Chapter Text
POWER-ON SELF-TEST COMPLETE
BOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE
WELCOME PROWL OF PRAXUS [SERIAL #EU(t)-381195-b]
FUNCTION: Enforcer (Special Weapons and Tactics), tactical support sub-type
ALT MODE: D280Z Enforcer-class pursuit vehicle
MESSAGE > SUBJECT: Post-Orientation Package – Do Not Review at This Time
COMMAND > ONLINE YOUR OPTICS
Prowl obeyed the command. There was no reason not to, and Prowl was curious about his surroundings, his function, the world that awaited him. His first sight was of an assembly line of Cybertronians, models identical to himself, held upright in racks. Prowl could hear quiet sounds he knew must be other mecha moving, and he looked around. They were not his batch-mates, who remained standing as still as he was. Once again, his datatrax supplied the answer: priest-technicians and Enforcers from previous batches. The priest-technicians would ensure everyone's spark installed and booted up correctly, and the Enforcers were greeting their assigned mentees. Prowl fully expected to be sorted into a group and taken to the precinct he would serve.
Instead, the priest-technician plugged into his medical port, ran a scan, and then reran it. Then, he was separated out and sent to stand off to one side with a handful of others. The reason was not explained to him, and Prowl frowned, unsure of why he was being treated differently but not liking it.
"They didn't tell you anything either, did they?" the mech on his left murmured.
"Negative." Prowl glanced over at them, but only briefly. He had been told to stand quietly in line after all. But he wanted more information.
Prowl scanned his systems for a means of communication, found it under Communications > Short Range > Interpersonal. The mech on his left had his serial number a piece of clear tape on his chest, as did Prowl. It read EU(t)-381202-d, but Prowl would not have wanted to be called solely by a number, and it was likely this mech would feel the same. Prowl accessed the data on how to use his internal comm systems to contact another individual, did so. After three-point-seven nano-kliks
'What is your designation?' Prowl asked in as short-range a broadcast as he could manage.
'Smokescreen. Special Weapons and Tactics.'
'Prowl. I was to be assigned to the same division.'
'Past tense,' Smokescreen noted. 'What are the odds we're being reassigned?'
'High.'
Smokescreen simply sent back a glyph of agreement, and then they both fell silent again. Six more of their batch-mates joined them on the outskirts. Prowl did not have an explanation for what was going on, and he found he disliked it. None of his other batch-mates made overtures of communication, and Prowl did not risk additional transmission attempts.
Prowl could not specify why he felt it was a risk. He simply did. He did not feel reassured when the other newly sparked Enforcers left, and he and his group remained. There were twelve of them by then, but Prowl had no more information than he had before.
When the command came to follow a senior Enforcer and board a transport, Prowl balked.
"Where are we going, and why?" Prowl demanded.
The senior Enforcer looked surprised at Prowl speaking up, but he answered. The priest-technician standing next to him just looked affronted.
"You've been selected as viable candidates for the installation and testing of advanced tactical equipment," they were told. "You're being taken to a facility owned by the company that built you, the Tri-Torus Manufacturing Consortium, for upgrades. The hours you spend participating in the trials will be credited, in shanix, toward repayment of your construction debts."
"We owe you for building us?" someone asked from the back of the group.
"The details of your debt and the methods of repayment and increase are included in your post-orientation packages," the Enforcer said, sounding more sympathetic than Prowl would have expected. "You're not going to orientation, but the debt remains. Use the time in the transport to review the package instead."
"What if we don't want to be part of your trials?" another mech asked. "Can't we just, I don't know, go be Enforcers like we were built for? Or-or something else?"
"You were built to fulfill a function," the priest-technician told them all sternly. "As Primus wills and you will perform your function or be – " there was a pause Prowl did not like " – recalled."
There were no more questions after that, and the group boarded the transport.
During the trip, Prowl did as the Enforcer had ordered and reviewed his orientation package. In brief, he owed the City of Praxus one and a quarter million shanix for his construction and projected housing, fuelling, medical and training costs over the next five vorn. He would receive a salary, but it was strongly suggested that he put this toward his construction debt as much as possible. Additional costs above the projected amount would be added to the debt as they were incurred. The interest charged on the debt was eleven percent annually and would be added to the principal, where it would compound if it were not paid off each deca-cycle.
Smokescreen pinged him again just as they turned through a pair of massive security gates.
'Odds on being able to pay off this debt?'
'Without further input or methods of acquiring funds to make additional payments, not worth calculating.'
'What do you think they're going to do us?'
'I don't know.'
What they were going to do, it turned out, was run the newsparks through various aptitude tests, and then sort them into groups for installation of experimental systems and software. Prowl was placed in a group marked for tactical upgrades. What happened to Smokescreen, or either of the mecha who had spoken up earlier, Prowl did not see.
With little in the way of explanation, Prowl was taken to a medical area and prepared for surgery. He supposed he should have protested, but advanced tactical systems would give him an advantage if he needed to plan a way out of the facility. He could also use the rebate towards his construction debt. Compliance also seeded complacency; they would be watching anyone who protested or made trouble.
One of his batch-mates did protest, demanding more information. They were sedated anyway, removing any illusions of choice Prowl might have harboured. He did not fight it as he went offline.
