Chapter Text
Jazz knew many things, it was part of his job to know things. Mostly, it was his job to know secrets, ferret them out from people, machines, it didn’t matter. So when he woke up in a pod with a robotic voice partially glitching, welcoming him to something called "Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center, a specimen has been taken testing can now commence,” and gave him a countdown on the door, he was more than a little frazzled and upset at not knowing how he'd gotten there. Only, instead of the door opening, like he expected, he was out of the oddly glass room like he’d been sucked through a vacuum and out onto the floor.
Jazz took stock of himself. His clothes had been replaced with a jumpsuit, which was very disconcerting. He quickly stripped the upper half off and tied the arms around his waist in a knot, looking around. This wasn’t like any Decepticon facility he’d ever been in, either as a prisoner, or as a saboteur hauling people out of the damn building. The next immediate thing he did was roll up his pants legs and test his prosthetics, their range of motion and their connection points.
The scars were the same; gnarly, twisting things from a moment he had firmly blocked from his memory, thank you. And no, Rung, he did not need therapy at this time, he was doing just fine. He could outrun his problems and lock up the rest in a convenient little box and just not touch it. The prosthetics were still their same sleek white-blue metal, comforting to the touch. There was even the half finished etching that Sunstreaker had begun before he’d been called off for a mission on his upper thigh.
He ran his fingers over it, feeling them shake a little. He needed get home. He had people that cared about him. Jazz set his jaw and pressed his hand against it. Bluestreak. Mirage. Hound. Sunstreaker, Sideswipe. Rodimus. Chromia. Elita. Bumblebee. Wheeljack. Smokescreen. Arcee. Barricade. Ratchet. Optimus. Fuck, he’d even hug Rung and let the doc talk to him about actual therapy sessions. Not that he’d go, he was doing just fine. Therapy was better suited for the people that needed that.
“You must begin your testing.” the voice came from every corner of the room and Jazz refused to jump even as his skin crawled. “It is required to complete the Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment-”
“Yeah, no.” Jazz said brightly, hopping to his feet and tested his knees, bouncing a few times up and down, feeling the artificial nerves crackle and burst in sensation as if his knees were actually cracking from a long time of disuse. “Thanks though! I’ll just be gettin’ on outta here,”
“That is not allowed.” the computer intoned, something almost like annoyance flickering through the strung together words.
Jazz paused, looking up. Not allowed? Well, he’d been told before that he was annoying about doing things that “weren’t allowed” for some reason or another. Though, if he wanted to get out of this, he needed to first find a way into some kind of ventilation system and then he’d be able to do his own thing. He needed to be clever and get the fuck out of the first room, though, and even with a quick glance, he couldn’t see anything further. He tapped the side of his visor and felt the familiar electrical tingle burst across his temples as it connected to his optical nerves and did more than enhance his sight. The room itself was oddly… Empty. The wires were tucked far, far away, in such a way that he couldn’t see even their faint heat signatures. There was a shocking lack of…Everything. The whole space was empty. There was only the faintest hum of mechanical parts, and even those, he couldn’t see. Jazz let out a long breath. He had no idea where he was, likely somewhere in enemy territory, likely something Shockwave, the sadistic fuck, had come up with. And well. Shit.
Okay Jazz. You’ve gotten out’ve tight situations before, you can do it again. You can do this. You can do this. He bounced a few more times on his toes, testing their articulation.
Still good. Still little claws. Good. That meant he had grip and he’d not fall. He missed his gloves something fucking fierce, though. He’d have to hope that the magnetic function wasn’t too fucked with. Or that there was a type of metal that was magnetic on those walls and it wasn’t ceramic or something.
“Hey, computer?” he called, aiming to sound bright and happy. He gave himself a mental pat on the back that he even landed there.
“Yes?” it came back, bland and robotic, as if the blip of annoyance hadn’t even been there.
“I’m sorry for being stubborn, I’m ready to start the enrichment.”
There was a pause. Not terribly long, barely more than a heartbeat, but it was there. Like it was trying to get a read on him. Jazz just waved at the camera and shot it a wink. It hopefully came across well to a computer AI generated voice. Hopefully there was an actual person behind that camera, but he’d seen some freaky shit from Shockwave. If it was Shockwave.
Jazz wasn’t looking forward to finding someone somehow more twisted than him.
The door opened and the voice glitched into Spanish as he darted through the doors and paused, looking around. A hall. Okay. There was a large round red button on the floor and dotted lines that ran to a door and wow, okay, Jazz was feeling very much like a damn lab rat.
