ‘Lord’ Megatron continues to support my work, then work I shall.” The scientist turned to look at his stalker, who stepped further into the room, as though he were less disgusted with the place with each passing nanoklik. “If you must deploy your secret police tactics, then train your optics on some of our peers with ‘reoccurring’ patterns. Starscream must definitely should pique your interest in that regard.”
“I know you will not betray Lord Megatron. But you are still an outlier here.”
Outlier.
Outlier.
[Senator, I have to say, to see you protect all these outliers...well, I’m so inspired...]
Something painful ripped through Shockwave’s processor in a heated surge, almost like a fire storm. He touched his helm, leaning over the monitor and down at his keyboard—numbers, numbers, numbers beeping through the visual HUB without any sense of formulaic sum or data story. Shockwave then heard a set of pede-steps slowly approach him and he quickly held his servo up.
“Don’t,” he begged with a hiss, with an old voice that was not his echoing out. “Please. Leave me.”
After a moment of silence, those same pede steps walked away. The back door of the lab whirled open with a mechanical click followed by another period of silence—his stare piercing Shockwave’s back. And then the mech finally walked out. But Shockwave did not look up, not until the door shut behind him with the airlock engaged.
Indeed, he was left alone, and Shockwave buried any more irritable emotions that seemingly threatened to breach his psyche. No, he was in complete and utter control.
He was fine.
XXX
Shockwave dreaded speaking to Starscream.
The second-in-command of Megatron was a strange, strange mech. He reminded the scientist of those low-grade jellied energon cubes, half-melted. Physically, they were the same—easy to irritate under tense conditions and easy to digest and tolerate (on easy cycles). Physiologically, they caused the same reaction in most Decepticons including Shockwave—he gave everyone a sour taste on the glossa.
But everyone had to tolerate the head of the Seekers. Not only was he Megatron’s second-in-command but was a particularly adept combatant as well—a trait that everyone had to reluctantly acknowledged, even Megatron himself. Hence why Starscream was his lieutenant and not Soundwave (though Shockwave always suspected that it had to do with Soundwave’s own comfort with his position.
For Shockwave, at least, he was rather secured in the fact that Starscream—for some odd reason—was scared of him. Enough where the head seeker avoided conversation with the scientist when he could. But the few conversations they did have, Shockwave found them utterly benign and often, distasteful.
Just like half melted jellied energon cubes.
“Doctor!”
The steel-screeching high-pitched voice of irritable authority cawed out from the corridor; Shockwave stopped but he did not turn around, allowing the seeker to catch up to him. Starscream came right beside him with his expression already twisted in a strange show of mischievous glee—the kind where Shockwave knew the lieutenant was already set on enticing a reaction out of him.
“Did you hear?” He asked, cocking his helm with that smile.
Shockwave’s singular optics riveted from him to back on the corridor and continued walking. To his displeasure, Starscream followed him.
“H-Hey! Don’t ignore me! I’m asking you a question!” The seeker—in Shockwave’s own admission of the fact—screeched in his audials
The scientist’s yellow optic riveted to him for just a nanoklik before reverting back forward. “What is it that I may or may not have heard?” He asked.
Starscream grinned with the white of his dentas. “Our Lord intends to confront Optimus Prime out down on Earth. He requests no assistance and for us to stay on the Nemesis.” His voice box signaled nothing but pure glee at the fact, with just a lull of laughter trembling beneath each word. “Your remembered the last time he attempted single combat with Prime. Ah-hah! He came back with both of his arms ripped off.”
Shockwave stopped at his office and inputted the security code at the key panel to unlock it for the cycle. As he did, he could feel Starscream watching him intently, in bated breath for some twisted answer on the revelation of Megatron’s usual attempts to fighting his rival down on the organic’s rock of a planet.
“And I shall be on standby to administer aid if he comes back in pieces,” he said without so much as a glance in Starscream’s direction as the double doors to his lab opened.
“Come on now, Senator—you can’t tell me you feel even anything for the potential harm that might befall your former friend. I mean, Optimus Prime—”
“Is of no consequence to me. If he deactivates this cycle, my work will continue all the same. If Megatron falls on this cycle, my work will continue all the same. Their deaths will bear no direct effect on my work save for location and this universe is vast and endless. What does matter in the great chase of formulaic rationalization is whether I continue to dedicate my processor and body to the craft—which, I tell you now, I shall,” Shockwave said before stepping into his office and allowing the doors to close and lock right behind him—before Starscream could follow him.
Besides a typical, irritable grumbling outside, the curtain of silence fell over in the space and finally gave Shockwave the reprieve to relax in his solitude. He rest his back against the doors and looked up at the dark of the ceiling, allowing his frame to settle in proper from the long cycle.
Optimus Prime. Shockwave believed that the entire Decepticon force was addicted to the Autobot commander. Especially Megatron. Optimus Prime was his second greatest weakness, after the first of being too vengeful and righteous. The more he talked about Optimus Prime, the more he craved for his (death?) (submission?) defeat by his, and his servos alone.
