Chapter Text
The murder had gone perfectly.
When Giltedge and his lackeys left to go clubbing, Prowl remained in the tactical department for another joor’s work, then went to the base’s practice track and completed a half-joor run.
At that late cycle, both the track and its facilities were empty. Afterward, he retreated to the track washracks, which lacked cameras, carrying the supplies for an extensive, full-body detailing and waxing that would excuse his absence for up to three joors.
Once he’d disguised himself, Prowl locked his supplies in a cubicle and slipped out the back. Sticking to surveillance blind spots, he exited the base perimeter through the monitoring gap he had reported no less than three times (Once to Giltedge, his department head and sponsor, once through written report, and a third time by directly accosting Base Commander Prestige in the hallway). Half the Autobots stationed in Uraya Base knew about that gap. The officers used it to sneak berthmates into the base, which was why they continually ‘forgot’ to patch it.
Out of sight, Prowl folded into alt mode and took to the streets. He’d covered himself in tar and dirt to disguise his colors, which also hid his Autobot contractor insignia (indentured mechanisms like Prowl could not swear oaths of allegiance), but Prowl’s root mode was still too distinctive. Praxians were almost extinct, after all.
Prowl already knew the way to Giltedge’s favorite club. After the mech outbid Prowl’s lease to the Iacon Enforcers, one of Prowl’s many new duties was collecting his sponsor’s over-energized frame after engex binges. The club was a sleazy, disgusting place on the rim of Uraya but it served Prowl’s purpose well: the surrounding area and the club itself had no cameras or scanners.
Prowl parked in an alley two streets over, returned to root mode, and laid down the tarps he’d scavenged from the garbage. Then he sent a message through an untraceable server, hid himself, and waited.
This was the most uncertain element of his plan. Giltedge had made amorous advances toward another department head’s conjunx. Prowl’s message stated that a ‘forbidden paramour’ wanted to meet Giltedge in the alley where Prowl was waiting. Prowl hoped that Giltedge's desires would leap to his favored outcome, and come expecting a liaison. If Giltedge did not take the bait, Prowl could return to the base with no one the wiser, and try again – but Giltedge, as usual, let his greed do the thinking.
As soon as an overenergized Giltedge stepped out of sight from the road, Prowl emerged from his hiding spot and drove a thermal blade into his spark. Giltedge died instantly, collapsing neatly onto the tarps Prowl had prepared. Prowl wrapped his own frame with strips of scavenged dust storm covers (another anti-forensics measure), turned his headlamps on their dimmest setting, and began to dispose of the frame.
Prowl was on his knees, wrist deep in Giltedge’s hip assembly while he disconnected the cables, when a jaunty voice called, “Whacha doin’?”
Tacnet cycled up so fast Prowl nearly crashed, furiously spinning through threat assessments. Prowl froze, staving off the crash until his cooling system could shunt the heat away from his processors.
No ordinary mechanism could surprise a Praxian. Functioning frames were loud, even when motionless: coolant cycled, hydraulics pressurized, electricity hummed through copper wires. Prowl’s wings should have detected those system noises, despite being muffled underneath their improvised covers – his sensors were forensics grade.
Conclusion: Prowl’s discoverer had modifications for silent running. Even the mechanism’s EM field was completely suppressed, suggesting the mods in question were extensive and of the highest possible quality. Due to their expense and questionable legality, very few mechanisms were modified to run completely silent, and none for legitimate purposes. Had a criminal or a hunter of criminals found Prowl? Depending on that answer, Prowl calculated highly divergent decision trees.
Prowl dared to ping his discoverer’s RFID transponder. The response contained a verified Autobot encryption key, but the designation and ID number were redacted, and the department the mech belonged to was–
“Find what you were lookin’ for, Prowl of Petrex?”
Prowl raised his helm and looked up at the Autobot Special Operations agent who knew his designation. The glow of a blue, sickle-shaped visor illuminated only a glimpse of matte black plating; all else was hidden in the deep shadows gathered outside the circle of Prowl’s headlamps.
Tacnet churned, outlining truly marginal odds of outrunning or outfighting this opponent. Prowl knew the level of paranoia and ability required to enter spec ops. Prowl’s rusty martial arts training would not present a challenge to this mech, who would be armed to the struts.
Prowl never considered trying to bargain on his own behalf. He’d resolved, when he decided to embark on this course of action – when he'd decided to coldly murder another mechanism – that if he was caught, or if anyone else was accused of his crime, he would confess.
“Agent, I do not intend to resist arrest,” Prowl said, allowing his frame to go submissively lax. “May I raise my hands to surrender?
The visored agent’s only reply was to circle behind Prowl in a smooth, deadly ripple of movement, passing out of sight and cutting off Prowl’s only sense capable of perceiving him.