Just follow the dotted lines and get a treat. That’s a good little rat. He scowled and resisted the urge to flip off the camera and whoever lived behind it.
He spotted the cube dispenser and waited for it to activate. Nothing happened for a few long beats so he frowned and carefully, making a wide berth around it, approached. As soon as he was within maybe two feet, it dropped a cube and he reached out to grab it. It was much lighter than he thought it would be, but he wasn’t complaining too much. Maybe the gravity was different in the space?
“Hey, is the gravity off or something?” he asked as he carried the cube over to the button. If he timed it right, it would likely be enough to hold the button down. “This is a lot lighter than I thought it would be.”
“There is no diff-f-ference in the gravity.” the computer intoned, its voice glitching through a few times.
Jazz paused, thought for a moment and then decided fuck it and simply dropped the cube before he turned on a dime and ran for the door as it slid open. His feet made an odd clkclakclikclak on the floor as he moved, meaning that it was hollow underneath. Good. He had more to work with. That meant that the facility wasn’t entirely solid and there were walls he’d be able to manipulate as he needed. Just needed to find them first.
Thankfully, he was very good at that.
“Excellent.” the voice came again. “Please proceed into the chamber lock after completing each test. First, however, note the incandescent particle field across the exit.This Aperture Science Material emancipation grid will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it. For instance, Aperture Science weighted cube.”
Jazz paused, staring at the field that looked more like a low budget light show than an actual grid.
“Hey, will it do that for anything that passes through it?” he asked slowly. “Cause I’ve got prosthetics.”
There was another few second pause before the computer came back. “No. You are the text subject going through Enrichment. You and everything on your person will not be affected.”
“Okay. Good.” he still didn’t like the idea of crossing the barrier, but his visor wasn’t picking anything up that was going to immediately kill him. The field seemed fairly low energy, if anything it would likely tingle like the repair nanites when Ratchet put them to work on his nerve ports to help maintain his prosthetic connections.
Taking a deep breath, Jazz jumped through, eyes squeezed shut. Nothing happened. He looked around, careful, and let out a soft noise as he realized it was fine. There was nothing around him that was an immediate threat, which was nice, at least. He took a shaking breath and shook out his hands, taking a few more steps and stared at the elevator as it turned around towards him and opened. It was cylindrical, which was fairly different from most the shafts he’d seen. Did that mean that this place was more like a honeycomb pattern than not? The lack of buttons or any sign of directional controls made him feel a slow sinking dread as he realized that it was very likely AI controlled. A human taking notes and an AI controlled the space. Humans were, by nature, lazy, and anything that they could demure over to robots they did by principal. He hoped beyond hope that this was all just a weird Decepticon thing and not something worse. The slight juddering of the elevator made him press his back against the curved back wall directly across from the doors and look up, waiting for something to give and put him in free fall.
Oh, please let me get to go into free fall in this tin can. Anything to get the fuck out of here.
No such luck. The elevator gave a cheerful ding and he stepped out into another hall, this time more elevated than the other. It was shockingly empty, once more, nothing more than the bare hum of machines that he couldn’t see, which was starting to piss him off, and the air pressure of something much bigger hummed. The air was warmer as he neared the mouth of the hall and he slowed down, looking up.
TEST 1/19
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Glowed down at him from a white screen. The little icons made it seem like it would be easy enough, at least. Jazz stared down at the ledge, crouching on it. He waited, still and patient, just watching the whole space. Glass separated him from the other rooms, and there was a door, a button, and another cube, but nothing that he could use as a weapon to get to the cube and the button. An odd blobp noise registered, faintly, through the glass, which made him wonder just how thick the stuff was to mute that much noise.
“Proceed with the testing.” the voice came again, still strung together words, still barely human.
But there was something underneath it that sounded annoyed. Impatient, almost. Jazz hopped down and then back as he saw orange light out of the corner of his visor. That was a surprise. It changed every few seconds, five if he counted right. One moment, it was the button room, the next it was the door, the next it was the cube. He waited for the sequence to complete one more time before he darted into the room, grabbed the cube and turned. Part of him expected the portal to shut on him and trap him in there, but after ten seconds, it opened once more. Jazz ran through and took a moment to breathe, feeling his skin prickle and crawl. He was being closely observed and he hated that feeling so much. It was worse than when Mirage was invisible and pulling faces at him where he couldn’t see it because this was a dangerous situation. At least with Mirage the feeling was usually overridden by annoyance rather than actual mounting dread.