Most of the Decepticons consider Megatron’s obsession with Optimus Prime to be a most dangerous addiction—something Shockwave himself quietly pondered upon from time on the extent of his leader’s madness. Unfortunately, unlike most of his followers who either admire Prime from afar or obsess in their own right to combat him on the battlefield, Megatron’s desires seem to dip down in a place only Shockwave understood.
He, once, was plagued of those same ailments. Once.
Optimus Prime. He was not Orion Pax. And Shockwave often reminded himself of this fact. These thoughts ran through his processor constantly, a second channel of white noise in the background from the master terminal of his lab humming out any more useless burning anxieties (leave me be!)
Suddenly, something shifted from out the darkness and Shockwave lifted his helm up.
“Come out,” he ordered coldly, standing straight up. “I know you are there. This is my lab. I am the first to enter and last to leave.”
From the darkness, a predator stalked out—striped in shadow and cold, calculating leer. Shockwave could only feel something akin to irritation flush hot through his cold circuity but his voice box echoed low and leveled as was his greatest weapon of composure.
“Return to your master, spy. I have no use for a house cat,” he commanded to Ravage, who watched him closely from the corner of the lab—his optics leering like blighted suns against the darkness.
[Master said you needed assistance] Ravage replied back in equal cold utterance.
“He is mistaken. Return.”
[I cannot]
“I see nothing that inhibits your ability to leave. Your four limbs appear to be working just fine. So take your leave, servant.”
[I take no command from you]
“You will for you stand in a vicinity that does not recognize Soundwave’s authority. Only Megaton may override my decisions here and I might visit him with a corpse tonight if you do not explain yourself proper,” Soundwave warned before extending his arm cannon out and allowing the internal furnace to roar with a dangerous spark of purple, aimed right at Ravage’s form.
Something shifted in the creature’s expression though it was not fear (he seldom felt fear for that matter). After a moment where Shockwave’s cannon reached it’s maximum heat index for electrical attack, Ravage gave a slow and careful nod. Shockwave hummed, pleased, and allowed the cannon to die with a hum with his arm dropped at his side. They stared at each other from across the space and Ravage said slowly:
[Master said to watch you/ If you needed help, then I should help you/ He told me not leave]
“Why? What purpose is it for your master to further impede my work?” Shockwave asked, ignoring the creature’s look as he stalked over to his master terminal and turned it on. The blue light from the grand monitor lit up the room in a cold hue, enough to illuminate the sharpness of Ravage’s form standing in the corner with his tail swishing across the floor panelings.
Ravage cocked his helm, ears twitching. [Loneliness]
To both of their surprise, Shockwave actually laughed. It was a hollow, brittle sound that aligned more in phantom’s attempt at laughter, and it fell ominous. “What a strange thing to say. I feel no loneliness and there is no use for companionship. Now, your master is privy to such weaknesses. Why don’t you return to him?” he asked curtly.
[Loneliness]
“I am not lonely. Leave.”
But Ravage, of course, did not leave. Instead, he walked in a small circle on the spot he stood, came to a halt, and laid down with his paws folded over one another. Shockwave continued to stare him down, more so to evaluate the creature’s own stubbornness, evaluated that Ravage could not be moved, and turned back to his work quietly. At the corner of his optic, he could see Ravage lay down his helm and shut his optics with a mechanical purr of his engines.
Alas, the silence fell once again.
XXX
“Do you ever get lonely, Senator?”
He turned away from his terminal, over by the darkened figure of Skids sitting at the empty front row of their Academy classroom. The young mech was resting against the palm of his servo with his optics dull with the appearance of faint boredom—but Shockwave had long sensed the urging curiosity in his young outlier’s voice, as though this had been an inquiry he had been holding for some time.
Shockwave chuckled. “What a strange thing to say, Skids. Do I appear lonely?”
Skids reset his optics and sat up in his seat, a bit more flustered. “Goodness, Senator, I mean no offense...it’s just, well, sometimes you have this look…”
“Look?”
“Like...well, I notice it more when you think. You tend to raise your helm up and just stare off...as though you’re not here. Sometimes when you speak to us, there is a rather isolated affect, as though you’re never really been speaking at all.”
Shockwave nodded, rubbing his chin. “I see,” he said quietly.
“Primus, I never should have said anything—forgive me, Senator,” Skids said quickly and shook his helm to dispel whatever nervous energy had taken over.
“No, no! I am not offended! I suppose, if I must be frank, I have been feeling rather at odds with myself,” Shockwave reassured as he came down from his podium towards the front of his classroom. He then rested his hips against the first desk and loomed over his star student, smiling fondly. “I keep forgetting how…observant you are, Skids. Hardly can hide anything from you.”
The young outlier’s optics seemingly gleamed like stars before him—a sight not uncommon from his students.
“Has something been troubling you, Senator? Is it the Senate again?”
“Goodness, when is it not? But something did happen recently which, well, shook me to my spark, dear Skids,” Shockwave admitted, staring off past his student’s helm into the dark space of the classroom. The Academy groaned around them, pained of her emptiness on a late cycle, and the Senator suddenly felt strangely hollow as he continued to recount: “there was an...interruption at the Senate floor. A police officer named Orion Pax stormed our meeting and accused us of corruption. It’s a memory that is quite difficult to shake as of late...”
