Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nobody’s perfect, we’ve all lost and we’ve all lied

Most of us have cheated, the rest of us have tried

          — Kacey Musgraves, “Biscuits”

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He liked seeing his targets in person. It gave him perspective and allowed his meager telepathic talent to give him a bit of insight.

Discretely Clover compared the image his client had given him to the mech playing Predacon Ante down on the gaming floor. A blue and red Praxan with the racing markings that indicated he occasionally participated in the casino’s amateur mech races, he wasn’t much too look at. Smokescreen, one of the Breakwater’s professional gamblers. They were in the second round of the current gambit, the dealer had already taken the casino’s rake, and Smokescreen was charming the other players with some sort of story or joke. It didn’t matter which. The gambler did have considerable charm and the other players (none of them native Praxans, Clover noticed) weren’t taking losing too hard, they were having so much fun. Distraction. Misdirection.

That was what professional gamblers did; they won more money for the casino they worked for and made sure the losers still had fun doing it.

That persona he used while gambling went all the way down to his spark; it wasn’t a facade adopted on behalf of his employer, but his name was accurate. The layers of doublethink and misdirection ran deep in him. A trait that probably served him well as a gambler. Still. He couldn’t figure out why his client might be interested in Smokescreen, however. He looked like a normal example of his type.

But then, since when did this client need a reason. He might have hired — he snorted through his vents and admonished himself to be honest with himself if no one else — coerced Clover just to find a reason to justify that interest. He suppressed a shudder. He didn’t like thinking about this client. He may not be much of a telepath, but he knew a psychopath when he brushed up against one’s firewalls. He might have been tempted to turn his own skills loose trying to figure him out, but he wouldn’t dare. Investigating such people was not a healthy past time.

No. He wouldn’t touch the one he was currently employed by. That was for someone braver than him. He just had to do his own part: Smokescreen.

Smokescreen… What makes you tick? What weaknesses might you have for another to exploit?

Clover turned away. He’d seen what he needed. To find the answers his client sought, he’d have to start at the beginning…

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tbc…

Chapter Text

Designation: Smokescreen

Serial Number: 6271-5345-3559-0833

Construction Information:

Commissioned by Praxus Peacekeeping and Policing Corporation

Standard street-legal racing frame

Materials provided by the Metals, Minerals and Mining consortium, batch #6749

Constructed at MMM frame construction factory #8

Spark sourced from the Fairview Well of Sparks, provided by Fairview Spark Harvesting Inc, batch #20,569,721

Processor Information:

Intex XII advanced processor

Advanced Intuition upgrade

Medical OX 25 Boskoop Operating System

Standard Medical Database

Type IV Psychological Database

Criminal Psychosis database upgrade

PPP Corp Procedures Database

Basic PPP SWAT Tactical Database upgrade — installed approx 55 vorns after being brought online 

Standard Praxan Citizen Database

Games and Gaming database upgrade

Caste: Medical

Subcaste: Psychiatric Medicine

Intended Function: Criminal Profiler

Note: Due to budget cuts, PPP Corp was unable to take possession of Smokescreen’s frame and spark. Praxus Medical Association, through the Praxan Medical University, purchased the commission from PPP Corp before he was first brought online.

School Transcript:

Smokescreen is a highly personable mech. His spark has proven exceedingly compatible with his frame’s medical databases and modifications, and he has proven to be highly adaptable in a variety of social situations. Both will prove valuable in any psychiatric profession within the Praxus Medical Association. Correspondingly, Smokescreen’s accounts would be a valuable addition to the PMA if it weren’t for an overabundance of other character traits.

He is highly independent and confident. While both are good traits for any medical professional in moderation , in Smokescreen, youthful enthusiasm had made him determined to forge his own path outside the PMA and open his own practice. However valuable his accounts with the PMA may be, it is my personal recommendation that he be allowed to do so.

If he succeeds, then his personal practice will be worth purchasing. If he does not, and it is not at that point too expensive to do so, the PMA can consider opening a new account with him at that time.

— Starbreaker

Dean of Student Life

Praxus Medical University

School of Programming and Psychiatric Medicine

Credit History:

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“I’m here,” the voice on the other end of the comm line growled. He must have woken his friend from recharge… which only made sense since this was very early morning on his only day off. Bluelight was a law student, specializing in Medical Ethics and as such was taking classes both here at the PMU campus and across the educational district at Valor Law Uni. This meant he spent almost every joor in classes, at his student work internship or studying. Definitely not a party mecha, not like Smokescreen, which in Smokescreen’s opinion only made the parties he did attend all that much more entertaining. Bluelight needed to seriously unwind and knew it, so when he did party, he turned it up to eleven and didn’t dial it back until he passed out. He didn’t sound like he was in a party mood at the moment though.

Smokescreen didn’t care. He was giddy and the news he had to share was making his giddiness practically bubble out of his fuel tank. He felt over-energized. He had to tell someone.

“Hey Bluelight. Guess who.”

Eventually.

“There is such a thing as caller ID, aftwipe,” he growled back. “Stop being such an aft and get to why you’re calling me right as I managed to get to sleep,” ow, right… even lawyers had to do a term of residency as an orderly at the PMU teaching hospital — far be it for management to pass up the free labor, “or I’m going to pour acid down your intake next time I see you.”

He felt sorry for waking his friend, but at the same time Smokescreen just couldn’t help it. He laughed, hight and loud and almost a bray. “Maybe,” he crooned when he could use his vocalizer again, “I should have said ‘guess what?’” which was not getting to the point at all.

He giggled as his friend’s temper exploded. “You are such a Pit-slagged aft-head. Half-finished construction of a racing drone. What could possibly be so important that you called on my one day off a decaorn and wake me… and being such a giggly…” Bluelight trailed off and Smokescreen giggled louder as his friend figured it out. “No way.”

“Yes way.” He practically radiated smug down the comm line. 

“You really did it! You got your certification!”

“Totally did.” Smokescreen pinged him his new designation glyph. Now, rather than Smokescreen PMA Psychiatric Intern, it proclaimed him Smokescreen Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine. 

Fifteen vorns ago he’d graduated from the University — the only real medical university in Praxus — with honors and now, finally, had managed to pay his creation-debt. He still had his student loans to pay, of course, but now he was certified and could take jobs outside the Medical Association. Which meant, hopefully, clearing those loans faster. He couldn’t take out loans to start a private practice if he still had student loans to pay off. Supposedly it was because still having those was a measure of inexperience. Banks didn’t want to take chances on an untried medic. Never mind that a medical certification required a specialized processor and OS, thirty vorns of classes, ten in residency and having paid back whoever created your frame. No~o, as long as you had unpaid student loans you were too inexperienced to open a private practice.

But that was later in Smokescreen’s mind. Tonight…

“Awesome!” Bluelight crowed back, no longer even the least bit annoyed for the rude awakening.

“Ninetail and I are going to the Breakwater to celebrate tonight. Want to come? Bring your own gambling money, but I’m buying the engex.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t want to be fifth wheel if the two of you decided wanted a bit more of a personal celebration.”

Smokescreen huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my best friend. Buddies before maybe-bondmates.”

“Allright. I’ll be there.”

All day he couldn’t settle. It was happening. Finally happening. He was certified and he was getting on with the rest of his life. No more bartending. No more taking every job the university had to offer, from office work to nursing to raise more shanix. Finally he could start doing what he’d been programmed to do. He tried settling to play Flip on his virtual casino account, but he kept losing focus or randomly getting up to pace excitedly timing the computer out and finally he decided that he had to stop or else he wouldn’t have any shanix to buy drinks tonight. 

After the fourth time he called her at work, Ninetail blocked his calls and he could not describe how relieved he was when she finally showed up with a new canister of polish. They both were going to look their best tonight.

Breakwater was a tourist resort, one of the biggest and best in all of Praxus. Mechs came from all over Cybertron to gamble, drink, rent luxury rooms, get pampered by a skilled detailer, and relax. Which meant the casino floors were bright and noisy and anything but relaxing.

The overall theme of the Breakwater was shades of blue and white, with copper for a metallic contrast; the exact patterns and textures seemed to change constantly as you walked through the building. Planted crystals and antigrave chandeliers tried to give the casino an air of elegance, while various game machines were more honest with their tacky, flashing lights.

Look here! Look here! Big prizes! Great odds! Easy win! Look here!

Lights and noises. Catchy jingles and booming celebrity voices. The sounds of shanix spilling and of mechs whoop!ing in celebration. Beep! Chirp! Ding! DING!ding!ding!ding!ding! The available games bombarded a mech’s senses, a discordant, disorienting miasma of temptation.

And the people. There were mechs from every area of the planet. Nobles from the Towers of Iacon with their pet turbofoxes perched on their shoulders watching the press of Cybertronian bodies predatorily. Seekers from Vos in every color, wings fluttering like a cloud of butterflies. Miners from Kaon polished up and blowing a millennia of savings on a single night of irresponsibility. The air was practically ionized with the presence of so many wildly fluctuating magnetic fields.

It wasn’t someplace a newly certified psychologist could afford to frequent, but for a single night of celebratory gambling and drinking it was perfect.