The second time Prowl booted up, it was not to a neat, orderly flow of information across his HUD. The data was disjointed, pixelated, and that was all he noted before the pain crashed in on him. He howled, reaching up to grip his helm, fire lancing across his neural net. Someone swore, and he felt a shock go through him, then the pain receded. Prowl did not know what had happened, he was just grateful not to hurt anymore. Around him, it sounded as if some of the others were not so lucky; he could hear cries of pain, grinding gears, the clattering of tools and metal limbs shaking. Monitors of some kind that had been beeping ever more rapidly suddenly shrieked then dropped back down. Two of them beeped arrhythmically, out of sync with each other, while a third was simply a flat tone.
The time of death was called, and the chaos seemed to lessen. Prow lay there, still faintly in pain, listening to instructions be given for the disposal of the remains of a mech who had lived less than a full cycle.
"Wait for these two to stabilize, then uninstall the hardware," a voice said. "They're incompatible with the program but should still be able to perform their original function. Praxus can still get its money worth."
"Yes, sir. What about EU(t)-381195-b? He seemed to have the least issue with the technology."
"Is he stable?"
"The stun seems to have stabilized him, yes, sir."
"Hm."
Footsteps approached him. Prowl briefly tried to bring his optics online, but the room was too bright, light stabbing into his processor. Someone plugged into the medical port on the back of his neck, scanned him.
"Well, it definitely didn't install as expected," a voice said thoughtfully, "but it's workable, in a fashion. Put him back under and have a coding specialist see if there's anything we can do for a workaround."
Prowl was not given a chance to express an opinion on this.
The third time Prowl onlined, it was to a standard boot sequence and the news that three cycles had passed. The glyphs on Prowl's HUD were clear and not pixelated and included a separate boot sequence for a new tactical processing unit. There was no pain, but Prowl still ran a quick diagnostic before even attempting to move. Only when everything came back green did he even think about bringing his optics online.
"Don't sit up yet," he was cautioned as he attempted to do just that. A mech in red and white – Finetune, Medic, he/him their RFID supplied – came over to him. "I'm just going to run a quick check, and then I'll let you know about the adjustments to your new systems."
"I will first require an explanation of the new systems," Prowl pointed out. "I was not supplied with information before their installation and am unfamiliar with the reason for them."
"Oh." Finetune frowned. "That – you really should have been informed. But you agreed to it?"
"It would be more accurate to say I did not disagree with it."
"Er…Well, there were a few different systems installed in the different groups. You were given an advanced battle computer designed to supplement your existing tactical systems." Finetune looked uncomfortable, adding, "it…didn't install well for anyone, but you were the one who had the highest rate of synchronization and the least amount of damage. That's not to say it installed perfectly, but we think we've found a workaround."
"'A workaround,'" Prowl repeated, sitting up. "What do I need to work around?"
"Well…"
Finetune went on to explain that there had been severe conflicts between Prowl's existing systems and the battle computer's coprocessors. They had been able to fix most of them, but in certain circumstances, notably, when he was not able to reconcile two forms of data, the systems had attempted to force a reboot. The difficulty was, they had tried to reboot separately, conflicting with each other and creating and a loop of restarts. The fix they had eventually settled on was that when one system failed and attempted to reboot, the other system would automatically reset as well. It was not a perfect fix: Prowl would, inevitably, experience crashes when this happened. But it was the only thing they'd been able to come up with.
"In some ways, it worked too well," Finetune continued. "It integrated with your systems in unexpected ways, and we weren't able to uninstall it as we did with the other sub – patients."
"With two of them," Prowl corrected. "One of my batch-mates died. If I crash when there is conflict, what happens if I online and attempt to address the same issue? Will it result in another crash?"
"It took a long time for the coding specialists to work it out, but they made a special modification to your short-term memory cache. Normally it clears when you reboot or shut down for recharge," Finetune told him. "Yours will still do that unless you crash. When you crash due to conflict between the advanced systems and your standard systems, you'll be able to access your short-term memory in a protected mode. You can determine what caused the crash and decide how to proceed to avoid it."
"I see." Prowl was not sure how to feel about that yet, but it wasn't the most important thing right now. "What will happen to me now?"
"They're – not done with the testing," Finetune said quietly. "You'll stay here for continued beta-testing of the systems and potentially future upgrades as well. Depending on the success of the beta-tests."
"Do the future upgrades carry risks like the ones we just received?"
Finetune wouldn't answer. He just handed Prowl some energon and told him to fuel, saying he would need it. Prowl debated pushing for more information, then decided that compliance would gain him more, and obeyed.
Prowl attempted to access the local DataNet to gain more information on the city of Praxus, the Consortium, and any information about the facility or current experiment. He was locked out of everything, including the public files. He frowned, not liking this and knowing there had to be a way around it. While he fuelled, Prowl searched his datatrax and the operating instructions for the experimental computer now installed in his head. He did not precisely have training on cracking secure systems, but with the data he had on it and his newly upgraded processing power, determining how was trivial.
Prowl wrote a brief script to gain him limited access to the facility DataNet. He was aware it was likely crude and in need of refinement, but it would do for now. Prowl didn't like what was happening here, didn't trust the facility staff, and did not want to be an experiment. He needed to decide what to do, and before that, he needed information.
Prowl sent the command to run the script and lay back, waiting for the results.