Skids cocked his helm. “O-Oh? Orion did that?”
“Do you know him, Skids?”
“Yes, who doesn’t? He’s Rodion’s star officer, even set to be considered Cybertron’s officer of the stellar cycle. Criminals consider him almost...supernatural at times on how effective he gets the job done. I see him hang around Doctor Ratchet quite a bit—I think they’re close friends,” the outlier confessed with a nod of his helm.
Shockwave gave a noncommittal hum. “Yes, well, his words have touched me in a way no mech has done so before. I think I might pay him a visit in holding—see if I can post his bail,” he said.
“What’s your fascination with him, Senator? I mean, you two never met and he might now like the idea of someone from the Senate trying to speak to him.”
Shockwave thought the same many times before. Truth be told, he was already fascinated with Orion Pax before he even opened his intake because the very act of even interrupting a closed Senate meeting could only belong an individual so keenly deigned by their need for justice and abandonment of authority. Shockwave could still see it: the blue-red truck framed mech kicking the towering doors of the Senate chambers opened with his optics glazing furiously up at the confused helms of his planet’s supposed leaders. Even as the guards kicked and forced Orion Pax away, Shockwave’s optics never left him as he bellowed out for the Senate’s fall.
The cancer on Cybertron.
Shockwave managed to smile in the end and leaned over to Skids, as though to share with him a secret.
“You know,” he started in a whisper, watching his star student await for his answer in hushed anticipation. “I think I just have a thing for honest mechs. Some might not like it—no one likes to hear the truth, but one ought to appreciate a mech who isn’t afraid to say what everyone’s been thinking.”
“That it? Honesty?”
“Honesty.”
XXX
Somehow, Shockwave knew he was just experiencing a wistful dream for the solid certainty that he was still in his lab on the Nemesis floating in space had settled the moment the dark cold walls and the sterile blue glow of the master terminal greeted his shaky visual HUB. It dawned upon the scientist that he must have dozed off when inputting his reports for the cycle as the terminal was still stuck on the entry page, the tedious chore that usually closed off Shockwave’s work cycle. A rarity, he thought to himself—he was never one to recharge on the job.
He slowly shifted up only to feel a noticeable weight resting on his broad chassis—a curled up black ball of Ravage was recharging right on top of him, with the creature’s helm tucked into his middle and his tail curled around Shockwave’s arm. The scientist stared at him—gawked, more so, and listened to Ravage’s engine purr with each calm exhaust.
And Shockwave did not move.
“You allowed him to stay.”
The electronic melody of that controlled voice of order touched Shockwave’s audials and he did not need to turn around to see who was standing against the far wall of the lab with his arms crossed. Still, the scientist could not help but shift his optic over and up at the shadowed figure of Soundwave. The cassette mech had been watching him clearly, for some undetermined time between Shockwave falling into recharge and just now waking up. Shockwave stared at his intruder and, to his surprise, found not his usual glint of controlled hostility that seemed to accompany him whenever they were in the same room together.
“I tried to make him leave but he refused to accept orders from me.” The scientist turned away, trailing his gaze over by the terminal instead; Ravage made a smacking sound with his intake and rubbed his helm against Shockwave’s chassis in a mid-dream, tail twitching. “You have set up your servant here. Why?”
Soundwave did not answer because that, in of itself, was an answer already. Shockwave sat up in his seat, strangely careful in not waking up the creature. He instead held Ravage to his chassis, listening to that tiny, tiny engine rev back and forth in a mechanical lullaby like a newborn sparkling. And something pained blossomed deep within his spark.
“Do not do this again,” he warned coldly. “I do not need your spies to be watching my work. If you cannot find it in your spark to trust me, then do not speak to me at all. Keep to Lord Megatron’s side and find satisfaction with my allegiance to this cause.”
“You misunderstand my intentions, doctor.”
“Do I? Then why don’t you tell me so I do not come off as uneducated regarding your hidden intentions.”
Soundwave nodded absently as though he were agreeing with himself more than Shockwave; his blood-red visor reflected back Shockwave’s visage sitting at the terminal and the sight of such bewildering domesticity with Ravage sleeping on his chest made the scientist suddenly muted.
“I believed you would benefit from having company on this cycle,” Soundwave said honestly. “You appeared lonely.”
“My feelings and lack of companionship is irreverent.”
“Noted.” Soundwave looked down to his windowed chassis and placed his servos there tenderly before looking up and over at Ravage sleeping in Shockwave’s arms. Something shifted upon his face plate and if it were possible, Shockwave could say that the mech seemed pleased.
“But companionship is important,” he added lowly.
“Companionship. That concept is illogical,” Shockwave grunted, staring dead on at the mech. “What could you possibly gain from such a thing?”
“Family,” Soundwave uttered as though he said a prayer. His servos clenched into fists against his chassis from the word—and past the glass, Shockwave could see the rest of his cassettes recharging inside with a gentle whirl of its tape.
