Future to past, past to future. Time was linear.

Red Alert knew all of this… and yet… I wonder if I did get transferred to one of those Alternate Universes? Everyone is so…innocent.

He twitched as yet another mech threatened to intrude on the small invisible bubble surrounding him. For some odd reason smiles abounded. Real smiles, not smirks or sneers. Beside him, Inferno chattered off the auditory receptor of a mech willingly listening. Not only listening, but also making appropriate noises and sounds at proper intervals.

Confusing.

Blue optics rapidly scanned the room again, spotting faces that were familiar yet not.

They looked like the mechs he had worked with, once upon a time, but they weren't. This small yellow minibot was happily smiling and chattering to a listening Datsun without a hint of the mad paranoia that once kept the mech entirely in the vents unless necessary.

The smile on that visored mech was without guile or the thinness that usually accompanied it. Instead he was drifting here, there, everywhere.

Not a single punch had been thrown once as mechs intermingled and accidentally bumped into each other. Red Alert had been counting on a fight before now. Really, he had been anticipating it for a long time, and the waiting was beginning to wear onto his nerves.

Crunch. The sound of metal slamming against metal in a distinctive punching sound echoed in the room.

Instantly, room cleared around the two mechs, as dismayed whispers ran through the room. Red Alert almost smiled, controlling it at the last possible moment. He should've known.

Red and yellow mechs faced off against each other, hands clenched into tight fists. Red Alert sipped his cube, anticipating the fight to come. Beside him he heard a dismayed murmur. "Oh no, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are at it again."

He ought to be worried- that he knew. But the two twins always fought. And he wasn't about to interrupt now.

"Quick, someone stop them before Ratchet sees and makes our next checkups painful." The voice was instantly rebuked.

"You go stop them then. I'm not going anywhere near."

Some things never changed apparently. Obviously Sunstreaker's temper hadn't changed much in the past. And there was still no one willing to break up their fights as well.

In the crowd, Red Alert had a brief image of a black and white datsun, before the shifting mass of mechs covered him up. Instinctively he shrank back. Prowl wasn't the most violent of mechs, but the torture he inflicted through paperwork and the lengths he went from pure paranoia was altogether astounding.

And in no way did Red Alert wish to become part of that. As far as he was concerned, Prowl could do whatever he wanted…

A vocalizer cleared dangerously from the doorway. Both twins' heads snapped up to the mostly white bot standing in the doorway. "Oh-" One began.

"Slag." Finished the other.

Those two are in trouble now. Only Ratchet's ever been able to cow them. Earth idiom slipped into his CPU.

His optics shuttered in surprise. It had been a long time since he had thought about Earth and its inhabitants. Earth was destroyed and its inhabitants entirely killed. I don't quite remember, since I was just a youngling at the time but… He felt slightly sorry for the planet he had grown up on, but one couldn't change the past.

One couldn't, could they?

Red Alert frowned as his CPU began calling up memory files of stories that Ironhide used to tell him before it was decided that the stories were holding him back from his true paranoia potential and stopped.

One of the memory files, about someone named… Pipes? No, he was killed a few years after that. Hot Rod? Noooo… That's it, Springer. The Wreckers.

The name was all that was needed to unlock the memory file.

Ironhide glanced down at the small sparkling. "What went really wrong in the war? I suppose that would be the day that the Wrecker Crew became disbanded because Springer was killed."

"Who's Springer? How did he get killed?"

"That? Oh, Springer was one of them legendary triple-changers that got wiped out during the war. He was the leader of one of the best fighting units, called the Wreckers."

"If he was one of the best warriors, then how did he get killed?"

"Betrayal of course. A mech going to see him tossed in a bomb and ran. The bomb only took out that room, the walls were too thick." Ironhide looked slightly reminiscent. "It would've happened on day 45 of year 99961."

The rest of the memory file described in great detail what the triple changer looked like. "Inferno…"

Inferno jumped from where he had been watching the twins in worry. "Yeah?"

"What year is it? What day is it?"

"Uhh, year 99961, day 44." Inferno's optics shuttered slightly. "Why do ya ask?"

"Do you know someone named Springer?"

"Yeah, he's commander of the Wreckers. He was my commander for awhile, before I got drafted into Search and Rescue-" Well that explained Inferno's fury when he had found out that Ironhide had told that tale to him. "-He's a good mech. In fact, I sometimes still go see him in his office, number 119. Why?"

"Oh, no reason. I was just wondering."

If he sat outside Springer's room for the rest of the day, would he get to see the killer? Wouldn't that be interesting, to see history unfold. He probably couldn't help stop the mech. After all, according to most theories he had heard, one couldn't affect the time stream. It would only loop itself.

With that thought firmly in CPU, Red Alert's attention was once more drawn back to the medic and twins.

He only wished he had a camera.

------------

The next cycle, Red Alert found himself in front of the office.

Along with a queasy moral programming.

He didn't know who installed the thing, all he wanted to know was how to shut it up. We shouldn't let him die, and you know that. The same way you knew that you should've broken up the twins' fight!

Growling to himself, Red Alert shook his head. He couldn't change the time stream. He didn't dare change the time stream. If he did… There was no telling what might happen.

More importantly, he didn't want to be stuck among all of these crazily non-paranoid mechs. It was driving him up the wall every breem to see them casually leave holes in their defenses, and not even notice them.

If you want to change that, then take charge yourself. Again, the moral programming was beginning to sound a lot more like his logic chip.

He shoved the thought out of his CPU. Or at least attempted too. The problem with not thinking about something was that one must think about it in order to not think about it. His CPU was beginning to hurt.

