Jack Darby stumbled suddenly as he ran, a bright lance of pain twisting down through his left arm like a cramp.

"Damnit, not now. Not now." he gasped, clutching his shoulder and skidding to a halt. Around him, the ground shook. The air clapped with thunder and heat and the dark clouds above were lit with flashes of flame all along the northern skyline. So intense was the battle, that arcs of static lighting rippled out from the sky above it and they rolled and twisted along in the dry air above him. Everything felt super-charged and warm, a funny static taste of ozone on the tongue, and Jack knew the heat he felt was no illusion.

His world burned.

His chest aching, gulping down huge lungfuls of air, he looked back at the cityscape behind him. Several shattered buildings obstructed his view, but he could see the fall out from the last stand of the Autobots even from here. It flashed and rippled from behind the broken shells of a dead city. His friends were there. Right in among the chaos. Sacrificing themselves for this last chance. A chance that landed squarely on Jack Darby's shoulders. He didn't dare think about the scream of metal and rolling explosions. What was important was that they continued, for that meant the Autobots were still in the fight and Jack still had time to complete his mission.

Yeah, sure. If I don't die of a heart attack first.

He was forty seven now and his health was not good. He was the last of the human allies that fought for the Autobots and he had been at it for over thirty years. As many scars covered his body as did lean, corded muscles, and deep lines covered his weathered face, with his once dark hair shot through with streaks of gray.

He was not the young man he used to be. In fact, he could remember the day his youth had come to an end. He could remember the shape of the doctor, if not the man's face, who had stood there in a white lab coat and told him he had damaged his heart. Irrevocably. Irreparably. And all the other fancy long words for how a doctor told you that you had fucked up.

He had only covered eleven blocks at the run and he was already wheezing like a furnace. His shirt was sweat through under his combat tunic, and now, between one breath and the next, his heart started acting up, bringing him to a stop and forcing him to bend over like an old man. But he had to keep moving. He had to move faster. Faster, always faster. Even though jinking through the ruins like this, picking his way down the littered and pock-marked streets and broken bridges, he didn't see how he could ever make it. He didn't even have a God damn bicycle, but if he went any faster he could take a fall, for evening was coming on and his eyes were not what they used to be either.

Why send an old man to do a young man's job? Because the old man was all that was left. Nothing for it but to keep moving, but Jack needed a miracle as he hefted the heavy backpack on his shoulders and rubbed his eyes clear.

To his utter surprise, at that very moment, a Vehicon combo-flyer careened out of the skies in a long trail of flame and sparks. From where he crouched by a bent light pole, Jack watched incredulously as the Con skidded down to a crash land along the street just in front of him, the hovercraft chewing up the cement like a plow, throwing dust and chips of concrete in all directions and generally making one hell of a racket. The pilot who had been riding that armored platform had been shot up, and he was slumped over at the controls, cursing as the whole works slammed to a halt in a wall of a building, pulverizing the remains of an old ice cream shoppe. The Vehicon was flung from the platform and through a few dirty windows, screeching in machine code rage as he hit the ground hard.

Jack's lips tightened into a line as he drew his treasured weapon from his hip.

MagnumX7. A conglomerate firearm custom built by him for Ratchet, now long dead, and it nearly dwarfed Jack's hand. He thumbed a switch and the ancient exo-frame strapped down around his arm hummed to life, reinforced bars sliding into place and locking his weapon tight in his fist, providing a stable platform for the recoil, because the X7 had quite a kick. Like this, the massive pistol was an extension of his own arm.

And Jack was a good shot.

He was already picking up speed, his eyes glued to the hole in the wall the Con had gone through, and he moved a little better now, trusting his instincts to keep him from tripping. Tripping wouldn't be good. He would have to be fast and accurate, repeating to himself that same old mantra; Move, move, move. Don't fuck it up. There won't be a second chance.

Second chance? He nearly snorted. After this, there wouldn't even be any more ammunition. The Autobots were broken. Drained. Hunted. Their resources spent. And Jack had hoarded these last precious rounds for his weapon for years. Until this final chance. As it was, he still only had four, but he was determined to make them count.