Not that that wasn’t also there, but still. The difference was important.
Why? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Rung curled up in the corner of his mind and Jazz immediately pushed that away.
The button room was next and he simply chucked the cube through towards it, watching it sail through the air in a lazy, slow arc that landed it on top of what he wanted.
“Good job,” came the voice once more. “Please proceed.”
Jazz darted through to the door, feeling a slight sense of vertigo as the platforms seemed to be much lower than he expected, but he continued on. Another elevator, but this time he felt the shift as he went downwards. That was off putting. He did not like that. Jazz knew he likely had more than 18 more puzzle rooms to get through to get out of this pit, but he wanted a way to get the actual hell out of this place. As the elevator opened once more, he was again, very high up, but this time staring down at the thing that was making the portals. A tentative plan began to form in his head.
“You are doing very well,” the robot said again, something maybe like warmth in its voice.
“Gee, thanks,” he said sarcastically.
“Please note that the taste of blood is not normal.” the voice continued, unprompted and Jazz immediately ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, trying to feel for anything that could have been ripped open.
“Excuse me?!” Jazz demanded.
The computer didn’t reply, at least beyond spitting static. Jazz growled under his breath and looked around quickly. The gun in the middle of the room was clearly the thing that was creating the portals, he just needed to get to it. It was child's play to get to it, just a matter of timing and hopping through the portals at the correct times before he grabbed it. Jazz turned it over slowly in his hands, noting the arm hole and the clear indication that he was able to hold onto the thing, which was good, and it seemed to also have release and hold functions. Also good. It also seemed to be missing something, there was a chunk that wasn’t quite right looking, like something had been forcefully removed.
“Good job. You have found the Aperture Science Handheld Portal device. With it, you can create dimensional gates. These have been proven completely safe. The device, however, has not.”
“So, something’s gone missing.” he muttered to himself before, louder, and a touch indignant as he slipped his arm into the portal gun and fired it at the wall, “Also, computer, what the fuck did you mean about the taste of blood?!”
“The Aperture Science Material Emancipation grid may sometimes in semi-rare cases may emancipate various dental fillings, enamel and even teeth. We at Aperture Science apologize for this inconvenience.”
“What the fuck?!” he yelped, both in shock as he misstepped and fell a short ways through the wall from the portal and in indignation at the lie. “I thought you said that I was fine because I was the test subject!!”
“Oh.” the voice paused once again. “I lied.”
Jazz fully stopped and stared up at the camera, feeling like his brain was blue screening as the voice continued to talk. The AI had lied. That was. Very not good. Though maybe it was good? Maybe it meant that he was able to find a human afterall. AI weren’t good at lying or manipulating, at least as far as he knew. Though, to be fair, the only AI he knew was Teletran-1, and while they were very snarky half of the time, they didn’t lie. At least, not to Jazz. He wasn’t certain if that was a good thing or not or if it meant that this was actually a human using a robotic text to speech or something of the sort to try and distance themselves from what they were doing.
It also didn’t bode well for him. Jazz really needed to find a way out of here, else he didn’t like his chances. He’d come back from next to nothing before, and he knew he’d be able to do it again, but this was something he wasn’t looking forward to. His stomach growled lightly and he put a hand over it, as if trying to tell it to calm down. Not that it would work. He stepped through to the elevator and rode it to the next level. He could do this.
The next chamber was almost laughably easy. Even with only a small bit of practice, Jazz knew how to work the gun, and it was pretty clear orange meant part A and blue meant part B; once one was open, the other connected to it, which left a very easy through line. The “Mind the gap” nearly made him snort but he decided to stay quiet and just get through the room. He didn’t want to know what was giving off that much heat down below but not smell or boiling noises. That didn’t mean good things. Yet again.
“Good job,” the AI chimed as he cleared the room. “You are moving exceptionally fast through these rooms.”
“Well you know, wanna get outta here.” he said. “Would love to have some kind of soup or something.”
“Oh?” that off putting note once more in the AI’s voice made him shiver. “There will be cake for you at the end of this.”
“Given that you said you lied before, I think I’m gonna chose to not trust that.” Jazz said as he stepped into the elevator.
There was a full pause this time in the elevator and Jazz almost missed the voice, if only so he could snark at it. When it spoke again, it was the robotic, disjointed voice.
