5.24.09: So this one kinda got away from me a bit, but I really like where it went. Also, I am making decent progress on The Long Road Home and hope to have 11 up before the next Giant Robots And Explosions movie comes out.

24: Disheveled (no spoilers, I think)

A worried Nic made her way through the Autobot complex, dodging other human personnel and the legs of robots, entering the now-groundbound Ark. She kept close to the walls, nimbly slipping by the increasing concentration of Cybertronians and used the sound of Ratchet's voice as a compass, though by now she almost knew her way through the great ship by heart.

Ratchet's voice, when hitting certain frequencies, Ironhide had told her, had a tendency to carry through many mediums that normally wouldn't transmit sound. At the time she'd suspected that Ironhide had been having a go at the medic, as old friends of any species were wont to do, until the first time she saw Ratchet truly and utterly vent his mechanical spleen. At Prime, of all people, for having the nerve to get his arm blown off in a tussle with Starscream.

The stream of vocal invective had been so impressive that Glen, on the other side of the base and not even in the Ark proper, had phoned Nic in a panic to ask if there was another attack.

Today hadn't nearly been so bad. Wreckage, Swindle and Barricade raising stinks just close enough to the base's sensor net to draw some of the Autobots out into the open while Starscream and company would make a bid for the vulnerable base. Said base promptly said hello with its automated defense systems and the primed cannons of well-rested new Autobot arrivals and their eager human allies.

Nic would have to ask Bobby how gratifying it had been to send the likes of Starscream yipping off to nurse fresh scorch marks, but later. She and Whiplash had been the ones to bump into Swindle. And boy, was that one robot she wished she'd never had a conversation with. He was a talker, that one, and Nic came away from every encounter with him feeling as if she'd almost been talked into a timeshare in swampland on Venus. Fortunately he couldn't fight worth rust, by Whiplash's opinion. Nic, yet a squishable human, kept well out of his way nonetheless.

Whiplash had mercifully cut the banter short by employing one of his favorite techniques: he'd leapt right onto Swindle like a giant metal spider monkey, yanking at parts and poking his blades into armor gaps, a move that never failed to drive Decepticons into a most undignified display of flailing, staggering about, and swearing, though Whiplash usually reserved it for larger opponents.

The little tussle moved into a thicket of bushes, where the woody branches and some kind of thorny, viney ground weed brought the fight to an awkward halt as tough fibrous vegetation tangled mercilessly in joints and snared armor. As Whiplash freed himself, Nic had pulled out an EMP grenade (Wheeljack made the most wonderful toys) and was prepared to chuck it at the turtled Swindle once her partner was clear, but at that moment Starscream called retreat.

And not a moment too soon; Whiplash's left chestplate was caved partly in, and a stream of glowing energon trickled down his leg from an internal leak. Hence the rush to the medbay now. Ratchet only reached these decibel levels if someone had really hurt themselves or had done something of particular stupidity, and since Whiplash wasn't prone to stupidity it had to be option one. Nic had wasted minutes with one of the human medics fretting about her bruises. She wasn't hurt, but with all those wonderful recessive genes it didn't take much for her to look like she'd lost an argument with Evander Holyfield.

But it was Sideswipe at the business end of Ratchet's wrath, as it turned out, managing to look equal parts bored and pleased on the repair berth as Ratchet disentangled what looked like someone else's dismembered hand entangled in the warrior's shoulder servos. Sideswipe waved cheerily at Nic with his free hand, and, both of them knowing better than to interrupt Ratchet, pointed off to one of the medbay side wings. She gave him a thumbs up and slipped unobtrusively off.

Whiplash sat on a low berth just out of sight, bits of his own outer plating strewn out beside him. Most of his upper torso exposed, one shoulder bereft of armor entirely, and all four wheels removed and stacked on the floor next to his feet.

"I'm all right," he quickly assured her. "Self-repair has already sealed the leak."

"Geez, Whip, you look like hell," Nic remarked, hoisting herself up on the berth. She picked up of his chestplates-- bigger than your average dinner plate but too small to go sledding on-- and ran her fingers over the respectable dent Swindle had bestowed on it. The metal was far lighter than it looked, its inner surface laced with intricate patterns of circuitry and connectors where plain Earth motorcycle fairing would have been featureless. She knew by association that its lightness belied a very unearthly strength.

Whiplash was picking meticulously at his own substructure, removing bits of twigs and thorns and stringy dead weeds. "Pervasive stuff," he said. "I can only hope Swindle his having as much trouble with his own internals. Are you uninjured?" He touched her arm gently. "That's quite a shade of purple you've acquired."