Knowing this mech was present, invisible at his back, raised crawling feedback ghosts in Prowl’s sensor net.
“I saw your file, Prowler. Giltedge said some real nasty things about ya. That why you killed him?”
Prowl huffed in affront. “Hardly. I do not care for the opinions of an entitled Towers scion. I killed Giltedge because the war front will shift to Uraya within a stellar cycle.”
A blade pricked between Prowl’s throat cables. “How do you know that?” The agent’s rich, velvet timbre dropped into a snarled threat.
Prowl did not flinch. “I handle all the data analysis work in Uraya’s tactical department. The supply buildup is evident.”
“Issat so? The Cons ain’t figured it out yet.” The knife withdrew. “We’ll come back to that. Tell me about Giltedge. What’s he got to do with the front movin’?”
“Giltedge is incompetent,” Prowl replied dryly. “Leaving him as Uraya’s tactical department head would have killed between one and six thousand Autobots.”
The agent whistled. “S’ a big claim. You got anything to back it up?”
Prowl pinged him the compressed datafile of tacnet’s simulations.
The agent whistled again – probably remarking upon the file size. Prowl’s modeling had been excruciatingly thorough. “Where’d you get these? Never seen any tactical sims use so many variables.”
“I was built with a full tactical suite.”
The agent made a noise of sympathy. “Aggressive mods, real touchy. S’why not many keep ‘em long. Hard on the processors, messes mechs up.” Then, with a touch more suspicion, the agent added, “It’s not reported in your file.”
“I am indentured,” Prowl replied. “I underwent none of the standard recruitment intake procedures. My file has only the information my sponsor deigned to provide.”
“And your sponsor was Giltedge.” The agent changed tracks. “Why not report your boss instead of killing him?”
Prowl allowed scorn to saturate his field. “All complaints go through the base commander. Prestige is politically indebted to Giltedge’s Tower. How do you think he and his buffoons were promoted in the first place?”
The agent laughed. It was a pleasant noise, at odds with the danger he posed to Prowl. “Giltedge weren’t doing his own paperwork, were he?”
“Not a single glyph,” Prowl replied dryly.
“Why not go above both of ‘em? Report it to high command?”
Prowl flared his plating, servos forming helpless fists inside Giltedge’s cooling frame. “Do you think I did not try? I tried! I tried many times! No one took my reports seriously! No one believed me! Whoever Giltedge did not own believed the things you have read in my file! That is what my comrades think of me!”
“Sorry mech. Hadta ask.” The agent sounded genuinely sorry; he even gave Prowl a moment to compose himself before questioning him again. “What about your plans for handlin’ the fallout after Giltedge snuffed it?”
Prowl went limp, shifting as he tried to find a more comfortable position on his knee joints, acutely aware of where his servos were still lodged. “I would have dismantled Giltedge’s frame, then hidden the pieces in a dump site I prepared outside Uraya. When his disappearance was investigated, I hoped to encourage the narrative that his death was the work of a professional assassin. He had a feud with his younger sibling over their Tower head’s favor. That sibling had made attempts on Giltedge’s life before.”
“Yeah mech, but what about you?”
“What about me?” Prowl replied, genuinely baffled – a rare experience for someone with his processors.
“Giltedge was your sponsor. Now that he’s snuffed, what about your indenture contract?”
Prowl shrugged absently. “Since I am going to prison, it is irrelevant, but in the hypothetical scenario you are proposing, I was unsure of the outcome. Giltedge needed me for my tactical suite. To maintain his position among the Autobots, he refused any offers he received on my lease. His heir would have put me up on offer and solicited as many bids as possible. There are few Praxian indentures left on the market. I am worth more now for my frametype than my processor. Whoever purchased my services, odds were high that their expectations would have been…distasteful.”
“Can’t you buy yourself out?” asked the agent. “Tac department pay ain’t cheap.”
Prowl couldn’t help himself. He laughed, and stated the sum total of his construction debt.
The sputtered fans clicking on behind him were their own reward. “Ya made a’ gold, mech?! How kin ya owe tha’ much? Issat even legal?”
“It is completely legal. My tactical suite was an experimental design. The costs for its development, installation and upkeep – plus followup medical care to address its side effects – were substantial. Its presence also qualifies me under the ‘key and essential personnel’ clauses of construction debt legislation. To summarize, it is legal for the interest I owe on my construction debt to compound exponentially at a rate that ensures I will work for the rest of my functioning and still deactivate in debt. Why is this line of questioning relevant?”
“It tells me ya ain’t getting much benefit outta this. Prison or bein’ optic candy for ya frame leaves ya with no good option to live. So why’d ya go through with offlinin’ ya boss?”
“I told you already,” Prowl replied waspishly. “Giltedge’s incompetence would have caused significant unnecessary casualties.”