“This next portion of the enrichment tests are not going to be observed. You will be alone. Good luck,”
Jazz stopped and stared at the camera. He didn’t actually believe that he was totally alone, not for a moment, but maybe. Maybe he could use this to his advantage.
TEST 5/19
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He carefully explored the space, taking a few steps back and then running at the wall, activating his magnets. There was no attachment, which meant the walls, at least the white parts, weren’t metal. His claws did, however, sink into the panels a little bit, giving him a bit of traction to haul himself up and grab onto the bare gasp of a gap that was in between the panels. He hung there with one arm for just a few moments, barely breathing, feeling the heavy strain in his muscles that made him feel more tired than he really should be. A cold zip of fear raced down his spine. How could he know that the AI was telling the truth or not? Teletran-1 had tells, inflections in their voice as they spoke for when they were being sarcastic but there was nothing in this AI’s voice. Or, nothing that they were letting truly slip through, which in return did mean that they were highly advanced and intelligent enough to know how to lie and hide their inflections.
He forced those revelations out of his head as the further fears settled in his mind. Just how long had he been in the facility? He dropped from his hand hold and looked around. Alright. He just had to be smart about this. He was in an unknown territory, with an intelligent AI that wanted him to run weird tests that may end up killing him in some way. There was something very wrong. Jazz forced himself to take a slow breath and let it back out, shaking himself. This room was easy. He looked at the cameras on the walls and felt a ridiculous urge to dance around in front of it to see if he could get a reaction. He didn’t, but damn if it wasn’t close.
Instead, he quickly completed the room, moving from one platform to the other. He didn’t want to stay stuck, and it was clear the walls weren’t going to move even with his full weight behind it, and the portals didn’t let him get behind the walls either. At least, not yet. He just had to find the right opportunity, and the faster he completed the rooms and got deeper into the facility, the better chances he had of finding someone else.
“Good job.” the voice came again. “The statement that you would be completely alone during this module was an extreme fabrication of the truth. I will-We will be turning off that module in th-three…two…o-o-o-one-”
Jazz didn’t even react to that little statement. He knew he’d been right. He just grinned at the camera and stepped through the forcefield, though he ran his tongue over his teeth, just to double check. He could do this. The next rooms were similar. More puzzles, more traps that slowly rose in their deadliness. There was something sinister to that AI’s voice every time Jazz just barely got through the room, dodging turret beams and dealing with little robots that tried to crawl all over him or the thing that looked like a mini sun that bounced around the room at a snail’s pace and yet that somehow made it worse than if it were fast. He shook out his hands, testing his grip on the gun each time. He didn’t want to lose it, but it seemed that it would stay comfortably on his arm. His stomach growled heavily but he didn’t want to alert the AI to the fact that he was hungry. Depending on how advanced it was, it may already know about how hungry he was. The purple lit camera lenses certainly followed his progress like they were hungry, so that didn’t bode well for him. He let out a long breath and kept himself moving, bouncing to the next set of rooms.
He mentally noted that the portals only worked on the white walls, which seemed like an odd stipulation to him, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. The walls moved in some cases, and they moved slowly, not on any kind of hydraulic system he’d ever seen before, and even when they retracted, they didn’t move on a dime. That was good for him, it meant that he could get through the walls. The momentum puzzle of the room still had him feeling woozy, laying on the ground for a moment while he resorted out his equilibrium, though he watched the panels slowly retract themselves. That was good. He could use the portals to get behind things, or maybe another room would have something closer to the ground.
“Are you going to move anytime soon?” The AI came, the harsh purple glaring down at him through the camera lens.
“My good motherfucker,” Jazz panted. “Let me breathe for a minute. That was awful. I feel like my stomach was knotted in my spine, the fuck?”
“Oh.” that one little word was awful. It was quickly becoming the worst word that Jazz had ever heard. Was it even a word or just a little noise? Either way. Terrible. “Well, I suppose you will have to be prepared for the next room. You do know that the gun was meant for use, correct?”
“You’re sounding less like you did before,” Jazz said, feeling smug but kept his expression neutral. “New person at the helm?”
“It has only ever been me.” the voice said after a long moment, the words strung together and with the faint underlying malice once more. “There is only one me.”
“Huh,” Jazz slowly got to his feet, hopefully selling, still that he was more exhausted than he really was. Hungry, yes, but not exhausted. Not yet. He would kill for a sandwich soon, though. “Well, what do I call you, cause I’ve been goin’ with a lot’ve names. Motherfucker, bitch, bastard AI but that one felt too long, and the rest were pretty derivative.”