Soundwave looked up. “Listen: purposes give us the will to fight and live. You continue on to see the advancement of the universe. That I will acknowledge. I continue on for my family. My children. That is not illogical because without them, I have no purpose. Companionship is necessary. Loneliness is the true death of the universe. To have no equal,”he said in a rare tone of fondness.
“So you sent your servant here to teach me this lesson?” Shockwave asked, his voice oddly chipped as it echoed across the space. “I need not a lesson, Soundwave. I am content with my place—”
“You spoke in your sleep.” A pause; Soundwave cocked his helm. “You mentioned his name.”
A door opened in the back of Shockwave’s processor. A demon crawled out once thought locked away. And it whispered in his audials, in a voice he thought was lost to him. It was smiling, handsome face-plate, with the colors of white and teal.
“Get out,” Shockwave said, depositing Ravage on the ground who woke up suddenly from the movement. “Get out.”
“Does my honesty sting you, doctor?”
“Your company is unnecessary, distracting, and irritable. Please leave.”
Soundwave bent down with the front flap of his chassis open, and beckoned to Ravage who immediately crossed the space to his master’s side—transforming and slotting cleanly in with the rest of his ‘siblings’. The mech then rose, shutting the flap and staring out to Shockwave, who rose from his seat and presented another cold back for a sight to see. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then, Soundwave spoke in a voice that—for a passing ghost of a nanoklik—sounded remotely pitiful.
“Victory: not certain. What do you intend to do if we lose? Where will you go if we all die?”
“I will go where more can be studied. The universe is vast and filled with much life—a sandbox for my processor at play. Your deaths will simply be a footnote in that ambition should it come.”
“What are you studying for? Yourself? To what means? To sate curiosity? I thought the ultimate dream of all scientists is the advancement and betterment of society—not the corruption of elements. Tell me, doctor: what are you studying for?”
Shockwave did not reply.
Soundwave leaned in for he clued on something not even the scientist could quite imagine for himself.
“Did Senator Shockwave thought these same pitiful thoughts of academic loneliness?” He asked in finality.
“Senator Shockwave is dead.”
And the scientist looked over his shoulder, the low leer of his yellow optic glaring out past the lab floor and over at his interrogator. The masked observer, marred by a cursed pension for somehow dissecting Shockwave’s nerves better than the average medic, stood in the victory of this revelation and have done so since the start of the war. He must have known for a while now. And it was only a shame that it took Shockwave this long to realize the weapon Soundwave had in the palm of his servo.
How irritable.
“And this conversation is dead.”
XXX
He seemed like a keenly lonely mech. Perhaps misunderstood.
To which, Shockwave knew his hypnosis was not all that proven: this one had friends, family, and the respect of his city. And yet, Orion Pax, who sat beside him on the cold bench of the Ark-1 Memorial Park—who fiddled with his digits nervously in his lap, beautiful blue optics cast down to the metal grass in a futile search for something that was not there to begin with.
What a funny mech. A lonely mech. Shockwave knew this feeling well. These peculiar movements, the softness of the optics’ own aversion for company. The face mask over his intake. And, ultimately, for the size of Orion Pax—he suddenly appeared very, very small.
Shockwave rest his elbows on his knees and cocked his helm down to Orion, who jolted at the stare like some cyber beast caught in a trap—in a dark, cold place with no escape.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” Shockwave started in a cool friendliness, offering a smile. “I don’t bite. And if I do, I’m sure it hurts less than yours.”
“What…”
Orion Pax appeared stunned by the phrasing for he actually gawked at the senator with his optics wide and bright. It was but a nanoklik really before the officer suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. He doubled over, shaking his helm, as his frame trembled beneath his muffled chuckling (what does he look like underneath the mask?).
The officer then leaned back against the metal bench and wiped his optics clean of any loose lens fluids that had begun to leak out. Any sort of nervousness once presented in the mech had suddenly dissipated, replaced by a more shy friendliness.
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, Senator,” he said, probably smiling. “I mean, the Senate guards certainly gave me the run around.”
“Had you fought back, I’m sure you would have knocked them down on their afts,” Shockwave offered, winking.
Orion Pax then retracted his face mask—Shockwave fell quiet, caught off guard by the mech’s soft handsomeness, so selfishly hidden away until now—and he smiled to the Senator graciously.
“I must thank you, Senator, for bailing me out. Though, I must admit: it was a surprise to find out that you posted my bail,” the officer started in quiet admiration. His optics trailed all over Shockwave’s face plate before falling short down at his servos clasped in his lap. “See, I was never one to speak out loud about things. Was always taught to serve silently and obey. To be beaten and dragged away, of course, when I did have that courage—it was traumatizing to say the least.”
“Please,” Shockwave murmured, needing to reset his optics so Orion’s beauty did not further stun his processors. He shook his helm and settled his back firm against the cold head of the bench with his arms resting up on both sides. “Everything you said was true that cycle. But, unfortunately, many in Senate are keen to preserve their corrupt power. Far too many for a single mech like me to do anything…”
“Primus, you done more than most.” A pause; his optics riveted up and over at the Senator in a strange fondness. “I...I was told from Skids of your work in the Academy.”