“Explain usin’ more words.”
Prowl vented in frustration. “Two lives in exchange for sparing thousands. Anyone can weigh their comparative value.”
“Counting yourself out kinda fast, Prowler. Why’s it sound like ya wanted something bad to happen to yourself?”
“Will you please cuff me?” Prowl hissed, patience worn out. “This is a highly irregular and inappropriate arrest procedure!”
Prowl could hear a playful grin in the agent’s voice as he replied, “Familiar with arrests, are ya?”
“Yes. I was an Enforcer.” One more fact missing from Prowl’s Autobot file.
“Huh. Cold constructed as a Praxian Enforcer? S’a miracle you’re still alive. You’re probably the last of your model.”
“I know,” Prowl bit out, and petulantly freed his hands from Giltedge’s frame, folding them in his lap while his field pointedly expressed his dissatisfaction.
“Think I’ve decided what ‘m gonna do,” said the agent, who then plunked himself down on the ground beside Prowl.
Under the dim glow of Prowl’s headlamps, Prowl could tell the agent was Polyhexian, and roughly equal to Prowl in size. “Excuse me,” Prowl gritted out. “You are not arresting me correctly. Do you require instructions? Perhaps a diagram?”
“Nah,” said the agent, leaning against Prowl’s side and lounging on the tarp. “Don’t wanna cuff ya.”
“Why not.”
The agent wiggled in place, as if delighted to be asked. “Cause you saved my department a whole lotta trouble. What do you think I was doin’ out here tonight?”
Tacnet ratified Prowl’s hypothesis almost instantly. “You were already investigating Uraya’s officers,” murmured Prowl. “Many of them come here to indulge. Giltedge was on your list, but not a priority target, otherwise you would have found me more quickly.”
Without feeling the agent’s field, Prowl could only approximate, but the Polyhexian seemed pleased. “We got a bot who’s real particular about reports back at headquarters. Things didn’t line up, so I got tapped for a little sneakin’ to dig out anythin’ hinky.”
The agent clapped his servos. “Here’s how it’s goin’ down, Prowler. You n’ I are gonna leave this here and go back to base. I got a cleaner on the way – real good, nobot ‘ll ever find any trace. We’re gonna scrub ya down, and then I’m gonna do a lil creative storytelling 'bout what happened tonight.”
Prowl was momentarily speechless. “You–you cannot do that! You are supposed to arrest me!” He ground his derma, feeling himself teetering toward a crash.
Suddenly, there were servos cupping his jaw, tilting his helm back and forth as the agent tested the temperature of Prowl’s plating and the response of his optics. “Hey, hey,” the agent soothed. “You okay, Prowler?”
“No,” Prowl replied in an embarrassingly small voice. “I have been discovered in my crime. I am supposed to be punished.”
The agent shushed him again. “Didn’t say you were gettin’ away clean, did I? Prison ain’t useful, mech, we’re only bein’ a lil creative ‘bout how you serve your time.”
Prowl felt the fog of his looming crash lift as tacnet latched onto the idea. “An alternative sentence? What did you have in mind?”
The agent grinned, his visor flashing white. “How do you feel about workin' for me?”
“You?” Prowl could not stop disbelief seeping into his field. “Do you even hold sufficient rank to make such an offer?
Letting go of Prowl, the agent laid a servo over his spark. “Prowler, ya wound me. This ain’t even the worst way I’ve recruited an agent.”
Prowl allowed his field to convey his disdain.
The agent vented theatrically, and unfurled his own field, ripe with amusement and good-natured ease. “Lemme try again.”
His visor brightened, and he performed a shallow bow. “Autobot Special Operations Commander Jazz, at your service.”
Prowl’s plating rattled haphazardly as shock spilled across his field, accompanied by the whine of stressed systems still reeling from successive brushes with a crash.
Taking Prowl’s arm, Jazz guided Prowl to his pedes. His tone was amused, but not unkind. “Pleased to meetcha, Prowl. You gonna make it back okay?”
“I will be fine,” Prowl replied, preoccupied by tacnet integrating this new data into prior simulations. “I have a request.”
“What’s that?” Jazz asked, gently tugging Prowl out of the alley.
“I do not want any monetary wages.”
“First time hearing that one,” Jazz said, continuing to lead Prowl away. “Why’s that?”
Prowl cycled his optics, adjusting to the comparatively bright street lamps. “Due to the size of my debt, the full amount of any wages or payments I receive are given to the entity who commissioned me. Praxus’ assets, including my indenture debt, were inherited by the Primacy. I do not wish to contribute toward an outdated, undemocratic institution headed by corrupt and useless mechanisms.”
“Prowler,” Jazz said, slinging an arm over Prowl’s shoulder, “Optimus is going to love you.”