“You humans have such odd things to say.” the voice said. “You must complete the testing.”
“Sure,” Jazz said. “So long as you tell me what the purpose of all this is,” he stepped through the barrier and stepped into the elevator, looking up at the ceiling. No loose panels still, all smooth metal. “And not the whole spiel about it being for testin’ or whatever it was.”
“It’s for testing.” the voice said.
Jazz leaned against the wall, arms crossed and scoffed. “Given that you said you lied earlier, I ain’t really gonna believe you, my worst motherfucker.”
The AI didn’t reply for a long minute and Jazz nearly jumped when the elevator stopped and nearly spat him out. He got his bearing quickly and looked around, feeling a gross, crawling pit enter his stomach. He didn’t like this. There were a few more cameras than he liked in the room, this meant bad things.
“Do be careful in this room, there floor is very dangerous and will kill you. Failure to solve this room will result in a negative score on your test results. And death.”
Jazz could almost see the smug smile in the AI’s voice and it made his skin crawl. The dark, hot liquid was back, but there was no clear heat source, and the whole thing seemed to be getting hotter. The visor shimmered and shifted a bit, making it hard to really tell just what he was looking at. He could take it off, but he didn’t really want to deal with the side effects of taking it off after wearing it for so long. His internal clock told him he’d been solving these damn puzzles for at least three hours. Or, he’d been in the facility that long and he’d been working for a far shorter amount of time. He didn’t know which was true, but either way. He needed a break and he needed some sleep. A safe place to rest his legs and his eyes, the connection point was going to hurt before too long.
Jazz also didn’t want to risk seeing what would happen with the portal gun if it started to overheat. He didn’t have the ability to get supplies to keep himself from bleeding out and preventing gangrene. Ratchet’s long and borderline manic gleeful powerpoint on why field medicine was important to learn or else a riot of diseases could and would run rampant with a body had left a lasting impression. He didn’t want any of that to deal with, and he quite liked his arms attached. Prosthetics were fantastic, but he didn’t think he’d be able to handle making them himself.
He stared at the wall and the mini sun that was slowly gliding towards him. Jazz pointed the gun at the scorch mark, watching it disappear into the portal and then turned to the other side, hopping around to get to through to the moving platform. This wasn’t nearly hard enough to make him worried, he just had to focus. A quick jump and then he was falling and staring at the lack of platforms.
Fuck.
“Oh? Did I not mention that this room was impossible?” came the voice, amusement deep in it’s voice.
“Hey, do you have a name?” Jazz called up to the ceiling, feeling a crawling sensation down his spine.
There was another pause. “Survive through this room and I will tell you.”
A bargaining chip, maybe. Jazz looked around and made a soft noise. The walls didn’t hold the portal for some reason, he needed to find a way deeper into the facility and get the hell out of this place. He crouched low on the platform, holding himself steady. Almost. Almost. He fired the portal and launched himself off the platform. Clingling to nothing and yet something was a very strange experience, and something in him felt rattled. The claws on his prosthetics scrambled to find purchase and he hissed softly in pain as the sensors lit up with HOTHOTHOTHOT.
Jazz heaved himself through, feeling his toes sink into a crack in the wall and give him that little bit of leverage that he needed. He rolled through to the floor and hopped to his feet quickly, looking around. Something. Anything. Literally anything. There was a cube with a heart on it, his visor wasn’t picking up anything from inside it, even though it looked…softer from the other cubes he’d been hauling around. There was an incinerator not too far away. The whole space seemed…Diffierent from where he’d been, the colors were darker, the walls shabbier and the taste of the air was different, even. Cleaner, almost. Jazz looked around and his visor pinged electromagnetic signatures everywhere. Wires. He grinned slowly and crept closer to the incinerator.
“Not the first time I’ve gone down one of these,” he muttered, hovering his hand over the metal, testing for heat.
Cool. He tapped it quickly and grinned a little when it was, in fact, cold to the touch. He slid the portal gun off his arm and untied the jumpsuit from around his waist, running one of the sleeves through it to make a makeshift belt.
“Please return to the testing area,” the voice of the AI made him turn, looking for a camera. No cameras.
Ah. Hmm. Small issue then, if the AI could see him in some way or something could detect his movements.