The pyrotechnics fountain out front was fantastic, so they stuck around for the firedance parade before they went in, draped in cheap crystal beads that had been tossed out into the crowd by the performers. They leaned against each other and laughed like they were already drunk. Any other city on Cybertron they would’ve been hard pressed to convince the police that no, they really didn’t need to spend some time in the local drunk tank, but Praxus liked drunk gamblers. Even ones who weren’t, yet, drunk.

Now, ensconced at a table in the Castaway Lounge, one of the smaller energon bars in the casino, Smokescreen fended off Bluelight and Ninetail’s attempts to drape their beads around his neck. 

He escaped Ninetail’s latest attempt by gathering her into his arms (conveniently pinning hers away from his neck) and nibbling her slender chevron until she forgot about the strand of crystals in her hand. Which of course didn’t stop Bluelight from snagging them before they dropped to the ground and draping them over his blue and red sensor panel. Smokescreen glared at him, but didn’t remove the beads. Bluelight laughed and raised his cube of fizzy, violently green engex. “To Smokescreen. And to finally being free of the University!”

Both of them raised their own cubes and clinked them together. A few mechs at nearby tables — Praxans, like them, out for a night of living the high life — raised their own cubes as well. Smokescreen’s was an aptly named yellow semi-gelled called a Party Slush. Ninetail's was a Copper Sparkler the same pale orange as her plating, which quite literally threw sparks if the cube moved too rapidly. Ninetail liked the sparks and had a tendency to deliberatly slosh the drink.

Smokescreen didn’t like Sparklers at all, but he flirtatiously licked a drop of energon from Ninetail’s lips anyway just to hear her squeak and giggle.

“Allright,” Bluelight shoved them away from each other. “Break it up. Getting a fifth wheel feeling here.” Both of them backed off, apologizing. “Yea sure. You two are so cute together its sickening. What happened to ‘buddies before potential bondmates’?”

Ninetail whacked the him lightly across the chevron and Smokescreen made a show of ducking away like she’d damaged him. “Really Smokes?”

“Lies all lies,” both his companions glared at him. He ducked his head to get away from the angry — oh so angry — optics and meekly squeaked, “I admit nothing.”

Which honestly was such a Smokescreen thing to say that all three of them laughed. Faux pas forgiven.

Absently he waved down a server with a hundred-shanix credit chip. When she came over he pointed to the screen where brightly-colored racing drones were lining up at the starting line of the holo-track, primitive emotional protocols making them rev their massive engines and Wark! WarkI Wark!wark!wark!wark!wark! in excitement. They looked a bit like a mech’s vehicle form — mostly two-wheeled — but had no primary form, no higher processing ability and of course no spark. He named off a drone on the screen at random and the server left with his money and choice recorded. His friends looked at him and he shrugged. Losing obscene amounts of money while celebrating was traditional in Praxus.

“So…” Bluelight leaned forward, bracing himself against the table to loom tipsily into Smokescreen’s personal space, “You posed your certification on the WeWantYou virtual network, right? Get any offers yet?”

“I don’t know,” Ninetail was trying to cuddle again, sensor panel knocking clumsily against his, but this was an important question. Important enought to deserve all his drunken attention so he pulled away to pull out his Portable Personal Computer and check. “Let’s see.”

There Are 25 Job Offers Waiting For You!

That was good news.

The first response was from WeWantYou itself: Career Councilor. It was so ridiculous that all three of them burst out laughing. The thought of having that as his first job post-certification was just that hilarious. They came back to themselves in time to raise their cubes to toast a nearby mech’s announcement of his impending bonding and flipped to the next job offer.

The key word in “psychology certification” apparently was “interpersonal skills”. There was the usual slew of customer service jobs any applicant who was reasonably social got. Selling trinkets at the Crystal Gardens gift shop. Greeting visitors to the Cathedral of Unicron. Cooking energon treats at the Knight’s Saloon Bar and Grill. A full dozen offers from various touring companies looking for guides. The Obelisk Hotel needed a Three Predacon Ante dealer… The Red Chrome drone stables needed a programmer…Again all three of them were sent into peals of laughter when they saw that WeWantYou had matched him for an opening for a bartender at the Howling Rogue Tavern, which was his current job and the manager had posted in anticipation of Smokescreen leaving now that he had his certification.

Funny as it was though, it was also frustrating. He knew the system considered him “inexperienced” but was there really nothing for a mech with a full psychiatric medicine database and a degree from the best medical school in Praxus?

“Wait!” Ninetail pointed at the PPC’s screen. “Back up. What was that last one?”

Smokescreen did so. And stared.

Praxus Peacekeeping and Policing Corporation and Criminal Profiler stared back.

“Whoa…” Bluelight said what they were all thinking. Which admittedly wasn’t much. PPP didn’t hire its profilers; the company bought them, special made from the programming out and educated at their own private training facility. Dazed, Smokescreen clicked the link for More Information.

It was just the same job description for Security Consultant - Profiler that various hotels, resorts and casinos posted (and which hadn’t been matched to his profile). Exactly the same, like whoever had created the criminal profiler offer hadn’t quite known how to do it and had copied and pasted the details from one of the security consultant adverts to cover his lack of knowledge.

“Okay. Wow.” Smokescreen finished off his Party Slush and waved to the server for another. He was getting used to the idea now and the half gelled engex gave him the courage he might not have had otherwise. Besides, if he other offers were anything to go by, he wasn’t going to get anything better until he could open his own practice, and if PPP was getting desperate enough to hire profilers he should take advantage. Do his civic duty. “Sure. Why not?”

Bluelight looked dubious. “PPP’s pretty sketchy. Almost everyone who takes a job with them ends up indentured. Like seriously. It’s why they like buying their specialists off the assembly lines. They start with your frame-debt.”

That was the rumor anyway, but it sounded like Bluelight had more than mere gossip. Details were now needed. “Come on Blue, spill. You can’t say something like that and then stop.” 

Sensor panels drew up uncertainly, then drooped in resignation. “I wanted to be a criminal lawyer — a criminal defense lawyer. You know? Help people.”

“Never could figure out why you switched to medical ethics.”

“One of my teachers at Valor talked me out of it. PPP’s not interested in defending criminals; defense lawyer’s got no place there. So you end up freelancing. Freelancer’s got the same rights and privileges as any Praxan, but PPP won’t take your money for protection.” Smokescreen winced. Every Praxan paid a fee to the Praxus Peacekeeping and Policing Corporation so that they could investigate robberies, kidnappings, murders and other crimes. Not paying the fee meant that if you ran into criminal trouble, PPP wouldn’t help at all. Refusing to let someone pay the fee was tantamount to painting a target on their sensor panels. Bluelight noticed the wince. “Yeah exactly. So freelancers end up paying one of the Consortiums” — Smokescreen winced again; Consortiums was a collective term for Praxus’ various organized crime enterprises — “and they aren’t any more interested in defending innocent Praxans than PPP is.”

Ninetail’s voice was soft and melodious as it always was. “So how’s medical ethics better? You’ll just end up working for PMA or Praxus R&D.” And while PMA was mostly okay, Praxus Research and Development was … well, if PPP was ‘sketchy’, then R&D was just a nightmare.

“I’ll hire back on with PMA. Working for them as a lobbyist, I’m at least working to keep the science caste in check.”

Smokescreen leaned forward, interested despite the buzz of the engenx flowing through him, “A lobbyist? Really?” He couldn’t really imagine his easy going fun friend as the stolid and serious type that could navigate the treacherous politics of the Praxus City Council. “I thought the corps just bribed the Council to pass whatever they wanted.”

Both his companions snorted through their vents, as though to inform him that that highly pessimistic point of view was entirely too naive. “Yea,” Bluelight was the one who answered, “but in the case of PMA and R&D, they both throw so much money at just thwarting each other it actually does come down to the lawyers and lobbyists to pass antything.”

And that sounded so much like the legendary rivalry between the two that Smokescreen laughed until he hiccuped. According to the Funtionalist dogma that ruled Cybertron and divided transformers into their respective castes, medical was part of the science caste, but in Praxus the PMA had enough autonomy from R&D that they were two separate entities. Two entities that hated each others’ circuits, and both of them throwing enough bribe money into the equation to cancel themselves out was entirely too believable. Beside him, both Bluelight and Ninetail had also dissolved into drunken giggles.

Giggles that subsided when the waitress brought that all-important next round of drinks. Cause that’s why they were here. Drinking and gambling and you couldn’t do that without drinks.

Oooo! This time the Party Slush had come with an energon treat on a skewer. Smokescreen picked it up and blinked at it, then solemnly offered it to Ninetail, who giggled again as she nibbled it. Cute!

“So you gonna take the job?” Bluelight changed the subject. Or brought the conversation back on topic, depending on how you looked at it.

Smokescreen blinked. HIs processor was still on the image of Ninetail’s nibbling and the how he could entice her to maybe do that to his wing panels in the near future. “What job?”

“PPP? Criminal Profiler? Any of this ringing a bell?”

Right! The job! “Sure.” Smokescreen shrugged his sensor panels. “I’ll be careful. Manage things right and PPP won’t catch me.”