He was coming up fast when the Vehicon finally freed itself of the rubble and came climbing back out into the street. For a moment Jack glimpsed the battle damage it had taken and that it seemed dazed and weakened.

All the better.

He didn't make a sound. No battle cry, no heroics. He just kept running. Of course the Con heard him, and he turned just as Jack reached the crashed platform. What was this? It was amazed to see a human come running up to it and level a huge sidearm at him one handed.

"What do you think..." was all the black armored Vehicon managed to say.

Jack shot him cleanly between the eyes with a clap of power that still managed to push him back on his worn out combat boots as the gun went off. There was a hard blast of air, felt more than heard, that shattered the Con's face and blew out the back of it's head, snapping him back through the hole like a felled tree. He landed back on the same rubble he had been stepping over, with only his armored boots showing from the street, and Jack was already looking around to see if anyone had witnessed anything.

His arm hurt like hell from his elbow all the way to the tips of his fingers, for this old exo-frame wasn't what it used to be either. He retracted the forearm locks and holstered the hefty weapon, breathing hard through his nose like a tired old bull.

"Christ almighty." he winced, shaking out his numbed fingers. It had been too long since he had fired that damn thing, but wasting no time, he came up to the platform, hot from battle, the steel pinging and hissing as it lay at an angle in the pile of bricks and cinder blocks it had pulled down.

Jack leaned heavily against the side for a moment, his hand beginning to out right ache as the numbness wore off.

"Now both my fuckin' arms hurt." he groaned, trying to massage some life back into his battered hands. The package in his backpack tingled warmly against his skin, even through the fabric of his jacket, and vaguely he wished he could just lie down next to it and go to sleep.

"Come on, Jackie boy. Up we go." he mumbled, as he hefted himself up onto the bent up framework of the vehicle. This wasn't the first time he had piloted Transformer sized machinery, and after all these years he was rather adept at it. These platforms were simple in how they were just huge, armored, oversized discs, overpowered and blunt. Still, it was built for living machine warriors something four times his size, so there would be no sailing through the clouds like a bird. After a hasty bypass under the dash, and backing it out from where it was partially buried, all he could manage was to limp the wounded machine down the street at a better pace than he could have run, but at least he could avoid all the clutter, rusty cars and shell holes.

He was sweating pretty bad all the same and his hands felt clammy, struggling with just his own strength to keep the platform up right. He slammed into a few of those cars and nearly sent himself flying just as happened to the Con, but he kept her up. It may have been just as physically taxing on his body as proceeding on foot, but it spared his leg muscles and gave him the illusion he was catching his breath. Where the Con could just press a pedal, Jack had to slam his foot down hard, and where they could steer this thing with a tap, he had to put his shoulders into it, and it was damaged and fighting him stubbornly, making him curse as it wobbled along.

It's power readings were spiking and dropping erratically and the engine housing was whining louder with each yard. Either it would simply die, or exploded, just as long as it got him closer to his goal.

"Hold together, you piece of shit." Jack grumbled, ignoring his aching body, staying on his feet through will power alone. "I've got to get in there and you're just the ticket."

Slowly he came in sight of the great black walls of the Decepticon Lab Complex, The Splicer as it was known among the people who knew of it, hiding in the ruins and wondering if they could flee to the countryside without being spotted.

What was the Splicer? The Splicer was the brain child of Knock-Out, the most accursed Decepticon to ever set foot off of Cybertron and whither the soil of Earth when he stepped down onto it for the first time. Twenty five years ago Knock-Out had dropped the facade of a posturing, preening prima-donna and he had turned his attentions to that creature known as mankind. Almost overnight, empowered with new ideas, new designs, weapons and chemicals, not to mention his own sick agenda, he had transformed himself into nothing less than a mad scientist, when he gave life to the idea of meshing Transformer life with human in a fit of genius that forever changed the face of the world. And the War.