“You have not yet completed the testing,” the AI pressed. “You need to-”
“Yeah,” Jazz grabbed the weighted cube. “I’ve been thinkin’ on that one. You’ve not really been explaining why, and yet the rooms just keep tryin’ to kill me, which you know. Weird.” he grunted as he went back to the curved, rusted metal edges of the incinerator and took a moment to try and remember if Ratchet had gotten him a shot to keep him up to date on tetanus. He was pretty sure he had. That had to have been in the last round of shots he’d been given. “So, I’m startin to think that you’re something someone’s made and they’re watching me because they like the little mouse in the hall schtick, you know?”
“There is no one else.” The AI snapped, the words shifting to hold more emotion. “There is only me. ”
“And how’s that make you feel?” Jazz asked, saccharinely coy.
“I am going to simply kill you.” the AI stated.
“Going off script there ain’tcha?” Jazz asked cheerfully. “I’ve been threatened many times, you really gotta get more creative.”
“Turrets: Released.” the voice intoned before sliding back to something almost human. “Let’s see how you deal with these, then.”
Jazz grinned and tossed the cube down the incinerator, listening to it whistle through the air before it stopped with a screeching crshhckk . The sound of a wall opening, even as his visor alerted him to the little shift in the environment, had him grinning. The turrets went for the incinerator, following the noise rather than his movement it seemed. So there were different kinds of turrets. Great. That was going to be a pain in the ass.
Jazz didn’t hesitate. He sprinted for the wall, hitting the ground with his shoulder and rolled underneath. He got to his hands and knees, feeling his heart thunder in his chest as he scrambled to a slit in the wall. It was little more than some rusted metal and grate that had been worn down, but even the awful bend to the metal was better than trying to navigate the hydraulic pressure lines and metal tubing. He could crawl up through it, sure, but he was more likely to get crushed.
“Where are you!?” the voice cracked like a whip. “Get back here! I know that you are in the walls, I will find you, you little rat! You cannot hide forever!”
Jazz let out a breathless little laugh, fingers catching on the metal. He could feel his skin tearing, the flickers of pain pushed to the very back of his mind. It was a tight squeeze, the press and pull of cool metal and scrape of rust against his body was annoying and he could feel some of his hair being pulled this way and that with the little divots and catches in the metal. Jazz didn’t stop pulling himself through the metal, ignoring the fresh pops and pulls of metal against his exposed skin, the screech and groan of goaded, protesting metal underneath his weight as he moved. Too slow. He was too slow. The metal shifted and creaked underneath of him and Jazz yelled in shock as a claw suddenly began worming through the metal towards him, snapping like a hungry, rabid animal.
“Fuck off!” he snapped, struggling to maintain his calm, wriggling deeper into the wall.
Just a little bit further, he could feel it.
“Get. Back. Here! ” the voice was louder than ever before, like it had been bass boosted to vibrate through his bones. “NOW, you RAT!”
Jazz yelled as he lunged for the split in the metal, kicking backwards to keep himself moving, feeling a bit like he was swimming. Several things happened at the same time.
He burst through the little split in the wall.
A turret followed him, but it fell over the thin edge and toppled down into an abyss.
The claw similarly appeared, just seconds after the turret and grabbed from Jazz, straining like a dog at the end of its short chain.
Jazz was falling.
He flailed at the air, eyes wide as he tipped over backwards, stomach and all his internal organs swooping as if there were merely ingredients in a pan.
There are five seconds of brain power prior to your death. That’s when you get the whole life flashing before your eyes! First Aid’s cheerfully morbid fact flashed through Jazz’s mind as he fell. Did you know that if you hit water from even twenty feet you’ll feel more like you’re hitting concrete than water? It’s why divers have to streamline themself, since you can break bones. You’d be fucked if you hit the ground though, since even from five feet a head can be cracked. Like an egg! But don’t worry, I can put you back together, Ratchet’s taught me how!
The feeling of hitting ground was more than shocking. It hurt. It was soft, though, softer than he’d anticipated, though Jazz knew he’d bruised something badly. What was another shock was that he was still moving. He was sliding, slowly, downwards. Not like a slide that wasn’t quite right, either, more like something was slowly tilting him upright.
“Whoa whoa whoa!!” he yelped, rolling once more and struggling to get his feet underneath himself. “C’mon, not like this!”
The pitch black space didn’t seem to hold an answer for him, instead just kept moving slowly upwards, the vibrations of something starting and stopping over and over echoed through his sore body, hitting hard against his bruises and battered bones. Jazz yelled, breathless and off guard as he was sent tumbling down, once more, into a chute of some kind, the darkness just swallowed him. The only light was from his visor, but there was nothing for it to register. Just dark and smooth chute and he could feel his heart starting to thunder with adrenaline as he heard the distant yells of the AI.