Bluelight snorted his opinion of that. “Make sure you keep paying your fees then. They’ll tell you the fees are suspended while you work of them, but that means they’ll just dump them on you when you try to quit. That’s how they caught Colby — my teacher.”

Smokescreen picked up the PPC and hit the Schedule Interview? link. “I’ll keep that in mind. Believe me, Bluelight, I’m not going to be indentured to anyone.” He subspaced the computer. “Now I think it’s past time we got to the ‘gambling’ part of the celebratory evening of ‘drinking and gambling’ started.”

A last round of toasts (“To Gambling!” Which mechs throughout the bar joined in on) and they stumbled out onto the casino floor.

Smokescreen never did bother to find out the results of that race.

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Frame Debt: Paid to Praxan Medical University

Student Loans: Paid to Praxan Medical University

Up to date on all fees and taxes.

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tbc…

Chapter Text

Praxus Peacekeeping and Policing Records attached

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Ten vorns in, Smokescreen was almost ready to give up his dream of a private practice. 

Not because of anything bad. No. He’d just discovered that he loved being a criminal profiler. It was engaging and diverse and definitely got the spark beating at times. There were reasons he had one of the highest solve-rates of any of the mechs that worked in a consultative role, rather than a investigative one. Sometimes it was depressing too, like now, but he felt like the good really did outweigh the bad here.

Smokescreen frowned as he watched the interview in progress. The suspect was a highly priced escort who’d recently begun murdering her clients. Inside the room she ranted and raved and even tried to attack Arui and Delaine, who were conducting the interview, two-near twins with identical standard Interceptor chassis, both painted in standard PPP day-shift black and white. She, by contrast, had made a mess — a deliberate mess, Smokescreen was sure — of her flashy, high gloss patterns of blue-on-blue. She was undoubtedly guilty and the trial would be short; Prism Escort Services. was eager to rid themselves of her account.

That account would belong to PPP for resale before the decaorn was through. Usually those debts were resold to a company with a penal contract with PPP, like Metals, Minerals and Mining, but a mining and manufacturing company wouldn’t pay much for a pleasurebot.

He frowned and leaned forward, towards the room’s hidden window, and watched. He wasn’t sure any of the other options wouldn’t do more harm than good.

Of course there were also times where he was reminded as to just why he wanted a private practice, rather than a PMA-run one. Sometimes a patient needed something different than the standardized regimens of diagnosis and programming patches.

After the interview, Arui invited himself over to Smokescreen’s desk like he often did after a mentally exhausting case and dropped into the chair across from him. Smokescreen ignored him as the officer played with one of the many gadgets he kept there for just that purpose. He was the only PMA/U psychologist on staff and as such he entertained many such unofficial visitors. Discreetly he flipped on the white noise generator under his desk and Auri’s sensor panels twitched in response. Then they relaxed. Between the noise and the partitions around his desk — which was what, after only ten vorns working here, had earned the space the nickname of “The Cube” — whatever Arui was here to talk about would remain private.

Even more discreetly he nudged the spydrone that always seemed assigned to hang out under his desk into a file drawer and locked it in.

Still the officer didn’t put down the little puzzle he’d picked up. Sometimes that was all he needed, so Smokescreen didn’t push. He just waited, pretending to be completely absorbed in his reports.

Finally Arui threw the toy back onto the desk and leaned forward. “You submit your report to Tiver yet?”

“Yes,” Smokescreen answered, putting aside the reports he had been reviewing to focus on his guest. To soften the shift in attention, he poured out a pair of miniature cubes of gold-sweetened energon and handed one to Arui. “You’re worried for her?”

Black and white panels shrugged indifferently, but Smokescreen knew better. Arui had been, like all PPP officers, trained to maintain the PPP-standard facade of inflexible authority in public, but he was young — sparked only three vorns ago — and had a good spark. 

Pushing him on it, however, was not the best of ideas. Sometimes a mech needed to lie to himself in order to stay sane. “I maintain, just as I did during the investigation, that Lilac is not suffering from any sort of mental illness and as such does not need to be sent to either PMA or R&D to have her code studied.” Arui’s sensor panels drooped in relief — deeper relief than Smokescreen would expect over simply worrying for a suspect’s wellbeing. He pondered the reaction while he continued. “Nor will I recommend spark extraction,” not that he ever did; it was well documented that spark extraction did nothing to correct criminal behavior and often exacerbated any potential flaws in a bot’s programming that could potentially lead to mental illnesses. And that wasn’t even touching on the issues resulting from that sort of extreme isolation. “I am recommending counseling. I don’t believe she’ll ever be safe to put to work in any job without it. I’m also recommending a full frame-change and a change of caste. Military,” as scandalous as it might seem in other cities, Praxus was familiar with the idea of convict soldiers, “preferably, but any caste where she’ll be given agency over her own actions will do. I am also warning that it will never be safe to approach her for any sort of interface. She will react negatively to the suggestion, no matter how innocent, and that information needs to be added to her IFF codes.”

Arui nodded pensively. Slowly his feelings were leaking out of his officer-facade. “That’ll be nice.”

Now Smokescreen narrowed his optics. “And it’s all information you could have gotten from my report. As the investigating officer, you have access to the records. So why don’t you tell me the real reason your here?”

The young officer fiddled with his tiny cube of energon, wanting the distraction, but uncertain about actually drinking the expensive mixture. “Do… things like that happen often?”

Suddenly the mech’s earlier relief clicked in Smokescreen’s processor. Both Arui and Lilac had been sparked to do a specific job, and both were feeling the stress of that job. And finally that stress had caused Lilac to go on a killing spree. Arui wasn’t just worried for Lilac’s fate, but that he might be destined for something similar.

“Often enough,” he responded cautiously. It wouldn’t do anything good to lie to him. “But that doesn’t mean anything for you. Lilac had her reasons and made her own choices; they don’t necessarily reflect yours.” Arui nodded slowly. In truth, Smokescreen wasn’t saying anything new to him. These were things he had to have thought, but Smokescreen, Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine had more authority than the empty reassurances of his own processor. “So the question is: How do you feel about being a police officer?”

The youngling fidgeted again, and finally sipped at his cube to hide how much he didn’t want to answer that question. Smokescreen, to visibly take his attention off the kid while he made up his mind, turned on a deck of holo-cards and dealt out a solo version of Adventure (Sorcerers of the Fallen) and idly began play. His character with this deck was pretty advanced, so it didn’t take nearly as much attention away from Arui’s fidgets as it appeared.

“I like it,” the kid finally said, almost whispering like someone confessing to the worship of Unicron to a priest of Primus. And here, inside the precinct, he might as well have been. Not that he enjoyed being a police officer, but what he said next certainly wasn’t something PPP would approve of. “I like being able to help people with their problems. It just sometimes feels like I can’t do enough, and that gets frustrating.”

It wasn’t an unexpected confession. Smokescreen had known Arui since the young officer was let out of orientation, only a decaorn after being sparked. “Well… in my expert opinion there’s a few things you can do about that. You could distract yourself with gambling. You could take up the time-honored past time of drinking yourself into a stupor.” Arui made a disgusted face. Smokescreen really hadn’t thought that would be the young officer’s first choice. “Or you could take up a second job that fills that need. At one of the temples to Primus, perhaps.”

Arui nodded, but then his panels flinched. “What about PPP policies stating that we,” he ducked his head and tucked in his wing panels, even as he gestured to them, and the black and white color scheme that marked him as an indentured officer, “aren’t allowed to take jobs outside the corporation?”

The red and blue psychiatrist gestured, quote-unquote, carelessly with the holo-card currently in his hand. “I’d suggest checking the fine print. Delaine,” who was a devout Unicronian, a member of the Reforged sect, “and I went through this when he started talking about wanting to become a minister. Temple jobs are specifically mentioned as exceptions to that as part of Guardian Prime’s Freedom of Worship Act. Tetradite and the Cult of Unicron vs. Metals, Minerals and Mining is a fascinating legal case by-the-way.”

They talked about the specifics for a while, Smokescreen making sure they never wandered too far away from things that might address Arui’s specific frustration, and when he left his desk with his sensor panels held high, proud and enthusiastic, Smokescreen couldn’t help but twitch his own in pride. This was why he wanted his own practice, he reminded himself. The officers were in high-stress situations, of course, and needed more help than he could give them with just a set of flimsy barriers and a white noise generator for privacy. And they weren’t the only ones either… though after working here, he’d never fail to give a PPP officer a discount for his services. 

Wouldn’t do to have their police taking Lilac’s solution to job-frustration after all.

He remembered to let the spydrone out of confinement once they were done and he saw mechs around him hiding smiles as the thing squealed binary curses at him from where he left it sitting in his chair. Which, he had to admit, was more amusing than accumulating citations for forgetting about them until they deactivated from lack of energy and the accompanying lectures from Tiver.

As Smokescreen left the bullpen, someone called out his name. He turned to see the night shift supervisor for the precinct waving him down. He slowed, letting Moonlight catch up. He didn’t salute — in the Byzantine internal ranking system of PPP, which had only a passing resemblance to their official ranks, as a non-indentured specialist, he outranked a mere shift supervisor — but he did waggle his wing panels in polite greeting, then dipped them in acknowledgement of the other’s seniority.