"Meh, a butterfly flaps its wings in China and I bruise. Here, lemme help, hold your arm up." Nic worked a twig loose from a cluster of cables, careful not to break too many bits off. Particulates in the gears were highly uncomfortable and irritating, not to mention inconvenient to deal with, but not a dire threat. Probably why Ratchet had booted Whiplash out of the main room to deal with Sideswipe. "I have tiny human hands, maybe you won't have to strip yourself to the struts."

"An advantage Swindle will not have," Whiplash hummed, pleased.

"As well as saving you from Ratchet?"

One optic shutter clicked in a wink. "That too."

He was doing that more often, she mused as she followed a particularly long strand of weed-string down into his upper torso. Nic knew from watching the robots interact with each other that there were great overlaps in nonverbal language between her people and theirs, and certain things the robots only did when interacting with humans. Pointing, head-nodding, some facial movements. Whiplash, though, really only exhibited marked body language in the presence of his closest confidants, keeping a cool businesslike demeanor for all others, human and Cybertronian alike. Nic had been a little thrilled when Whiplash had once waved in greeting rather enthusiastically at Sam, as opposed to his usual polite hello. It meant Whiplash was feeling more at home.

She supposed one had to feel pretty at home to allow one of the natives to go digging around in one's vitals. This particular weed was strung down and behind a goodly chunk of robotic innards. And it was stuck further in, an experimental tug proved. Whiplash flinched, and Nic froze and quickly withdrew her hands.

"Sorry-- am I yanking on something I shouldn't?"

Whiplash passed a hand over the exposed area of his chest, like someone wanting to scratch at an itch but knowing they should not. "No, it... there are a number of sensors in that area. It pickles." A pause. "Tickles."

Considerately letting the blooper slide, Nic moved in front of him. He pulled his shoulders back, and the one remaining chestplate swung out to give her better access. No wonder he was sensitive in there: the weed had somehow worked its way over and partly behind a cantaloupe-sized ovoid shell of dark metal. Obscured mostly on either side by cables, glowing energon lines and mechanisms unknown, a seam bisected it down the middle, each side inscribed with lines of neat Cybertronian glyphs. With even greater care than before, she reached back in.

"That's your spark chamber, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

She knew what a spark was, but only just. That a spark was in integral part of a Cybertronian's being, kept well-protected in their mechanical bodies. As boiled down by Ratchet, in that lost-in-translation way he had, along with a holographic projection of a slowed-down spinning thing of wireframe cube-within-cube-within-cube and words like "dekeract" and "polytope" and "self-reactive coherent data" until the only human nodding in thoughtful understanding was Chip Chase. And Nic wasn't ready to discount the possibility that he was actually a robot too.

"Ratchet tried explaining it," she said, her fingers finding where the wayward bramble was wedged between the chamber and a gear of some sort, "but my eyes kinda crossed. Is it... like your heart or your brain?"

Whiplash paused to consider the question as she eased the stringy intruder free. "Both," he said after a moment. "Neither, and more."

Oh yes, Nic thought, tossing the weed to the floor, that cleared it right up.

"If energon is analogous to blood," he attempted patiently, "then no, it is not my heart; I have a system of pumps and valves for that purpose. And my primary processor contains all core programming necessary for interaction with the world and the functions of my body, as your brain does for you.

"But without a spark, this shell would be no more sentient than, say, Maggie's laptop. The body would be nothing but a drone. And if... if you were to put another spark in place of mine, you would be speaking to someone else entirely."

Just as the impact of what he was saying sunk in, the chamber opened.

Beneath the heavy shielding of the outermost chamber lay a nest of wires and another barrier, this one milk-white like ceramic and covered with circuitry, seemingly seamless until it too shifted, paper-thin bands sliding back to reveal a third shell. And within this final glass-like sphere lay Whiplash's very soul.

No bigger than a softball, it spun and pulsed blue-white, almost too bright to look directly at. Nic caught glimpses of rapidly-shifting cubic facets, like a gemstone being constantly shaped and re-shaped, a star in miniature.

"This spark," he said, "is all that I am."

The enormity of the gesture hit her: there was a very good reason for the layers of protection. Whiplash could have just projected a holographic image as Ratchet had done, but had instead had bared his helpless spark. It wasn't an explanation to a curious human. It was a demonstration of unequivocal trust, at once immensely thrilling and deeply humbling.

After a few moments the chamber closed, inner and outer shells resettling once more around the spark, and Whiplash was once more a disheveled little Autobot with leaves and twigs in his gears.

Nic wordlessly went back to work removing the plant matter, and smiled up at her friend's optics, which were pale hints of the brilliance hidden within.