Jazz shoved his feet down to slow himself down, wincing at the feeling of sparks jumping and biting, much in the way he did when he got papercuts. His arms came up to protect his face and neck instinctively as a source of dim lighting, which in comparison to the rest of the space, may as well have been sunlight. Jazz dug his teeth into his cheek, feeling the pressure ache through him as he rushed downwards, faster and faster, towards the light.
He stopped, suddenly and forcefully, in what felt like a mixture of soft plastic tubing and metal. The odd pieces dug into his thighs, butt and back, making him groan as they pressed against the bruises, doggedly reminding him that there may be worse than bruises. Jazz slowly picked up his head, blinking slowly as he took stock of himself. He was able to breathe, his ribs were hurting but not in the terrible ache and tremble of something being broken or fractured, which meant he wasn’t going to have to worry about a punctured lung.
Hurray.
He blinked, lifting a hand to his head and shook his head slowly, muzzy. Still sluggishly bleeding fingertips pressed into his braids, parting them carefully as he felt along for bumps or gushing wounds. Or dents, as the cheerful memory of First Aid reminded him, which was worse as it wouldn’t be easy to treat on his own and could apply pressure to his brain since the brain was like a pound of bacon semi floating in liquid wrapped in a particularly tough eggshell. Jazz groaned in relief as he only felt a small bump. He’d had worse concussions and run out of the area without issue. He could focus too, which was good, though the space was oddly cavernous.
“Where in the fuck am I, even?” he muttered, squinting as he looked around. “Looks like some kind of scrapyard… What’s that doing in a place like this? Am I underground?”
His stomach growled loudly and Jazz groaned as he heaved himself upright. Food. He needed to find something that he could eat. With all the junkyard materials here, he could likely make some traps and tools, and maybe catch whatever animals were down here. Rabbits, birds, maybe rats if he really had to. But he would rather stick to something that would give him more than a bit tiny pieces of meat. He tested the ground carefully, tense, ready to leap to the side in case it started to move again. Nothing. It felt like concrete, even, so he slowly relaxed and breathed out, shaking his hands out. Okay, good, no sudden floor movements. Jazz slowly looked around, the whole space looked more and more like a dumping ground, maybe where the trash used to be sent before whatever trash solution was used. Jazz nudged a few loose parts, frowning softly as they clinked apart and fell around him. They looked like pieces to robots, not like the turrets that he’d seen before. Though, they also didn’t look like anything Shockwave had ever built before, so Jazz had a feeling, at the very least, that it wasn’t going to be the Decepticon’s. Maybe this was an older lab that had been left to whatever elements and forces wanted to take it over and instead some neutral had moved in and taken it over. He’d never heard of Aperture Science, and it was his literal job to know things.
He frowned a little at the robot parts and crouched down, poking at one experimentally. No sparks, no wriggles, nothing. Just cold, lifeless metal. He picked it up and turned the spherical piece around and around in his hands. The circuits inside it looked deceptively simple, but Jazz knew that there was something more to that. There were pieces that didn’t make sense for normal sodder points. He put it down, carefully, and kept moving. Sudden movement had him pausing and looking around, slowly, not wanting to alert what could be a potential meal and send it running. And if it was a person, or god forbid, the turret and or another part of the AI, he didn’t want to alert it to the fact that he was aware of their presence.
Soft, low croaking. A crow? He didn’t particularly want to kill the bird, but if it meant that he could eat… Though, if the crow was able to live in here, that meant that there was enough food to keep it alive. That wasn’t the sound of a starving animal, that was a curious noise. Jazz crouched and slowly began to make his way over, eyes narrowing as he got closer. It was a pair of crows, which just supported his theory about them being able to survive and live in this space. That meant that there was food in this area. That was good. He was so hungry. A part of him wondered if he managed to actually follow the crows they would guide him to a sustained food source, or at least something that he could use. Or, better yet, they knew a way out of this place and he could get to the surface and find a way back to the Arc. One crow flapped their wings, hopping up a few times before it landed a bit away, showing off-
“Food!!” Jazz dashed towards the small pile of what looked like potatoes.