It had taken everyone by surprise, even the original faction of Decepticons. All Knock-Out had ever needed was a chance to shine, and that chance had been Ratchet's stolen synthetic energon. The ever accursed Synth-En. What happened in that first year lived in infamy to those that new of it, but that was nothing compared to what followed. Undaunted by pursuit and always one step ahead, Knock-Out moved like a shadow, slipping away from one conflict after another only to rise all the stronger, until finally, when the time was right, what burst forth from his laboratories turned the tide forever. It was soulless, unholy killer matched by neither human nor Transformer, and it was ultimately destined to be more lethal than both. For by design, and a long ghastly history of trial and error, the perfect balance had been achieved, playing to the strongest and most lethal characteristics of both races and greatly enhanced by Synth-en itself, long mutated past it's original purpose.

So did Knock-Out give rise to the Bio-Terrors, which were of a size with most medium sized Transformers, but they looked human for the most part, and indeed it was hard to tell where the machine ended and the flesh began. Knock-Out himself had crowed that even he didn't know which was which or what it was that made them so deadly. Perhaps it was the human instinct to kill, their wild passions, backed by the might of Cybertron, but quickly none of that came to matter. There was no stopping them, however you looked at it.

Since the Transformer half of them was integrated with human biology, it made them faster, lethal, and savagely predatory; unlike anything either race had ever seen. What was even more terrible was that Knock-Out did not choose innocent victims to fuel his flesh forges. He chose criminals, gang lords, murderers and the worst mankind had to offer. Those men and women who craved the kind of power he promised and cared little for their fellow man. The first Bio-Terror's had even volunteered, and afterwards, when they didn't, Knock-Out took them away anyway, emptying entire prisoners and raising whole legions of cold blood killing machines 'grown' to obey only himself, and ever slowly tweaking the process until he could use soccer moms and baseball coaches to unleash a new slavering monster.

Natural Grown Killers he had cackled in the faces of the world leaders who thought they could entreat with him and plead for some semblance of sanity. Right before he sent him them off to be processed. Meanwhile, armies of Bio-Terrors swept mankind away before them, and what Transformers they could not overwhelm, they brought down by sheer numbers. So it was that Megatron was rumored to have met his end. Optimus as well, and the Autobots, already out-numbered and outgunned from long years of war on Earth, were doomed. Not only were they crippled by the moral quandary of harming human life, they felt responsible for what had happened and how in the early years they had acted much too late to stop Knock-Out.

With revulsion, Jack had seen for himself how lethal these Bio-Terrors were. Kill the flesh, the Transformer within kept them moving. Kill the Transformer, and the maddened flesh fought on, blood-mad zombies too insane to die.

Ratchet, of course, was inconsolable beyond comparison for he held himself personally accountable. Time and again, driving himself close to madness, he blamed himself for letting the Synth-En formula fall into enemy hands. He blamed himself for everything and Jack was not that much removed from his level. At least, not in his own mind.

Only a shared sense of guilt and comradery, built through sorrow, kept them going. That wouldn't let them give up, even after the time of Prime's fall. It was then that Ratchet began to teach Jack everything he new, like a son, and together they hatched a one last crazy plan to bring Knock-Out down. It wasn't until later Jack realized Ratchet had no intentions of being there to see it. That he had a final duty to preform and a final redemption to hold onto. In the desperate raid he led on The Splicer, he paved the way for Jack, even as he knew he wouldn't return from the mission. So was Jack finally left alone, the last soldier to carry one with a plan that had nothing to do with victory, but was all about obtaining the key to victory. On his own, it had taken Jack these last eight years to make ready, and now he was the key to The Splicer.

Now he was going back.

ooo

The armored skid rode a trail of spark and flame down the street like a comet. The two Vehicon sentries saw it coming, and stupidly they raised their blasters, their shots ineffective in stopping the out of control machine, even though they stubbornly held their ground. At the last moment, all they could do was cry out before the burning craft bowled into them. It swept them up and held together just long enough to explode right inside the gateway. The great arch, with its double doors leading into the building, cracked like an eggshell and secondary explosions brought the whole upper wall down from above.

Jack was already running, harder than he ever had before. The heavy backpack, strapped tight to his body, felt curiously light, but then again, he himself felt light headed. He could live with that. It had only happened about a thousand times in the last twenty five years. He dared not hesitate. He had to get inside, risking flame and fire and broken legs, he had to run this gauntlet before the Decepticons had time to react.