He received a polite waggled in return as Moonlight drew up into conversational distance. “I have a proposition — business — for you. In private. If you’re not busy.”

“Of course.” He didn’t lead the other back to his desk and it’s white noise generator. That was strictly for psychiatric work with his colleagues. It was the only way he was allowed to keep it. If this annoyed Moonlight, he didn’t show it. Briefly, he wondered where in the precinct other than Smokescreen’s desk he expected a conversation to remain private. There were casinos who didn’t employ as many spydrones as were crawling around this place.

That was answered when he was led to an energon cafe only a few catwalks away. He took the opportunity presented by the short walk to examine his companion. Interceptor frame — either sparked by PPP to be an officer or dedicated to the job enough to spring for a full reframe. His paint, however, was a very non-PPP standard dark and darker blue with white biolights that actually faded to a dusky, dimmed silver that would make him look unhealthy if it weren’t also so obviously deliberate. Smokescreen’d bet his wing panels those could be dimmed even further to a mere whisper of light. Definitely specialized for night work on the streets.

Also… not indentured, though his name gave that away just as well as his paint. 

Cop-shop, was his first thought about the cafe when they walked in. The decor had seen better days, but the scents of energon were clean and pure, and even now in addition to its other patrons there was a trio of night shift officers in standard PPP nightshift black and grey in the corner booth with their heads bowed over their PPCs and a table full of datachips and empty cubes. They didn’t look up, but the waved their panels in absentminded greeting as they passed. 

“Homeworlds or Insecticon Wars?” Moonlight asked as they slid into their booth and activated the holo display in the center of the table.

The choice was telling. Both were player vs player games (though Wars did have an AI mode) and were traditionally bet on by spectators rather than requiring an ante from the players. Both were good choices for discussing a monetary transaction, which could be tricky enough without also winning large sums of money from someone whom you didn’t know.

Both were strategy games. Homeworlds used a set of very simple pieces to create an ever-changing landscape of tiny ships and conquerable planets. Insecticon Wars was a collectible token game. Better tokens could either be purchased for your account or won through playing against the AI and much of the strategy came in constructing your ‘swarm’. During play, however, luck had a lot of do with winning which appealed to Smokescreen a lot more than the cold, non random strategies of Homeworlds.

They both ordered — midgrade with iron flakes for Moonlight; same but also sweetened with silver for Smokescreen — and logged in. Immediately the icon next to the holo-projector itself indicated that their game was being observed, and probably wagered on, and an aerial map of the battlefield — a small slice of land on the edge of the Sea of Rust — appeared.

Moonlight didn’t wait for their first game to conclude before speaking — another indication that he wished to discuss money and was not confident that winning or losing the game wouldn’t influence Smokescreen’s reaction to whatever he wanted to discuss. Of course, he first two words brought them to the topic quickly as well. “How much would it cost me to purchase your expert opinions on a issue of mine?”

And interesting opening gambit, almost as interesting as the token he’d just played, summoning two copies of a weak, but hard to kill, insecticon. Defensive play style? Or just because he did not yet have the energon crystals for something greater?

Both required more information before committing anything. A thin rust storm blew across the holographic battlefield, hiding his queen from view. “You know I give counseling to my fellow officers at my desk for free.”

“Free for the indentured officers; you still charge a fee for the rest of us.”

An energon harvesting insecticon appeared on the field and the extra energon was used in order to add defensive spines to one of the two defensive ones. The unarmored one was sent into the rust storm to scout for the enemy’s hive and queen. After a moment Smokescreen copied the move, though his extra spines were added to his queen — which Moonlight couldn’t see — and summoned a simple worker. A week token, but one that was needed in order to modify the battlefield itself rather than just the makeup of the hive. “I’m sure you know my going rate, then. It is posted on my desk.”

Moonlight frowned when the rust cloud didn’t disappear. The most common version of that token only lasted a single turn. The other lasted three, but only if the battlefield was like this one and contained a significant rust-based feature. He contemplated his tokens. “That is true. I however do not require counseling. It is your expertise as a profiler that is of interest to me.”

Finally he recalled the scouting defensive bug, added a second energon harvester and hatched a pair of thin-bodied flyers with higher attack stats than defensive ones. Smokescreen did not need to think overly long on his response to that, also adding a second harvester, and using both the extra energon and the worker to add both a hatching chamber and a defensive wall to the hive. “So the question of what you need has been answered. The next questions are: ‘what are you offering?’ and ‘for how long?’”

A set of spines were added to one of the flying bugs and two more were hatched before Moonlight answered. It looked like he was preparing for a big attack once the rust storm subsided next turn. “Just a single consult, now if you have the time. Does a hundred shanix sound like it’s worth your time?”

Smokescreen added a defensive force-dome to the hive to further protect the insecticons within and summoned a quad of relatively weak acid spitting bugs. Neither the harvesters nor the queen nor the worker could attack the aerial creatures, but the spitters could, and do so without leaving the defensive fortifications he’d placed around the hive. Then he ordered his worker to hide.

A full turn passed while Smokescreen considered this. Six fliers attacked his hive, which protected the insecticons within, though Smokescreen still lost one of his harvesters and a spitter despite the protections. In response he summoned two more spitters and added tunnels to the battlefield, which produced no visible change.

A small smile appeared on the other Praxan’s faceplate. It certainly looked like Smokescreen was desperate and unable to attack. He summoned a large insecticon that was very powerful and very difficult to kill, but slow. It would not be able to attack until next turn, but when it did it would be able to batter through the walls with ease. Two more spitters were lost to the fliers.

“One-fifty,” Smokescreen finally answered. Adding two more spitters and a digger to his hive. The digger, of course, appeared unseen inside the tunnels. The spitters killed half of the fliers

A nod of agreement. It appeared that, quote-unquote, winning the game was making Moonlight very over confident. Or he’d expected Smokescreen to haggle more. If he had, he might have gotten as high as one-sixty, but really, a hundred and fifty shanix was a perfectly reasonable price for a single consult. The walls of Smokescreen’s hive fell and the harvester and spitters followed soon after, though they took the majority of their attackers with them. His worker sacrificed itself in a brave attempt to preserve the queen until next turn. 

It certainly appeared hopeless. Smokescreen used the last of his energon and the remaining three tokens in his hand to add spikes, acid fangs and a flamethrower to the digger and directed it to attack Moonlight’s queen.

Coming from underground it bypassed both the fighters, occupied on Smokescreen’s side of the battlefield, and the two defensive bugs held in reserve to attack the precious queen directly. It was a slaughter.

Moonlight blinked red optics at the holographic battlefield a few times as it dissolved into pixels and a request as to whether they would like to start another game. “It seems I should have insisted on Homeworlds.”

Smokescreen laughed, and denied the holoprojector’s request. “If that’s all settled then, you said you’d like the consult now, if I agreed.”

His conversation partner downed the last dregs of his energon to regain his composure. “Yes, of course.” He pulled a file-chip from subspace and slid it across the table. Smokescreen placed it in his PPC and began to flip through it.

Almost immediately he frowned. It looked a lot like a PPP case file, but reading through it became obvious it wasn’t. All the victims had at least one trait in common: they weren’t, for one reason or another, able to pay their PPP fees. He checked the map. The… assaults weren’t in an especially poor area… he shook his head. First things first.

“You’re not using precinct resources for this, are you?” Because investigating a crime independently of PPP wasn’t illegal, but using corporation funds for this would get them both arrested and sold off as miners or worse. 

“Private investigator and a medic, both paid for out of my own subspace, don’t you worry. Just… I’m running into a dead end on this one.”

Yeah… Smokescreen could sympathize. It… actually wan’t all that different from Arui’s issue earlier. So as long as Moonlight was using his own shanix, this was probably a constructive way of dealing with that frustration. Okay. Sure.

He read the details. Four mechs and femmes attacked on the streets, armor ripped off and hacked. Four traumatized victims with no recourse, save for an officer willing to spend his own money to investigate the case. Give him a century and Smokescreen’d become frustrated with PPP policies too. They, none of them, were allowed to do enough, not with their employer’s backing. With a shake he downed the rest of his cube and ordered a second, this one with an extra scoop of the silver powder. He needed it.

“First thing then… your perp knows his victims personally. These aren’t poor bots who can’t afford to pay the fee, so he’s choosing his victims somehow.” No hacking cases similar to this had come across the precinct’s across the precinct’s files. Even if PPP didn’t help those who didn’t pay the fee, the officers didn’t ignore the victims of a serial case if even one victim had paid. Bad for business. “Those who can’t pay usually don’t advertise it, so he knows the victims well enough to have sussed out that little bit of their personal lives. Or he has access to the PPP financial records,” he finished absently, and wasn’t that a scary thought.

“I’m going to hope that’s not the case.”