Shockwave hummed with a grin. “Did he now? What did he tell you? Oh wait—don’t tell me. I’d play the game of subtlety but you and I both know. Better yet, tell me how you feel about it.” he urged on with playful friendliness.
Orion shuffled in his seat, more so out of a habit from what the senator could surmise, and he gave a wayward, careful smile at him.
“It gives me hope,” he replied honestly. “Not many in Cybertron care for those who are undefined by our limited system of control. Outliers. They’re already perceived as threats the moment they are constructed. No crime to bear save for existing. And to know that you went out of your way to provide them an education, a purpose, and safe space, well...I continue to remain utterly hopeful that Cybertron can be changed, even if it’s small or gradual. Or, in your case, secretive. Actions of rebellion against the greater system should never be disregarded, no matter the nature.”
“You are a fellow critic of functionalism as well, it seems.”
“I mean…you saw me on the Senate floor that night.”
Shockwave laughed and shook his helm. “That I did, Orion Pax. And you were stunning.”
The officer reset his optics at least twice at this, even shifting his optics back and forth around the park as though the senator was referring to a third unseen mech that somehow shared Orion’s designation. Finally, after a nanoklik, he gave a funny smile and folded his servos together over his chassis.
“You called me out here to flirt?” he asked.
Shockwave chuckled. “I wish, but I saw a unique opportunity to earn an ally, Orion Pax. And someone as courageous and insightful as you is absolutely dispensable to the cause,” he admitted sheepishly, ignoring the burning sensation in his face plate.
“And what cause would that be?”
“A righteous one.”
The senator spread his arms out for emphasis and gestured to the city skyline of Rodion in the distance with her ivory-neon skyscrapers and stretching highways that loomed around the twilight peaks. His expression had become solemn with a passing thought—the impassioned, quiet disdain lurching out in sharp hisses for injustice and a world order keenly broken and turned on its side.
“Listen, Orion Pax: what is the meaning of life, hm? The purpose of civilization. Our race. Come now—tell me.”
Orion studied him for a bit before following the Senator’s gaze out to Rodion. “Many might say order.”
“Order is good word. Order also means control in another language. Control means domination. Servitude. And there is no harmony in hierarchy.” Shockwave gestured at the officer as though he were one of his students from the Academy; he smiled playfully. “Try again.”
Orion rolled his glossa inside of his intake. “I like peace.”
“Peace, yes. But peace for who? It could be peace for us, but subjugation for another. And how? What is your world view?”
“I suppose a world were all sentient beings, across this universe and beyond, have the right to their freedom. The right of free expression, living, and prosperity.” A pause; Orion sighed sadly. “Maybe that’s too idealistic…”
Shockwave could not help but grin at this, almost knowingly. “Ah, perhaps. But dreamers make for good leaders,” he reassured, even putting a hand on the young officer’s shoulder. There was a warmth there—both of them felt it, and the Senator swallowed down whatever strange sensation overcame him to add on solemnly. “See, I believe the purpose of our race, the universe, and the act of science itself is advancement. To strive to do better. To strive away from savagery that marked our early years of conquer. A just and right society, see, pushes past weapons of violence, colonization, imperialism, and other tools inherited from our sires. In order for us to find peace, yes, we must actively strive to confront and resist oppression and those deadly tools of subjugation. Understand?”
Orion smiled ruefully at this. “Strange. I heard opposite, senator. Our scientists seem more keen on peeling away bits by bits at our forms to sate dangerous curiosities than cure any sicknesses. Our current leaders would rather throw a miner in jail for rightfully expressing his thoughts than take in any criticism. And our world is firmly choking on the leash the Primes have tied around us at birth.”
“Then perhaps we’re just the only two idealists left on Cybertron.” And Shockwave leaned forward, winking. “Better two than zero.”
And, to the senator’s joy, Orion Pax laughed once more—and it sounded like a crystal wind chime singing from a passing breeze. He smiled with his dentas (something feels warm) and he leaned forward also, placing a hand on Shockwave’s arm gingerly.
“Better two than zero.”
“You know, I don’t know if anyone told you this but,” Shockwave reached over, single digit out, and tapped the port where Orion’s mask had retracted into itself.
Orion stared at him for a nanoklik and he quickly turned away, as sheepish as an academy sparkling.
His mask clicked back on. And Shockwave could not help but laugh.
XXX
Megatron came back nearly damaged beyond repair.
His armor plating smelled of burnt steel and parts of his chassis was falling off from his protoform when they wheeled him into Shockwave’s operating bay for emergency surgery. His arm cannon was blackened as though it overheated during use and many of Megatron’s central joints were charred and popping.
During surgery, Shockwave could not help but notice a singular shot in Megatron’s back with the energy entry-point too familiar to the laser type of a seeker class. Of course, he kept silent to this observation as he helped put the Decepticon leader back into a stable state—at least until the self-repair system could kick in after such an intensive operation.
After a few cycles of work, where Starscream undoubtedly inserted himself as de facto leader during Megatron’s recovery, they had sent a few troops after the Autobots down on Earth including some of the Decepticon leadership for more effective results.