Back at Autobot base, Jack had voiced a hundred reasons why he would fail this mission before it had even begun. Wheeljack had told him to just improvise as he went along. It was how a true Wrecker would do it. Well, this one was surely worthy of the Wreckers. Before the gift of this armored skid, Jack had thought to try the roof. The great black dome itself sitting like an oily tumor in the heart of the ruined city of Denver, and somehow, if he managed it, what would have come next would have been getting into the duct work. He even had a climbing rig strapped across his lower back, up under his backpack for that very purpose, but as he drew near the complex, taking in the scale of the thing once more after eight long years, he knew that had been a fool's hope. Feeling like he did, he wouldn't be scaling anything. He'd be lucky to climb a ladder, much less any rope suspended over the street forty stories in the air, being scaled by a forty year year old man with a bad heart. Beyond that, the sewers had been no answer. You didn't want to encounter what prowled below ground in this city.

So, he chosen something a little more direct.

Jack Darby, human, ran through this self made hell, dodging the sections of wall that kept crumbling down, and scrambling over the huge, tore up steel doors that he had blown off their hinges. Dioxide extinguishers hissed into life all around and above him from hidden alcoves in the undamaged sections of the wall, killing the flames almost instantly, but that didn't matter. Jack needed a delicate balance of cover while still being able to see where he was going, and he was sporting an old working gas mask the whole way. Once inside this damned place he knew exactly where to go. He knew better than anyone. Heaven help him, he knew the place like the back of his hand, especially the duct work, and his mind ached with the knowledge.

He heard, rather than saw another Vehicon sentry raise the alarm as he ran into the building, racing through what passed for the 'lobby' here and down a broad hallway, never pausing for an instant. If he was spotted, he was spotted. The game would be up, so he might as well see how far he could get without wasting time looking around. He couldn't afford to worry about anything else, and he skidded to a stop next to a certain air duct covering set in one soot covered wall. Everything depended on fast thinking and faster action and none of the hesitating teenager who began this war remained in the ailing man that he was now.

But what he wouldn't give for that youth again.

Just as he made it, just as he got the cover open and worked his way under it, the emergency response teams arrived. The hallway was filled with fumes and pounding feet, the Vehicon contingent running towards the breach, but thanks to those very fumes, the smoke, and all the dioxide blowing about, Jack went unnoticed. He prayed no Bio-Terrors were among these teams, counting on how Knock-Out had committed his reserves to the Autobot's last stand, and without looking back, he scrambled down the duct on all fours, his vision swimming as he willed himself not to vomit in his gas mask. He made it through three turns before finally tearing the mask off, as fresh air rushed past him to help vent out the entrance he had destroyed.

Then he threw up...then he passed out.

ooo

We're almost there.

Jack woke with a start, his mind foggy and everything indistinct. The steel duct he had passed out in was blurry and smelled of cold metal, oil and bile, and for a horrible moment it felt like the building itself had swallowed him.

Fine time to turn claustrophobic he cursed at himself.

He gave a small cough and shook his head as it all came back to him, lifting his cheek where it had lain cold and wet against the steel sheeting of the duct. He scooted up onto his seat and put his back against the wall, slipping a handkerchief free from his pocket and wiping his face off. He took stock of himself then, and groaned lightly, pressing the rag to his forehead as he checked the pulse monitor strapped to his wrist.

He wasn't doing so hot.

His muscles burned. He was cold and sweating and shivering all at the same time. His stomach hurt and his face felt numb. He tapped his cheek a few times and repeated a quick series of words in his mind to show himself that his brain was still working. No stroke yet. Another quick check showed him his blood pressure was just this side of awful, and his finger shook as he unzipped a pocket in his jacket to get to his pills. He slipped a nitroglycerin pill under his tongue, and just sat there, waiting. Old wounds zapped his energy too and so dire was this moment, alone and feeling the way he did, Jack actually sobbed a bit as he struggled to reach down and take the water bottle off his belt.