“Yeah,” Smokescreen agreed. “This sort of forced-hacking assault though… If the perp was one of PPP’s execs, then I’d expect higher-profile victims, or a more private venue, not for him to be ambushing his victims in alleys. Those locations indicate a lower-caste perp. It could still be someone who works in PPP administration, but given that if the victims weren’t chosen randomly, then the locations weren’t too. They all say they were traveling their normal routes? Normal routines?” He flipped to the victims’ testimonies and read them as Moonlight nodded. “So not only did your perp know that these people didn’t have PPP protection, he knew them well enough to pick an ambush spot they traveled by every day. He knows them.”

Moonlight’s panels flicked up and down agitatedly. “Alright. Anything else you can give me to narrow it down.”

He looked over the map again. “Because of how he’s choosing the locations for his assaults to correspond to his victim’s schedules — and how the victims themselves are not random — your geographic profile here isn’t going to be accurate to where he lives. But at the same time he knows the victims somehow. Look for social venues in the area, rather than his home.” Smokescreen ignored his companion’s nod and began reading, rather than just skimming, the medic’s reports. As with most forced-hacking, there was a lot of corruption around the memories and, “I don’t know who taught him how to break firewalls,” if anyone, “but it wasn’t a professional.” And the only reason he even knew that there was such a thing as a professional hacker was because PMU’s coding class had shown examples of the traces left behind in various hacked victims and the typical psychological and coding problems those traces caused. “He left a lot of his own code behind.”

“That’s what Sprocket said.” Sprocket was the medic who’d done the reports. Emergency room doctor, if Smokescreen was reading the style of the writing correctly. Briefly he wondered how much Moonlight was paying him. 

Instead of voicing that thought, he instead began highlighting specific sections of the left behind codes from each scan. “Here,” he said when he was done, “You’re looking for a helicopter alt. These are characteristic of a specific sort of logic-loop disorder characteristic of helicopters who’ve recently done a full reframe from a ground vehicle. It shouldn’t be causing him to do this, but it’s something you can identify him by. If the reframe was legal, he should be getting counseling for the logic-loop glitch too. Unfortunately I can’t tell you how recent is recent. It varies, how long the glitch takes to clear up. If he’s in counseling then the average is about five vorns; without it it could be as much as sixty.”

Fortunately, just the information that it was a helicopter should narrow things down quite a bit. Those alt forms were relatively rare; helicopter alts who knew all the victims personally should be vanishingly so.

Blue-on-blue sensor panels flicked up and down several times in gratitude as Smokescreen ejected the data chip and stowed his PPC. “Thanks. I’ve got to get your info to my investigator before my shift starts.” He handed over another chip, this one with his payment coded on it. “You willing to do this again, if I need it?”

His answering smile was easy. “Sure,” he waved lazily as Moonlight stood. “You know my going rate, now.”

That got a laugh. “Yeah.”

Smokescreen activated the holo projector and logged into Insecticon Wars again. He still had a few minutes before he needed to get back to work and he wanted to tweak his token deck some. That last game had been way too close. He needed to see about putting more rust storms in, even if they were the kind that only lasted one turn.

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tbc

Chapter Text

Known Associates:

Arui, Praxus Policing and Peacekeeping street patrol officer

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Smokescreen opened the door to his apartment with his sensor panels held high with pride at winning his most recent conflict with Tiver over refusing to diagnose a Decepticon suspect with… whatever the Cybertronian Senate said was wrong with Decepticons right now. The apartment, however, was dark and those panels drooped tiredly. Ever since he’d convinced Ninetail to move into the independently run housing complex rather than her PMA employee apartment, she’d been spending more and more time at work. Victory or not, the yelling match with Tiver had exhausted him and he’d hoped she’d be here.

Slightly dejected, he moved into the darkened apartment, not bothering with the lights. He thought about energon, but ultimately decided to do without and go straight to recharge.

He’d been down for a breem when his comm beeped. Snarling he checked the caller ID, praying to Primus it wasn’t Tiver telling him he needed to come back into work.

It wasn’t. “Hey Bluelight,” he answered tiredly.

“Hey… you and Ninetail busy tonight?”

Was he? He was tired, but he needed to relax more than he needed to recharge. Probably. Whatever Bluelight had in mind, it had the advantage of having absolutely nothing to do with work. And he hadn’t seen his friend in a while. “Ninetail’s still at work, but I’m free. What’d you have in mind.”

“Won the Trajectory tournament at the place down the street and scored a trine of tickets to see the new Quintessons Strike Back movie. Of course I thought of the two of you first.”

Quintessons Strike Back was an action-adventure series on its tenth iteration, each one worse than the last, and according to the critic reviews this one was no different. Despite their consistent horribleness, they were extremely popular. Only Primus knew why. Still… going to see a movie with a friend; hadn’t he been wanting something to relax earlier? So. “Sure. You have a third in mind since Ninetail’s not available or do you want me to invite one of my other friends?”

“You actually made friends at PPP?”

“Ha ha… funny. Weren’t you the one who said I could make friends with a chunk of slag?”

“True. So who do you have in mind? We got a joor before the movie starts. Let me know in half a joor at the latest if your other friend can’t make it and meet me at the theater maybe… four breems before the movie starts? That’ll give us time for introductions and still get us a good seat.”

“Sure.”

As he was wont to do, Bluelight hung up before goodbyes could be exchanged.

Smokescreen levered himself out of bed and ordered the lights on in the apartment. He may have been ready to recharge without fueling first, but if he was going to a movie he needed energon. He stirred a cheap iron oxide additive into the glowing blue liquid and commed Arui while he drank.

“Smokescreen? I thought we were off-shift.”

He smiled. Arui was twenty vorns old now and, though he worked part-time at the temple of Primus passing out energon to the less fortunate, he still didn’t really have a life outside of work. In Smokescreen’s expert opinion it was time for the youngster to learn a bit about socializing with non-policemechs. “We are. Friend of mine won a trine of movie tickets and since he’s single and proud of it, he invited me and a plus one to go see it with him. Well my usual plus one is still at work so I thought you and me might go have some fun. Interested?”

A long pause followed while the young officer thought it over. Sweetie was too serious for his own good sometimes, but Smokescreen didn’t push. He’d either decide to come, or he wouldn’t. 

Finally, “Sure. Anything special I need to do? Bring food? Polish?” 

“Nope. Just bring yourself and some shanix for snacks if you want them. If you don’t, I’d suggest fueling before the movie starts or else you’ll be hungry by the end.”

“Alright. Send me the address.”

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Bluelight, Praxus Medical Association medical ethics lawyer (former), political lobbyist to the Senate (current). Decepticon sympathizer.

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This time he and Bluelight were in a really off the beaten track energon cafe. Bluelight has suggested the place. Off-Beat’s Diner wasn’t so much a diner as a lounge. Unlike similar places through most of Praxus which had dozens of gaming machines placed enticingly close to the tables, here there was only one player vs AI Predacon Ante machine shoved in a corner like a dirty secret. As though to support its unwanted status it even had an etched sign tacked onto it reading Out of Order that had enough pits, dings and rust on it to be a relic of Guardian Prime’s reign.

Darkly lit, the tables were arranged around a short stage in the middle of the room. The schedule for the stage was tacked up on one wall and seemed mostly booked for amateur poetry; about every third name had a discrete little symbol worked into the glyphs that could only be seen with one’s optics set to low-light filters. Decepticon poets. Seditious activities, or so the Senate claimed. Personally Smokescreen thought they were just a fad, and by reacting as they were, the Senate was giving the movement power, but that didn’t stop them from making Smokescreen’s life difficult. Fortunately for his career, tonight wasn’t Decepticon poetry night; the only entertainment was a worn out vid-screen with fuzzy picture running celebrity scandal pieces.

Smokescreen was not drunk. The high grade in this place wasn’t really worth drinking, but the cafe’s specialty midgrade was delicious, smoky and slightly spicy with a recipe of powdered metals Off-Beat’s cooks refused to divulge, and he’d perhaps drunk more of that than was wise. 

Little known fact: It was possible to get over energized from midgrade. It just required such a high volume of fuel that most mechs would reach their tank capacity long before that happened. You could, if you were really determined to get drunk off it, keep your tank topped off for a joor or so, taking in the energon at the same or nearly the same speed your systems pulled it from your tank to achieve an over energized state. There just really wasn’t much of a point to it. Usually. Off-Beat’s midgrade blend was really good, okay?

He didn’t know how Bluelight had found this place — and didn’t want to, like, at all. He insisted that he wasn’t a Decepticon and didn’t come here for the poetry, and Smokescreen very carefully ignored the fact that, for what basically amounted to a corporate lawyer, Bluelight was a horrible liar. It wasn’t going to be today, or tomorrow or perhaps not even for a hundred vorns, but eventually the Senate was going to outright outlaw the Decepticon movement and when that orn came Smokescreen was not going to have let himself have evidence of his friend’s activities.

If they’d been home — either of their homes — he might have been willing to debate the topic, but here, even if it wasn’t poetry night, he wasn’t going to risk it. It’d be too much like a recruitment attempt.

“So what was this news you just had to share?” He didn’t ask if Ninetail should have been here for this announcement. As the vorns had worn on and they’d mostly gone their separate ways, Bluelight and Ninetail had grown apart, though if anything it should have been Smokescreen who’d become estranged given that both his friends were still working for PMA at least and he wasn’t. All three of them were busy mechs, and an emergency room nurse kept strange hours; Smokescreen and Bluelight both had jobs that, while they tended to run late, at least pretended to have a regular schedule.