These mechs also came back dead or severely wounded. Shockwave was not surprised.
Despite the sheer numbers and technological advancement on the side of the Decepticons, Shockwave long foresaw an Autobot victory in the grand scheme of the war itself (which he logically kept to himself in lieu of Megatron’s dangerous and near-murderous temper). One, that Optimus Prime carried a careful brand of wisdom, which combated and often circumvented Megatron’s blind blood thirst; two, the Autobots, while lacking the numbers and manpower to confront the Decepticon army, made up the quantity for quality—nearly all Autobot combatants, despite having civilian lives before the war, proved to be passionate, fearless, and clever warriors in comparison to Megatron’s poorly trained forces; three, the Autobots actually had a full team of gifted scientists—some of whom Shockwave knew back on Cybertron. Wheeljack, Perceptor, Ratchet, Hoist, Skyfire (a name he tried not to bring up around Starscream). There was only one of Shockwave here, which to Megatron, was more than enough.
And finally, Optimus Prime did not mistreat his mechs. Science has long proven the performance levels caused by loyalty out of love—loyalty out of fear had the complete opposite effect. He tried to tell Megatron this one cycle upon seeing him beat Starscream to near deactivation but the tyrant wouldn’t have it.
Now he has a hole in the back of his armor. Hypnosis proven through example.
[Doctor]
A creature of shadow, wafting of spilled energon, hobbled into Shockwave’s lab after Megatron’s final surgery for the evening. The scientist looked over and regarded Ravage with some forthcoming intrigue: the cassette was clearly wounded, with the right side of its face plate peeled off to reveal the exoskeleton beneath—the uncovered optic leering up at Shockwave in pure desperation. His tail was gone and he was hobbling with just three legs, leaking energon from an open wound from his shoulder.
But he spoke, voice box screeching static.
[Doctor help/ Help master]
Shockwave approached Ravage, staring down the bleeding cassette with a tilt of his helm.
“Your master? Do not tell me he was with the troops deployed down to Earth,” he started, watching the creature twitched and tremble with sparks flying from his wound.
[Yes/ Help master/ Help master]
“Show me, then,” Shockwave said. He bent down to carefully pick up the cat in his arms, cradling him tight to his chassis stop the flow of energon. Ravage was still conscious, at least enough to acknowledge Shockwave’s words in his audials—and he weakly nodded ahead.
“Show me.”
The general operating bay was completely full. Every berth was occupied by a soldier—dead or wounded, it did not matter. The medical mechs ran back and forth from one to another, but it hardly made a difference. The ones who were dying deactivated anyway. It was a room of pure and utter chaos, permeated by long bouts of silence where the spark fell quiet, nevermore.
Shockwave followed Ravage’s helm nods until he came to a berth just at the far corner of the central bay. There he saw a mech he had not seen before—and, knew quite intimately from another form only shown to them. Soundwave laid there on the berth with his helm turned to the side; his windowed chassis, which usually remained tightly closed save for the moment he let out his ‘children’ to play, had been completely ripped off—revealing just the empty chamber inside. His left arm had been blasted off and some of the mech’s dark blue paint was chipped off as though he were dragged along the ground by a great force.
And yet, his face was the greatest oddity of all. Soundwave’s visor and face mask were missing, exposing his true visage out for Shockwave to take in. His face was eerily serene with soft, delicate features, not so expected from Shockwave’s own interpretation of the communications officer (why did he wear a face mask to begin with). Ravage leapt down from the scientist’s arm onto his master’s side, where he nudged the mech gently with his helm—exposed engine purring.
Slowly, Soundwave opened his optics—a hazy peridot greeting Shockwave on the other side in pained recognition before they flickered up at Ravage. A sweet smile curled across his face (Shockwave had to look away) and he reached over with his only arm to pet the creature.
“You found him,” he uttered, static singing from his throat. “Good boy.”
Shockwave set the berth up at an angle and pulled himself close to the mech’s side, already hooking up cables to Soundwave’s entry points at the side of his chassis and hips. He looked all over him, examining the depth of his injuries—many deeper than just mere paint scratches—before riveting up and meeting Soundwave’s gaze. Up close, he could actually see the vast openness of the mech’s emotions painted so vividly on his face plate, almost like waves—and Shockwave suddenly realized why Shockwave had to complete mask himself.
“I have called for assistance regarding this one,” Shockwave started, point at Ravage who settled on the empty chamber of Soundwave’s chassis. He had begun leak all over his wounded master. “In the meantime, stay still. I will run a CPU diagnosis and administer immediate surgery, at least until your self-repair system responds and starts to finish the work for me.”
“I did not think you would come,” Soundwave replied quietly, his optics going soft. “Ergo: I sent Ravage.”
“There are approximately fifteen medics present in this bay. It would have been more logical to ask for their assistance than to ask for me specifically.” Shockwave replied, pulling up a data pad and watching the numbers of Soundwave’s condition dance across the screen.
“Logical: agreed. But I wanted to prove something.”
“That is?”
“That you would come.”