After all this time, he was amazed to realize he was scared, because in that moment, he knew he was dead. He had made it. He was inside, but he was as good as dead. It wasn't the danger of battle or even his own sense of mortality. He had faced death many times. No, what he felt was the absolute truth that he really was going to die. He was down to his last few hours on this very earth.

It was something akin to actually being close enough to feel it. As in right there. Right next to him in the air duct like a black veil over his mind.

Despite how hard his life had been, right then the prospect of dying was black and cold, empty and final, with an uncaring wind howling in his ears as he crouched there like a mouse in some air passage of a building straight out of hell, with horrors running around inside here that went beyond imagination. So Jack was going to die, and maybe it made his hands shake and a few tears run down his dirty cheeks where he sat, but in all fairness, it didn't last too long. His was too pragmatic for more, what with this kind of heart and all. No, what really upset him was that he was scared he would fail. He was amazed he could still cry at all, truth be told, but inside his tears were for something else. Something that meant more than his own life, and if he didn't get off his ass and get a move on, he would screw it up.

As for him actually dying? Jack wondered if he deserved to go to heaven, because he had already spent enough time in hell.

So he dried his tears and carefully, quietly, he blew his nose. He wouldn't cry anymore. Instead, he ate lunch. His hands still shook, but it not as bad, as he unwrapped his food. He had went too long without water and something solid and he did manage to keep it all down, despite his nausea. His pills were doing their thing and Jack exchanged light-headedness for a headache, as the glycerin pill dried his mouth out and settled his heart down. When he was done eating, he went to cap his canteen, even though he was still mighty thirsty, but then he smirked and took a second to raise it up like a silent toast, before he drained away the last of his water.

Fuck it.

He was scared, sure, but determined to live long enough to bring the house down. He tidied up and moved up onto his hands and knees, crawling ahead now slowly, angry at himself for the time he had wasted, but also comforted by the warm tingle from his backpack and it's familiar weight.

Oh yes, he really meant to bring the house down.

ooo

Thirty three minutes he crawled. The Splicer itself was a maze of madness, with as many levels above ground as below, but Jack knew where to go. Up, then down, backward then forward, around and over and through, but never lost. He crawled until his knees felt numb and his palms were raw. He crawled fast because he was behind schedule, but also to punish himself. He banged his body around needlessly and was reckless in cramped spaces, working harder than he should have and doggedly pushing on, that is, of course, until he felt stupid for doing so.

Was he trying to get himself killed? Was he trying to kill himself? His heart was letting him know he had better knock it off. Stick to the plan, but he pointedly ignored the psychology behind his sudden self-abuse, because if he stopped to think about things again, he might give up all together. Or worse, he would imagine new terrors in the dark. Small, many legged things with razor sharp fangs, scouring the duct work for foolish humans.

Nope. Can't do that. He'd be a gibbering idiot if he started doing that. Knock-Out was insane. A genius. Clever and deadly, but when he had taken the Decepticons for his own, he fell for that fatal pride of arrogance. Of feeling like he was unstoppable. So here's hoping it made him incautious. Here's hoping he was too busy being smug to be brilliant any more. To be all about ego, rather than any agenda. To be omnipotent, not triumphant. Such a mentality would be the only advantage Jack had, and maybe he was alone in here if Knock-Out felt no one would dare challenge him in his own home.

Anyway, the sounds of the great building around him were deafening, hiding Jack's presence, and the walls of the place shook and wailed and hissed and groaned this far in. The furnaces and forges never stopped turning out armor and weapons for Knock-Out's sick children and they worked non-stop just as the flesh foundries did. Jack could have sang at the top of his lungs along this particular section and no one would have heard him. The air was stuffy and thick with the smell of hot oil, and each vent he crawled over was like a furnace, drying him out and making him rub at his eyes.

Finally, the stretch of duct he was in opened up to standing height and Jack sighed as he crawled out onto his feet, pulling his legs out painfully behind him. The air was better here and his vision cleared some, but he was shaking again, his fear coming back sharp and bitter and threatening to overwhelm him.