Optics snapped up warily as a mech started coming down the hallway. He looked around, pretending to be lost. No one should've fallen for it, but the other mech didn't bother sparing him a glance.

One score in his favor.

Red Alert shifted uneasily as yet again his moral programming began to scream and shout in anger. He wasn't very happy with the situation either. But one mech couldn't change the future… right?

Only one way to find out. Now get out there and do your job. His moral programming was beginning to sound miffed.

Now he knew he was going insane. The voices in his head were beginning to take on a personality. This was going to be bad.

The mech was about to enter the room, when Red Alert cleared his vocalizer awkwardly. "Excuse me-"

The mech stiffened, but kept his optics on the door. Red Alert wondered why even as he forced his vocalizer to come up with a proper excuse. "I'm looking for Prowl's office. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you?"

"Three doors to the right." The utterly stiff reply was addressed to the door.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to speak up." Out of thin air, Red Alert plucked one of the stupidest reasons the twins ever gave. "My auditory receptors are damaged because an old grandma saw who her daughter was marrying."

All of the terms, Red Alert belatedly realized, were completely human in origin. Slag. This was a time before humans were discovered.

In a slightly louder voice, the mech snapped, "Three doors to the right."

He was still facing the door. Red Alerts optics narrowed. "Is there a reason why you're facing the door?"

"No." The mech clearly regretted the answer as soon as he said it.

Aha, we have got our bomber. Now, where's the bomb?

His optics swept the form, and optics widened. "What's in your hand-"

The mech whirled, lobbing the bomb at him. For a moment, Red Alert could only watch the round ball arc into the air, before the well-ingrained actions sent him scurrying for cover.

He hit the open key to the door next to him, and slammed it shut behind him, locking it.

Behind him he saw a startled faceplate as he leapt over the desk, and slid beneath it, yanking the mech down with him. "Bomb." He managed to get out, before a resounding explosion echoed down the hallway.

The door blew inwards, hitting the desk with a resounding clang. Red Alert flinched from his curled up fetal position. Beside him the other mech winced. Knowing my luck, the door blowing killed Springer anyways.

A voice, one that he had never heard before, shouted, "What's going on? Optimus Prime, are you alright?"

Every cable in Red Alert went taut as he turned to actually see whom he had just bunkered down with. The red and blue truck's head was poked above the desk. "Springer?"

The green mech standing in the doorway looked faintly relieved. Red Alert was anything but relieved. He had altered the time stream. Could he now expect a giant lightening bolt to come out of nowhere and strike him dead?

"Oh good, you are alright. What happened?"

Prime's steady gaze turned to the still crouching Red Alert. "I believe we have an answer right here."

Red Alerts CPU warned him not to tell the truth. They would never believe him, and at worst would accuse him of being a fellow conspirator. "I was lost, and I asked this mech standing in front of a doorway if he knew where I was, and he said yes, but wouldn't face me, so I thought it was suspicious looking and I kept on questioning him, and keeping him out in the hallway when I thought I saw a twinkle of a bomb and made to double check but he threw the bomb at me and it exploded-"

The rambling, confused explanation would've done Smokescreen proud if he had been there. Smokescreen was always saying such things, just to watch others squirm uncomfortably. Him, Bluestreak, Jazz, and several others. Smokescreen was one of the best known however. With Jazz you were never certain.

Springer's optic ridge rose. "Paranoid?" He offered dryly.

Red Alert liked Springer in that instant. No one had ever complimented him like that before. It made one happy to be here.

Now his CPU was firmly on a path. Sort of. Red Alert still felt a touch of uneasiness at what he had just done….

Several other mechs began to rush into the room as Red Alert slowly straightened to his feet, before automatically ducking as one gestured with a gun. "Prime, what happened?"

"Apparently a bomb was let off before it could reach its target." Prime's soft voice was slightly grim, but the leader kept his CPU under control. Red Alert wasn't about to speak up again. They would certainly poke holes into his story and tell him that he should've done something different.

"As for the rest of you, find the mech who did this. Get to the Security Director and have him check out who did this. And as for the next part of the day, I'd like for someone to take…" Prime trailed off as he realized that he had never gotten the name of the mech that had come charging into his room.

Red Alert offered meekly, "My designation is Red Alert, sir."

"Take Red Alert to the medbay-" Red Alert stiffened. There was no way he was going to the medbay- "After which take him to Prowl's office to get all of the information possible."

Red Alert allowed himself to be led out, wishing very, very quietly that he had been given over to Ironhide and not Prowl. He respected Prowl, but actually talking to Prowl? Primus save him, that tactician would poke a hole into any of the lies he told.

Ratchet's examination was passed in dumb silence as he attempted to bring his rattled CPU together into story that could possibly sound plausible.

In what felt like moments, he was sitting in front of Prowl, story still not fully thought out. Well, he did have a story, but he was debating on which side to present himself as.

Moral programming whispered to protect this innocence he found himself surrounded by.

Logic and his Spark wanted everyone to be back the way they were: Paranoid.

A swirl of chattering, laughing voices rose from out beyond the door as Prowl gestured to a seat. There were no booby traps, there was no suspicion. Only the look of someone ready to listen.

Wrong, it was all wrong, yet completely right at the same time.

Somewhere, deep within him, he wanted this beautiful dream – for dream it must be – to last as long as possible. "I'm Red Alert, trained to be a security officer, sir! I had just arrived on base and I was planning on surveying possible security risks when I saw something odd…"

It was a beautiful dream, and Red Alert could only hope it would last.

-Fini