“It is my job. This is what I was recruited to do,” the scientist corrected with an odd edge to his voice (there was no edge, he’s perfectly controlled). He kept his gaze away from Soundwave who kept staring at him with those optics, like a marvel unraveling itself bit by bit (the curse of emotion, this is why Soundwave rightfully hid).
“No,” Soundwave said, almost like a whisper. “It is logical to delegate the role to your aforementioned medics. You did not. You came here personally.”
“Stop,” Shockwave warned. “Your insistent need for speech is interrupting my diagnosis.”
Soundwave’s expression changed a bit, in what was supposed to be a smile. The scientist was recently relieved that he didn’t attempt to force it further. Shockwave said nothing more; he laid there, staring up at the ceiling as Ravage purred against his chamber in the slow crawl of recharge. In a little while, a medic came around the operating berth and picked up the creature carefully, taking him away for emergency surgery. And thus, the space between them was, once again, filled with the soft, steely beeps of machines across the entirety of the bay.
“What happened down there?” Shockwave asked as he started to input recovery codes into Soundwave’s damaged CPU. “To think this many Decepticons would come back wounded or deactivated would suggest the threat on Earth is bigger than Lord Megatron believed.”
“They caught us in an ambush,” Soundwave started, his voice calm against the sudden rise of his spark’s pulse on the data pad internal monitors. “Designation: Wheeljack. He lured us into the valley and set explosives on the rock walls.”
“You’re far too smart to be caught in a trap like that,” the scientist remarked. He set the pad to the side and pulled out a welding tool from his side tray; Soundwave watched him, his optics tracing over in a slow, careful draw from his arm to where his long digits clenched the tool.
It begun to whirl and pick up hissing embers that danced around the space—Soundwave’s optics riveted up at the Shockwave, holding him still in a strange warmth.
“Repeat: doctor finds me clever?” He asked in mild, almost elated surprise.
“If we must follow the rule of elimination, then yes, you are quite smart,” Shockwave started coolly as he begin to work on welding the cracks of Shockwave’s armor. His voice crawled low, just barely betraying any hint of his carefully veiled nature—the visage bore the cracks of resentment. “The seeker is loud and brass. He behaves quite poorly, especially in the face of Megatron, who lacks the patience for a turn-coat. Had he been a smart mech, he would have kept his helm low under his Lord’s murderous temper. The rest of the Decepticons are no better. All emotional, impulsive, and prone to anger. But you keep to yourself and consider things carefully. Lord Megatron is right to trust you.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“I do not mock.”
“Fair enough.”
Silence. Shockwave could not help but look back up at Soundwave’s face plate. Perhaps he should appreciate this rarity—akin to a discovery of a new facade regarding an elusive species. The communications officer, for all of his bluntness, made of habit of silence.
He seldom spoke to another (unless it was Megatron) unless he were spoken to, and his words were constructed with a sense of caution. The officer’s face was calm, almost sleepy as the CPU diagnosis began to restart the self-repair module in his CPU; his optics, warm suns, stayed relaxed on Shockwave’s bent figure in a strange, twisting scrutiny that made the scientist nervous (he was not nervous, it was something else).
Had he been an imperfect mech with all of his emotional inputs still attached to his processor, he would have found Soundwave quite handsome. A useless thought to have, nonetheless, but he disliked how he did actually entertained the notion at all.
“Doctor, I saw him,” Soundwave admitted quietly.
“Clarify.”
“Optimus Prime.”
Something dull ached in Shockwave’s spark before fading off entirely—a virus killed right on the spot.
“That is logical. He is the commander of the Autobots,” Shockwave stated, controlled. “If there are Autobots, he is always near.”
Soundwave’s optics narrowed and he frowned. “You know what I refer to, Shockwave,” he said without accusation.
“I was friends with Orion Pax.”
“Do you think of him?”
“From time to time,” Shockwave admitted, pulling away with the tip of the welding tool scorching hot with smoke hissing out the snout. He peered down at the communications officer and cocked his helm to the right. Had he actually bore an expression—if he could bear an expression—it be one of irritation and perhaps, intrigue.
“Why,” he started slowly, “are you so concerned of my former relations with Orion Pax? We are friends no longer unless you still believe I owe him some grand allegiance.”
“Again, you misunderstand my intentions, doctor.”
“Do I? So far, it appears my assumption of your intentions have been accurate so far.”
Suddenly, Soundwave reached over and touched Shockwave’s. The sheer act of it alone—the breaching of once perilous, mutually-kept boundaries between the two came tumbling down with a roar; Shockwave gawked at the officer’s servo, long white digits laid serenely on top of his. The intimate exchange of metal—circuity running hot underneath of their frames—was both alien and familiar sensation to the scientist. For it had been a very long time since he was touched by another.
“I was wrong,” Shockwave admitted slowly—chopped. “Your intentions are, indeed, elusive.”
“Not so elusive,” Soundwave mouthed out. He reset his optics twice, more so to ground himself against another wave of pain that seemingly rippled through his ruined frame from the repair diagnosis, and turned his head close. “I never thought you traitor. Though I mistrusted you in the beginning, but because your nature was a bizarre one for me.”