Don't fuck around. Can't go to pieces now. On we go, Jackie boy.

He took a deep breath, shook out his shoulders, and gripping the straps of his backpack, he began to run. He made up some time then, his body feeling a little stronger from the food, barring how his knees still felt numb and his hands still ached. Again, without pause, he knew exactly where to go and he trotted along the huge duct work like a marine, grimly focused and pacing his strength for the trial ahead. Six more minutes, and now Jack was into an area that he did have to be quiet passing through.

He was above what passed for the Vehicon barracks and with unerring accuracy he made his way over to what could be called the common room. Vehicons gathered here sometimes, passing the time off duty and socializing like soldiers do. It was even part cafeteria as they refueled and awaited new orders, and according to Ratchet's schematics, it was the one place that the duct work could bring him to that was far enough in. Luck would have to do the rest, and for the first time that day Jack's heart soared with relief when he got down and peered into the room through the grill of an intake vent.

No Cons. This whole place must have a skeleton staff, what with the final battle outside the city and the ruckus he had caused at the gate. With his new found relief, Jack also felt how he sure would like to rest a bit. He had been going at it full steam for some time now and he longed to close his eyes for just ten minutes. Passing out didn't count, but no, he couldn't stop for a nap. Jack was no fool. Neither were the Cons. Sure, if he was extremely lucky they might chalk up what had happened at the entrance to a freak accident. A bad crash from some wayward, riderless vehicle shot out of the sky and careening away from the battle, but Knock-Out himself might not see it that way.Only he would be paranoid enough to see something more.

Please, just let him stay ignorant a little while longer. Ignorant, arrogant and safely dumb.

Such did Jack have to trust to Knock-Out's new found megalomania, a recent development in the last ten years, and hopefullyhis natural caution and suspicious mind were no longer the weapons they had been. Just keep em' all thinking it was an accident. Let Knock-Out remember Jack as nothing but a nuisance.

Jack prepped his climbing gear quickly, making sure it wouldn't tangle, and he set it aside to begin unscrewing the vent cover with a small, beat up old cordless drill, that he had wrapped in cotton wadding and duct tape. The best thing Jack could hope for was that the Decepticons had forgotten all about him. Or they went with the belief it was no longer possible he could be alive. After all, the Bio-Terrors had annihilated entire cities overnight. Such as he had lost his mother. And his son. But Jack grit his teeth hard and focused his whole world on the thin brass screws he was removing from the vent.

Don't think about that. Don't think about anything! Let the mad bastard underestimate us just a little longer.

Just one more time, Jack repeated. Let them all be watching the battle. Knock-Out only knew how to use humans in his work, he didn't know their heart. He only knew savagery, not determination. He only knew manipulation, not truth. He only knew fear, not hope. He only knew greed, not love. He used passions. He didn't understand them.

Miko didn't teach him anything when she was his creature. She didn't teach him anything except how to make a mockery of life. She taught him how to make monsters.

Keep him stupid. Keep him arrogant. Don't let him believe I am alive. Don't let him believe I would try something so crazy again. Something so human. Just...one...more...time.

The last screw came free and Jack carefully made sure it didn't fall through the grate. Biting his lip, straining to move the heavy, over-sized grill aside, he next attached small anchor lines, setting up his climbing rig for a quick drop inside the room. His heart rate was feeling erratic again and his mouth tasted strong of copper. Was that blood? He started when he realized his nose was bleeding freely down his lip and onto his jacket, dripping hotly on to the fabric. Hastily he pushed his handkerchief up against his nose, working on his climbing gear with one hand.

Keep it together. I've got to make it. I have to.

He dropped the small bundle of rope through the opening to let it uncoil down into the room, sniffling and making ready to descend. This last card he had to play depended on so many uncertainties. Like no one being in here or no one looking up at the ceiling to see this grill removed once Jack was through. Like getting out of this room without being seen, and getting past the real point of no return.

Jack took another deep breath, needing another pill, but unwilling to do so for it only would make his nose bleed all the more. Then he slipped fully out of the duct, letting the old flex rope take his weight, his boots dangling over the huge table below.