He was saved! Potatoes! He could absolutely find a way to make a camp fire and cook them and then save them so he could eat slowly over the however long he was stuck until he found another space. The crows took off, screeching in indignation at his rude intrusion on their meal, but he didn’t care. Jazz dove for the pile and immediately pulled the lumpy object to him. His joy quickly fizzled out like a sparkler as he felt the cool metal of most of the lumps.
“No, c’mon,” he whined, looking down at what should have been a beautiful bounty of soon be cooked potato. “C’mon, please? Please, just one or two, I can live with that!”
He rooted through the pile, careful of sharp edges, but nothing. Lumpy bit of pipe, odd plastic, left over robotic bits. What could have been a part of a prosthetic. And then, he felt the soft skin of dirt and thin vegetable and Jazz felt silly, but he could have wept. Something normal, finally, something he could cook, and eat and use to plan his escape with.
“Oh, thank gods. I can cook you over a fire and I don’t even care you’ll be bland as shit, you’re gonna be delicious after however long I’ve not eaten.”
“Please don’t,” came a soft, low voice.
“What the fuck.” Jazz felt he should have yelled, or maybe jumped. Not stared at the potato in shock and a slow creeping horror. “Wait, no. No, you’re a potato. I’ve not lost my mind. I am not hallucinating.”
“You are not hallucinating, but I am also not a potato. My name is Prowl,” the potato stated. “This potato is my power source.”
“What the fuck.” Jazz repeated, feeling hysteria tinge the back of his mind. “No. What?” he felt a bit woozy. “Maybe I do have brain damage…”
“Turn me over. I can see that way.”
Jazz, numb, did as the potato said and hung his head, letting out a weak little noise. In the middle of the potato was some kind of circuit, clinging to the potato with a burning red iris and black sclera. It had no eyelid and little apertures inside it seemed like it meant that the red lens could contract and expand as needed.
“Hello, properly. I am Prowl, I use he/him. Who are you?”
“Hungry,” Jazz whined, letting himself have a few seconds to mourn the loss of his meal.
Prowl paused for a full five seconds. “That is… Certainly a name.”
“What? No! My name is Jazz, just- Fuck me, man, you’re a potato, I thought I could eat you. I’ve been stuck here, I don’t know how long, and I’m fucking hungry. And thirsty, that’s a totally separate issue.”
Prowl paused again and Jazz wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or just dead and this was some weird fucked up version of the afterlife.
“If you help me get my body back, I will help you get all the food and water you want.” Prowl said.
Jazz narrowed his eyes. “And how do I know you’re not lyin?”
Prowl was, at least, a little bit easier to read than whatever AI had been controlling his hell just a bit before. He seemed to be honest, at least.
“Unlike Bombshell, I do not lie. I don’t see the point in such things.” Prowl said, prim.
“Wait, Bombshell?” Jazz frowned. “Who’s that?”
“The one who likely kidnapped you and put you into the testing facility, since you have one of the portal guns.” Prowl explained, a touch exasperated. “He is a problem that needs to be taken care of. If you have managed to get down here, then you will be able to get back up, and I will guide you around.”
“Okay. So.” Jazz stopped, thinking. “You said your original body. Where is it? I got some basic medical training, I can prolly help. And I’ve got a lot’ve mechanical experience, and tech skills, so if you’re a cyborg or something I can help you sort out whatever he’s done, maybe scavenge parts and such too from here-”
“We are in my body.” Prowl said simply.
Jazz sat down, hard, on his ass.
“Huh?”
“We are in my body.” Prowl repeated and Jazz could almost see his eyeroll. “This facility. It is me. This potato is the only thing that’s keeping me alive, as it is just my core stuck in a small chip. I need you to get me to the mainframe and reintegrate me into the systems so I can take over my body.”
Jazz blinked. And then blinked again.
“Right, okay. That’s. Okay.”
“So, do we have a deal?”
Jazz quickly ran through the list of things that could go wrong, and they were numerous, but the possibility of getting the hell out of here, and maybe, if Prowl wasn’t evil and just manipulating him to do something awful and get himself killed, he’d have a powerful ally. If Prowl was an AI that ran a whole building, then. Well, that meant that he could connect to wifi and systems, and that was a very powerful tool.
“Prowler, you’ve got a deal.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Whatver you say, Prowltato.” Jazz said, grinning slowly.
Prowl sighed. “I don’t even have blood vessels and you are making my blood pressure rise.”
Jazz laughed, the fist real, genuine laugh he’d let out in a while. “Oh, I think I’m gonna like you!”
“The same cannot be said for you.” Prowl said drily.