“Most often fear what they don’t understand.”
“I am not scared of you.”
“You should be,” Shockwave pointed out analytically. He still did not swat the officer’s servo away and stared at it. “Everyone in this universe, to me, are numbers. Formulas. Things I can alter and amend and mold. Life itself is just a mathematical equation to be tested, again and again. There are an infinity amount of ways I can transform a subject into a completely brand new entity all together. And most are rational enough to fear what the sculptor can do. Deactivation is a blessing for them.”
“Case in point: you were not always like this,” Soundwave replied back in kind, his vents heaving out in an exhausted drawl. “Senator.”
“Senator Shockwave died when they removed his helm from his shoulders.”
Soundwave’s servo started to curl tight around the scientist’s, a squeeze that was neither threatening or pained—another emotion far more remote and confusing that needed no address.
“Are you so quick to discard your past, senator?” He asked quietly, optics moving lucid across Shockwave’s face plate. “You know, I am an outlier as well.”
“Yes, I know.” A pause. “Ah, you can still read my mind, I assume?”
“Parts of it on rare occasions. Most of the time, I just hear static. Radio silence. Only from you, though. Everyone else, I hear just fine.”
“They stripped my processor,” Shockwave said and, to his surprise, his voice actually rose an octave more—the illusion of resentment, which even he wondered was an illusion or a leaking of functions thought lost. “I was tied down to an operating berth without any sedation. They removed my frame, my spark, my voice box...I could feel them tear out chips and wiring from my processor, each removal—the deactivation of my character, until I could feel no more. All numb. All dark. Until I was an empty box devoid of passion. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a possessed corpse: the senator died a long time. What you see before you is a transformed weapon of logic. I do not believe I rightfully carry my own name. I wield his from a bygone era. This remnant of the past.”
Soundwave stared at him but his gaze held a strange touch of warmth than any forthcoming mockery or fear that Shockwave had been expecting. He then gave a low, shuddering exhaust of his vents and turned his helm up towards the ceiling. The overhead lighting illuminated his handsome face so vividly that Shockwave could see that the officer actually appeared younger than what was believed—he probably was constructed after Shockwave’s formal entry into society.
“They were scared of me,” the officer said, murmuring his words. “They did not understand my nature though I never asked to be born with these functions. And I was scared of myself—all I could hear was voices. Sounds. A never-ending chorus, a miasma. I was going mad on the streets and they ignored me. Found me insane. If only they could share my audials. To hear all thoughts, even in the dead of the lunar cycle—it could make any mech insane. And then...I met them. My family.”
“Ravage.”
“He calls me master but in truth, it was always the reverse. He taught me how to tune everyone out and quiet all the noise. He was my teacher and caretaker. He was the one who got me into the Academy in first place—some attempt at our re-entry into society. To be made useful.”
Shockwave reset his optic and leaned forward. “Y-You were a student at the Academy?” He asked almost incredulous.
“Yes. We never met, Senator. But I long knew your designation. The other outliers, you were all they could ever talked about. And I always wondered why type of mech Senator Shockwave was to even create such a place right under the Senate’s optics. It was only unfortunate that I was shipped off to the Moons and you. The Senate. They.”
“Don’t.”
“Then I met him. Megatron.” Soundwave paused, as though to think his words more carefully. Something like pain flickered vividly across his optics and his expression became solemn. “His world is one I believe in. I care not for your questions on philosophy. On race and purpose. All I ever wanted was a world where I can live in peace with my family. Why is that such a crime to the Autobots?”
Shockwave leaned back, tilting his helm up at the ceiling. He might have been amused entirely by the prospect but, once again, that hard block embedded in his processor killed the virus quickly and effectively.
“I was an Autobot once,” he stated rhetorically.
Soundwave reset his optics. “Yes, you were. Once.”
“I...still remember how I felt,” Shockwave said, feeling the officer’s digits squeeze his servo. “I think I was angry. I must have been. Why else would I harbor wanted fugitives under my wing? To plot and scheme against members of my own council? To save Orion Pax...ah, I cannot recall those feelings anymore. But I know I felt them. Once.”
“The Autobots failed you too.”
“No, Soundwave.”
Shockwave then stood back and allowed the officer’s servo to slip down his and away—the act of retreating shared cold between them. He stared down at the mech—Megatron’s true Decepticon, Ravage’s student, Ravage’s master, a lone father, and now Shockwave’s only confidant. Soundwave laid there, staring up at him: his face now uncovered, in this eerily tragic softness that only emphasized the mech’s cure of victim hood. He, like Orion Pax, covered it. A fear of betraying their own emotions to an apathetic universe.
And Shockwave shut his optic and turned his helm to mask the wave of pain.
“I failed myself. But all will be well. This...transformation of mine was needed. My memories and emotions are an unnecessary burden on true progress. And I won’t let anyone stand in the way of that mission any longer. Not Megatron. Not Optimus Prime.”
He opened his optic only to see Soundwave staring at him, his expression utterly wretched. Pitying.
“Not even you.”