Bluelight leaned in, quietly excited but also nervous. “I finally paid off PMA.”

“Huh?” Smokescreen twitched his sensor panels in confusion. “I thought you were planning on staying one of their lobbyists? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you, but why bother?”

“I was,” he still looked nervous, but now he wouldn’t meet Smokescreen’s optics. Not sure Smokescreen would approve, maybe. Which he privately thought was utter slag. Whatever his friend’s new life goals, it wasn’t his place to dictate. “I got another offer. From Kaon.”

That burned up Smokecreen’s extra energy in a flash. Kaon. There was only one thing there that might interest Bluelight. Completely sober, he leaned in and lowered his voice. “You cannot be thinking of officially joining the Decepticons.”

“Why not?” Bluelight hissed back. “Everyone else… it’s just stopgaps. The Decepticons are angling for real change, and because most of their members are lower-caste, laborers and miners and such, they don’t have the lawyers and public speakers they’ll need to take our concerns directly to the Senate.  I can make a real difference there, not just playing on a corporate rivalry in an attempt to prevent honest citizens from being exploited, which is what my job now is.”

That, Smokesreen thought, is conviction. And it wasn’t his place to change is friend’s mind. “Alright. Fine. Happy for you, sir, Decepticon, sir,” but he couldn’t let Bluelight go without a last warning. “Just, be careful. It’s all just whispers and stirrings and politics right now, but the Senate’s already taking steps, trying to discredit your movement. Don’t… do anything stupid, in Kaon, okay? It’s not like Praxus.”

“I know. I won’t.”

“Well.” He said, forcing his voice into a tone of good cheer. “This is a moment of celebration. So why aren’t we celebrating?”

Bluelight laughed, and waved over the waitstaff to order another round of their extremely excellent midgrade.

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Moonlight, Praxus Policing and Peacekeeping night shift supervising officer (former, see attached criminal file)

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Smokescreen looked blearily through the forcefield at the mech standing on the other side. He squinted; for some reason his optics weren’t focusing right…right. That was because he was in alt mode. “…oonlight?” Was that his voice? He sounded drunk…

No wait. That was probably because he was drunk. Drunk enough to land himself in — he looked blearily around — a PPP impound lot? Why would he get that drunk?

“Yeah, kid,” oblivious to the internal line of questioning, the other mech answered. At least he didn’t sound amused; there was nothing amusing about — “I paid your fine and arrest charge too. You’re lucky drunk and disorderly’s a cheap one. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

“..ou paid…?”

“Yeah.” Moonlight stepped forward and the cell’s forcefield deactivated and another officer unlocked the parking restraint attached to his back end. Smokescreen flailed a bit, trying to transform and stand but only managing to twitch his doors open about an inch before slamming them closed again, finally giving up when the room tilted suddenly sideways. The other ‘bot just shook his head and pulled him out of his parking space by the tow cable still attached to his bumper. “I’ll just take it out of your fee for your next consult.”

“Shhuuur…”

“That’s the spirit.”

Dragged through the precinct — not his, thank Primus, at least he didn’t think so; everything was painted a bright orange Tiver-the-brown would never abide in his domain — he thought mostly about letting his wheels turn at the same slow pace Moonlight was dragging him and not steering himself into to things despite the officer’s best effort. Over energized as he was, even that much was a monumental effort, perfect to keep him from thinking about —

Of course getting home was going to be… something. He wasn’t certain he could find his transformation protocols; he definitely couldn’t drive in his condition. This — this was a real concern. Moonlight’s alternate form wasn’t much bigger than Smokescreen’s. There would be no carrying him, not that far. He needed to know. “…ow?” Moonlight only tightened his grip to more carefully maneuver his drunk passenger through the building. Smokescreen tried again. “C…nnn’t drrrvvv…”

This time the other officer answered. “Yea. I figured that out on my own. Your driving protocols are still locked. Didn’t want to pay for a DUI or assaulting an officer as well as the drunk and disorderly. I’ll tow you home and unlock them for you there.”

A wave of gratitude swamped Smokescreen. His engine sputtered alarmingly as he sniffled. Bluelight would’ve dragged him home — on his feet, since unlike Moonlight he would have needed the police to unlock Smokescreen from alternate form — but wouldn’t have paid for the charges. Drunk and disorderly wasn’t much of a charge — there wouldn’t even be a trial; they’d just throw you out the next day when you sobered up — but since a mech was locked out of his funds for the duration, it could be the start of a debt, either to PPP or to whoever paid your fine and arrest charge while you were in the clink. Except Bluelight couldn’t have hauled him home after at night like last night, binge drinking after discovering — not thinking about that. Bluelight couldn’t have hauled him home because Bluelight was gone. Gone to Kaon to make the difference in people’s lives he’d always wanted to make. And Smokescreen was here, working for part of the system that was just as corrupt as any other part, but anarchy wasn’t exactly a viable option either, was it? And that’s what they’d have without police. Right?

This was suddenly of monumental importance. He needed to ask Moonlight about this right now. “…key riiiite?”

Moonlight just grunted. “I really hope you didn’t lose your key to your own place. If you did, I’m charging you rent for staying on my couch until the lock’s fixed.”

Okay. Not the answer he was hoping for.

“So why’d you go off the rails last night and over energize to the point of getting arrested? It’s not like you.” Smokescreen was not thinking about that, so he just rumbled his engine discontentedly. “Hey! Don’t purge on me!”

That actually sounded like a fabulous idea. Best part: not answering questions he didn’t want to think about.

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Ninetail, Praxus Medical Association nurse-assistant

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This, he thought, was what broken dreams looked like. Honestly he was disappointed. He rather thought broken dreams should look like rubble strewn across the floor. Broken cubes and smashed entertainment systems and splintered data pads. Instead, his broken dreams were a neat pile of boxes filled with his stuff, being hauled away by moving mechs and loaded into a small cargo transport alt while he signed over the funds for breaking his lease. 

Ninetail had already moved her things out, moving in with her not-so-new mech-toy.

For a moment he wished he was still in the get-blindingly-drunk phase of shock and grief, but eventually he’d sober up again and his systems hurt and Ninetail will have still been cheating and he’d still be moving out of their apartment. Being drunk didn’t actually change anything. He just really wished it did.

With one last flourish of electrons, the funds transferred and that was it. This apartment, this place where they were supposed to be together, was no longer his. The movers took the last box out and he followed it.

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tbc…

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Chapter Text

Criminal Record:

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Ten vorn later, the affair was still making tabloid headlines. It would probably have died down, except PMU wasn’t firing Starbreaker over it. Smokescreen was of two minds about the whole thing. Sure Starbreaker had been his advisor when he was still in university and back then Smokescreen had had no complaints about him. Still he’d certainly made a poor choice of who to have an affair with. The CEO of Praxus R&D wasn’t someone a PMA employee wanted to be caught in the berth with. Figuratively or literally.

“Smokes,” He looked up at Canaan who’d peeked around the barricades that made up the Cube, “Tiver wants you in his office.”

“Thanks,” Smokescreen waved at his fellow profiler absently with the PPC. “As soon as I finish this paragraph.”

Canaan shook his head. “One of these days Tiver is going to stop putting up with you and bust your aft for treating him so casual.”

Smokescreen smiled back, the roguish grin that had always gotten him out of trouble when he’d pissed off Bluelight. “Naw… I’m his favorite.”

A snort of suppressed laughter and the other ‘bot left him to his tabloid.

Contrary to his stated intention, Smokescreen put his PPC down immediately. He was willing to push his luck with Tiver over a lot of things, but a tabloid article was not one of them, no matter what he said to his coworkers.

The secretary, a newspark named Corriedale who was still in orientation opened the door to Tiver’s office without prompting and Smokescreen closed the door behind him. Tiver and Merino, one of the older officers, waited inside. Smokescreen looked from one to the other. “What’s going on, sir?”

Tiver gave him a pitying looked and Merino stepped forward. “Smokescreen,” he used the most formal version of his name — Smokescreen, Doctor of Psychiatric Medicine & Criminal Profiler — “You’re under arrest for internal conspiracy to commit theft, money laundering, and syk trafficking.” 

He just looked at Tiver incredulously. “Really?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Merino moved to put Smokescreen in stasis cuffs and he flicked his sensor panels sharply. “Don’t bother. Not going to fight you.”

Uncertain, the officer, who was older than Smokescreen but like many of the still-indentured PPP policemechs came across as younger, looked back at Tiver, who nodded. “Let him keep his dignity. We’ll have a revolt among the younger mechs if he’s hauled out of here in cuffs.”

“Yes Sir.”

True to his word he didn’t fight as Merino directed him out of the office, though he did waggle one more ‘frag you’ gesture with his sensor panels at Tiver as they left.

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The chorus of engine noise rose to a crescendo then fell away leaving two bots growling a pair of melodies that danced around each other. Then slowly, one by one, each of the prisoners joined one or the other melodies until the engines growled their way to crescendo again. This time they held it before suddenly cutting out, leaving the impound lot in silence.

It was a common prison song, at least in Praxus. There was always rumor that other cities, like Iacon, had a different kinds of prisons. They were all stuck in vehicle forms, booted to the floor and separated by thin walls of force. Some of them had their voices disabled for various reason. This was their only outlet and it was a type of performance only heard outside of the prisons in remixes by some very liberal cultural investigators.

Two of the other prisoners started another engine harmony, only to trail off as someone entered the lot.

Arui, in his alt form, sidled up to Smokescreen’s cell and pressed himself against the force field. “Smokescreen?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Half the night shift officers are down here too and they’re not telling us why.”

Smokescreen chuckled. “Ironic as it is for PPP to point fingers, the charges boil down to police corruption.”

“You didn’t —“ 

“Not intentionally. But I took his money, and that’s cause for arrest and charges.”

“What now?”

Smokescreen laughed. “You’re the police officer. You tell me.”

“You’ll stay here until a lawyer comes to explain your options?”

He flicked his doors open, then closed in affirmation. “That about sums it up.”

“And then you’ll leave. Even if you’re found innocent you’ll be transferred.” Arui lowered his voice and gave a minute full-frame shiver; he clearly wanted to wail and sob and rail against the unfairness, but they weren’t alone here and his base programming wouldn’t let him embarrass the company like that. It wasn’t often he was confronted with just how young the officers were, body and spirit, and Smokescreen had been here when Arui came online. According to PPP philosophy, they were supposed to bond to their commanders as their caretakers, but Tiver was often a distant presence at best, caring and observant but not the kind to get personally involved; it had been Smokescreen who’d taught them to play games and socialize and put down their duties when they needed to. In the artificial, uncertain privacy of the Cube, he’d been the one who’d taught them to cry. “I don’t want you to leave.” 

“Look at me.” Headlights focused on Smokescreen’s. “You’re going to be fine. You don’t need me to tell you what you already know. And if you do need someone… well priests aren’t usually PMA trained, but they’ll listen, okay. You’re not alone.” He rocked forward as much as the restraint would let him. “Say it.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Good.” He relaxed. “Now… I’ve got an assignment for you and Delaine.” If a car could straiten, Arui did so right then, posture suddenly attentive. “I need you and him to make sure you use your church connections to make sure the others are taken care of. Got it? When they have trouble with their cases, you need to make sure they go see the priests like you made them come see me. That’s your job now. You need to take care of them. Got it?” Arui's doors flicked open and closed a couple of times in nervous declaration. “Say it Arui.”

“I need to take care of the others, especially any newsparks,” Smokescreen practically vibrated in approval for that particular ad lib. “I need to make sure they talk to a priest when they’re having trouble, since they won’t be able to talk to you.”

“Good. Take care of yourself too.”

“I will. I promise.”

Neither said it, but it Smokescreen didn’t delude himself. They were saying goodbye.

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.

You could tell a lot about a precinct from the interrogation room. The design, the dimensions, the furniture, the false wall were all PPP standard. Unlike the rest of the station, painted in the soft browns Tiver preferred, the interrogation was in the company-standard bleak grey. But their’s was clean and the table and chairs were in good repair and didn’t wobble. It was intimidating, but not unpleasant. Tiver was a good commander and generally ran a tight set up.

The guard, a mech he didn’t know from a different precinct as was common in internal corruption cases, let the lawyer in and made a show of turning off the recording devices in the room and turning the holo wall opaque. Smokescreen make a sardonic, disbelieving gesture at his back with his panels. They acted like he hadn’t worked here for over a hundred vorn.

The lawyer was tall, but also extremely thin. Probably a cycle alt. His paint was a neat, professional green and brown and Smokescreen couldn’t see any rust or flaking. His movements were smooth and measured as he took the seat across from him. “Hello. My name is Tac, and I’ve been assigned as your lawyer. Do I need to —“ Smokescreen held up his hands to show they were uncuffed. He was starting to entertain the idea that he really was Tiver’s favorite for some reason because standing orders seemed to be that they weren’t to use stasis cuffs on him unless he got violent or resisted. That or the kids were closer to mutiny over the arrest than he thought. “That’s good. If you want to get up and pace while we talk I don’t mind. I know impound lots can be cramped.” After a moment’s thought, he did so. He didn’t want any favors from this ‘bot, but then the thought of going back and being stuck in alt form again for who knows how long wasn’t exactly pleasant either. Mentally he upped his estimation of Tac’s intelligence, then again when the lawyer let no hint of triumph through his professionally attentive facade. Offering to let Smokescreen pace had given him the advantage but he knew better than to acknowledge it. “Now I want to assure you this conversation is strictly private. No one will be listening to us as we talk.”

“Then you should find the drone.”

“I — what?”

Smokescreen’t panels went up in triumph. He’d won back the initiative. “The surveillance drone? There’s at least one in here. Probably set to record strait to a disk so that that whole ‘privacy’ thing is still technically true, but it’s in here.” He shrugged. “Personally I don’t care. I’m not going to be saying anything Tiver couldn’t guess from a century of knowing me, but you want privacy? You find the drone and kick it out.” It wasn’t even a lie.

“I…see.” Yellow optics went down to the notes on his PPC while he regained his composure and reassessed his client. “In that case I think we should continue after privacy has been assured.”

Smokescreen waggled his panels in negation. “No. We’re doing this now. Because I don’t need privacy to guess what you’re going to say.” He stopped pacing and leaned over the table to get into Tac’s personal space. “You see… you’re not wearing PPP indentured silver and black or silver and white and you didn’t know about the drone, which tells me that you’re not employed by us, and your paint’s in good… almost exceptional in fact … condition. Expensive. Were you detailed this morning?” He waved a panel, dismissing the question. “You’re not likely a freelancer. Which means you’re here on behalf of someone who’s hoping to use the debt generated by a trial to recruit me. One of the Consortiums?” The lawyer went still, controlling his reactions, and he was better at it than most criminals, Smokescreen’d give him that, but the stillness itself was a dead giveaway. “Thought so. Which one? Cannikin… Tenor… Gazet,” it was only the smallest reaction and Smokescreen’s own panels went up in triumph again. He nodded. “Illegal high-grade, circuit boosters, money laundering, un taxed gambling and racketeering. The usual, but easy to see why he’d want a PPP profiler on the payroll, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.” He spun and flopped into the interrogation chair with a clatter, a careless-looking move that had dumped him on his aft about a hundred times before he’d perfected it. Of course he’d been on the other side of the table then, but the chairs were the same uncomfortable metal twigs on this side of the table too. “So we’re here to discuss my options. Let’s discuss.” Just like any other game; if you controlled the playing field, you controlled the players. “What are my options?”

Tac didn’t react for a long moment, then he scrolled frantically through the PPC’s holo display. Buying himself a bit of time and space in which to think and Smokescreen let him. “Well. It looks like you’re claiming ignorance of Moonlight’s illegal activities and most of the evidence supports that. The only issue is that you maintain a set of inaccessible files and their existence puts reasonable doubt on that conclusion. The obvious action is to simply allow access to those files so that it can be confirmed that you’re only connection to Moonlight’s activities was the monetary payments.”

“Can’t deny those,” Smokescreen drawled.

“No. But you kept very clean records of them. Even the instances you provided services in exchange for favors were documented, as well as what those favors were. None of them tie you directly to anything illegal.”

“So open my patient records so that can be confirmed and I’m innocent in the eyes of the court.”

“That’s correct… Smokescreen, was it?”

Oh yeah, that’s right. He’d interrupted the lawyer before formal introductions could be completed. He found he really couldn’t be all that sorry about it. “Yeah.” He drummed his fingers on the table a few times. “Well you and your boss can go frag themselves. I open those files and I’ll never be trusted to run a medical practice again, in any capacity.”

Tac frowned at the mention of his ‘boss’, but then soldiered on. “If you don’t, you’ll spend the next five thousand vorns paying for your arrest and trial to Metals, Minerals and Mining.” He leaned forward aggressively, back on what he thought was familiar ground with his client. “Without a full reframe, very few felons last that long.”

Smokescreen smiled. “Not necessarily. I’ve made my decision.”

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.

“Why am I here, Tiver?” They were back in the interrogation room. “I was hoping to quiz the guy in cell seventy-three-aleph on the finer points of handling a mining axe before being shipped out tomorrow.”

“Why’d you plead guilty?”

Strait to the point. He couldn’t say he expected anything else from his commander. He held out his hand and metaphorically held his choice in it. “Plead innocent, don’t open my patient files and spend the next three or four — or even five, if I get reframed as a miner — thousand vorn working off the cost of the arrest, trial and other considerations like fuel and housing at triple-M and probably die before ever seeing the light of the sun again.” The other hand. “Plead innocent, open the medical files, ruin my medical reputation, maybe get an innocent verdict and spend the next one or two thousand vorn working off the cost with PPP, and if I wasn’t dirty before, after taking that lawyer’s help I would be.” He weighed them in his hands for a moment, then made a disgusted gesture with his panels and and threw both choices away, then leaned forward to look at Tiver directly. “Or plead guilty, keep my PMA standing, don’t bother with a trial, and spend only a hundred vorn or so as a miner before getting back to my life. Sure I’ll be a felon, but my choices’ll be my own.”

Tiver sighed and his panels drooped. “I can’t argue with your logic, at least. You’ll never work for PPP again, but I know that was never your life’s goal, so no loss there.”

He smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”

His panels flicked out a somehow both nervous and confident rhythm for a moment, then stilled. “Well it’s too late for me to interfere with your verdict.” He made a disgusted noise, then reached under the table and came up with a spy drone. A second later it was out the door. Tiver was about the only one in this station that Smokescreen’d believe private meant private. “I personally don’t think you had anything to do with Moonlight’s activities. It’s not like you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.”

“And because of it I’m willing to do you a good turn.” Tiver leaned in, almost conspiratorially. “Breakwater owes me a favor — a hefty one. Hefty enough to get him to bid on your penal contract tomorrow. The only job he has open, though, for an indentured ‘bot is professional gambler. It’ll take longer to pay him off than it would Triple-M, but there isn’t the danger of loss of limb or life involved and working at one of his casinos you’ll have a reputation as something other than a felon when you’re paid up.”

Smokescreen thought about it. It sounded good. Not too good, but good enough. There was just… “What’s the catch. That sort of favor isn’t one you spend just because someone’s a nice person. And let’s be honest… the number of time’s you’ve threatened to string me up on the catwalk by my networking cords, you don’t think I’m that great a person.”

Tiver stood and paced, panels flared out. Aggressive and angry. Defensive? He didn’t like being questioned about this. Something he didn’t want others to know, but was willing — barely — to admit to Smokescreen. A professional embarrassment that was also personal or a personal failing that could impact his professional standing. Maybe both. “You know what I’m really sick of Smokescreen?” He didn’t wait for the once-profiler to reply. “I’m sick of my officers going bad and my not being able to do anything about it. I liked you because you kept them together and sane while you were here. Moonlight went bad about a hundred vorn before you came and he’s only the latest and each one feels like a personal betrayal, but you know what? You profilers are right,” he clicked open a file on the PPC between them, and a full-frame portrait fuzzed into existence. The newspark — it had to be a newspark, no PPP officer looked at the camera lens with such wonder after the first vorn or so — smiled back at him, shy and inquisitive in indentured day shift black and white. “You never forget the first.”

“I wish you’d said something about this a vorn ago,” Smokescreen mentioned absently. “We could have gotten a few sessions in before my arrest.”

He paged through the file. Churra. Only a few vorn younger than Tiver, and as such only nominally under the older officer’s command through most of his career, but Smokescreen knew that would hardly matter. Maybe they were lovers, but… A betrayal this old, regardless of their unofficial relationship if they had one, every time something like it happened after, it would have only added to the hurt. He read about Churra’s many achievements. Apparently he was an exceptional officer. Friendly. Helpful. Like a turbowolf on cases. He’d gotten awards for his great detective skills every vorn like clockwork. A spark exceptionally suited to his work. Until he’d snapped.

He read the list of charges, each one more shocking than the last, the interview transcripts, and finally the then-profiler’s report that said that if he wasn’t going to be executed for his crimes then the only organization in Praxus that could keep Churra in check would be the military, and that he should never be released from service. That he should be thrown at an enemy until he died as quickly as possible went unsaid, but was heavily implied in the mech’s wording.

After that the file took on the more personal flavor of Tiver’s personal obsession. Churra’s military career had been as distinguished as his PPP one. He’d been granted the choice of a military name — Nightshadow — after only ten vorn of service, something that generally wasn’t given to a convict-soldier until he decided to continue in the military after his sentence was paid off. A lucky break at a Homeworlds tournament, a military psychologist who’d decided that PPP profilers didn’t know what they were talking about and he was back out in the general population after only three centuries. Tiver continued to track him through two more name changes before losing him. He flipped back to the criminal report and reread it, then sighed.

“Given that there haven’t been any crimes with his signatures since, I’m forced to agree with Skynight, “ the military psychologist. “He might be on the psychopath spectrum, but if so he’s very controlled, and the,” what did you even call that? Hacking, torture and murder all in one? And then to say nothing at all afterwards to justify it, even if the justification would have only made sense to him? He’d been silent about the crime after. Talked about everything else, had no problem engaging with his interrogators, but then just nothing when the crimes were brought up, even tangentially. Disassociated, maybe? “incident was a single event resulting from some sort of psychotic break. What’s this have to do with here and now, Tiver?”

“I saw him,” he reached over, flipped the PPC to a new file, this one only two pages long, “yesterday at Moonlight’s sentencing.”

The frame was still a PPP Interceptor frame, through it had been gone over and remodeled for military work very thoroughly. Military heavy scout or a specialist of some kind; Smokescreen didn’t actually know enough about military frames to be more specific that. The paint scheme was almost but not quite that of an indentured PPP day shift officer, and was different enough not to be construed as attempting to impersonate the police. As important as the frame differences was the posture. Churra had been confident standing behind PPP’s authority; this bot had the sort of confidence that went right down to the spark and it showed. The few details Tiver had uncovered in so short a time were on the second page:

Name: Prowl

Hotel Security Officer for Breakwater Resort and Casino

“And…” Smokescreen prompted.

“I want a profile.” Tiver said bluntly. “You’ll probably see him at some point in your new job and I want to know who — what — he is now.”

In other words, he thought he wanted a sort of closure, or confirmation that Prowl wasn’t the danger Churra had proven to be, but in truth he wanted Smokescreen to help him start the new chapter of his obsession-file. Not that Smokescreen necessarily had an issue with that. Tiver had lived with his obsession for a long time. It wasn’t healthy, but it wasn’t exactly damaging either. Probably.

Like it had when he’d first taken the job at PPP, he could feel himself on the precipice of a new choice. An opportunity if he could manage everything correctly; a complete crash if couldn’t. All in all, Tiver’s request was a pretty small ante for a gamble of this magnitude. He shrugged. “Why not?”

.

Smokescreen plead guilty to all charges.

Sentencing: 20 vorn minimum under indentured servitude, as well as the time it takes for his account to be paid in full. 

Since the crimes were non-violent and evidence suggests that Smokescreen’s involvement was incidental rather than premeditated, Praxus Peacekeeping and Policing Corporation is opening the bidding for Smokecreen’s criminal contract to any corporation willing to purchase, rather than restricting it to those equipped to handle violent criminals.

Smokescreen’s penal contract was purchased by Breakwater Resort and Casino.

.

.

.

tbc

Chapter Text

Clover watched the mech read through his findings carefully and tried not to fidget. This was his job. He was a private investigator. He readily admitted that he had multiple reasons to be nervous about this particular client, but it would do him no good to show it.

Finally the mech’s sensor panels went from the high, tense position that meant he was reading the data chip to the slow up-down-out movement that indicated deep thought.

“Well,” he demanded.

The mech stood and went to the window of the hotel room he’d rented for this meeting. Praxus didn’t so much glitter in the distance as explode against Clover’s optics with all the subtlety of a desperate buymecha. He didn’t like the city from this angle. You couldn’t see the filth that dripped from those crystal towers or the corruption that ran through the streets like used oil, but his client seemed to appreciate the view, only coming away from the window to read the report Clover had delivered. “It’s acceptable,” he finally conceded.

“So we’re square?” Clover pressed. He had to make sure.

Silhouetted against the lights of the city like the specter of Unicron’s Herald, Clover watched those sensor panels flick high, then low, in momentary amusement that did not carry to his voice. “Of course.”

“Good.” Clover said decisively and turned to leave. The room was nice enough in its way though its primary luxury had been its placement high enough in the tower to satisfy even a seeker’s need for heights, but to Clover’s senses his client’s presence left the air faintly tainted. His EM field seemed to drip from the walls and puddle in the corners like organic goo. He felt dirty and just wanted this whole sordid buisness over with.

His fingers were reaching out to the keypad of the room’s exit when his client spoke again. “In reference to an entirely different game…”

Clover turned back to see those gold optics looking back. Red biolights glowed against the demonic outline. “What?” he growled with an engine rev. He would not show how much the other mech unnerved him.

“Just some advice,” his voice was calm and level and so controlled that Clover wanted to hit him. “If I were you, I’d consider telling my conjux endura about that…” that voice twisted with distaste, “habit before someone else does.”

He stiffened, armor clamping tight against his frame. Blackmail.

“How?” he growled again. It was either growl in anger or whisper in fear.

For the first time in Clover’s memory bank, a small smile graced the other mech’s faceplate. “Private investigators are valuable… assets.”

“Valuable to you, or to your creditor?” Bitter. Bitter. Bitter.

“Does it matter?”

Yes. “No.” Clover drew in a long drag of air then let it out slowly. “You know what. Fine have it your way.”

The shadows of the mech’s sensors panels just shrugged. “You know this brings me no pleasure.”

“I don’t know any Primus-damned thing,” he spat, truly angered by the attempted to patronize him. “Just call in your Primus-damned favors and otherwise leave me the slagging Pit alone.”

He turned and stalked from the room, this time not letting Prowl’s softly spoken “As you wish,” stop him from getting the pit away from him.

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End