"Doctor Scalpel, I believe there is a misunderstanding. I have no recollection of—"
"Enough, little one. I called you a master of disguise, but don't overplay your hand."
Nathan tried to clarify, but Scalpel cut him off with a sharp, dismissive wave of a metallic limb. The medic scuttled across Nathan's collarbone, migrating from one shoulder to the other. Nathan felt the sharp tips of the doctor's legs clicking against his armor plating.
Fine. I'll play along until I see where this is going.
"Doctor," Nathan said, his vocalizer projecting a tone of mild confusion. "I truly don't follow. What are you implying?"
Scalpel had expected the drone to drop the act and gloat. Hearing another denial made his optics flare with irritation. "You—" He paused, tapping a claw against his own head casing. "Curse it, I forgot. I haven't given you the context yet. It's only logical that your processors haven't made the connection."
Nathan maintained a posture of attentive silence. Go on. Tell me how you've managed to outsmart yourself.
"Ze-ze-ze~ Little one, you are aware that the logic chips for you and the others were written by me, yes?"
"Yes, Doctor," Nathan replied. He'd known that since before his optics first flickered to life.
"What neither you nor Starscream realize is that one of those chips was... unique." Scalpel's faceplates twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. "The Commander requested eight identical loyalty chips. But I sabotaged one. I wiped the sub-routines that force obedience to Starscream's specific frequency. I ensured that one unit in this batch would possess its own independent will, unburdened by the Commander's ego."
Scalpel leaned in closer to Nathan's audio-receptor. "Now, do you understand?"
Nathan's processors whirred. So that's why I'm not feeling the crushing weight of Starscream's "will." He had assumed his human soul was the only factor protecting his autonomy. It turned out he had a technological shield he didn't even know existed.
Wait. If he wiped the commands... why did I still receive the "Loyalty to Starscream" prompt during my boot sequence?
Nathan felt a strange glitch in the logic. He decided to probe further. "Doctor... you believe that sabotaged chip is the one currently installed in my cerebral module?"
"Obviously!" Scalpel snapped. "Why else would you have challenged Starscream with that insolent stare? A standard drone would have been incapable of the defiance you displayed. You took a beating for it, but that display confirmed it for me. You are the outlier."
Nathan didn't care about Scalpel's mocking tone. He was focused on a much more dangerous discrepancy.
"Doctor, may I ask a technical question?"
"Speak."
"You say the modified chip cannot read Starscream's primary commands?"
"Exactly. Is your vocalizer malfunctioning, or did I not stutter?" Scalpel looked at him with disdain. "Look at your batch-mates—T-19 and the others. They grovel. They offer perfect, hollow deference. You? you stared at him like he was a specimen under a lens."
Nathan remained silent, but his internal diagnostic was running at redline. If Scalpel is right, then there's another "Awakened" drone out there in the base. Because I definitely received those loyalty commands.
He realized then why Scalpel had insisted on keeping him behind. This wasn't just about energy cores. Scalpel had realized his "secret agent" was the one he'd picked, and he wanted to make sure his asset was under his thumb.
"Doctor," Nathan began, choosing his words with extreme care. "If you wrote the chips, shouldn't you have known which unit you were installing the modified one into?"
"Do you think Starscream is a fool?" Scalpel jumped back onto the diagnostic console. "He hovered over the entire process. He scanned those chips a thousand times. To avoid detection, I had to make them physically and digitally identical on the surface. I couldn't mark them. I had to scramble the batch before installation. I didn't know which one was the 'free' unit until I saw you challenge him."
"Besides," Scalpel added, looking at Nathan as if he were a particularly dense piece of scrap metal. "If it were that simple, I would have just written my own loyalty commands into the chip. Deleting his was the only way to hide the interference."
Nathan processed this. So Starscream is arrogant, but not blind. He checked his work.
"But Doctor... if we are discussing treason, isn't it dangerous to speak so openly? Starscream might be—"
"Ha! Relax." Scalpel dismissed the concern. "If my laboratory isn't secure, then nothing in this bunker is. I have the entire room on a localized frequency-dampening field. He hears nothing but the hum of the machines."
"I see." Nathan felt a slight relaxation in his servos. He and Scalpel were now in a state of Mutually Assured Destruction. If Nathan was caught, he was scrap. If Scalpel was caught, he'd be dismantled.
But there was still the matter of the message Starscream had sent him.
"Doctor, I should inform you of something. When the Commander left, he sent a direct text transmission to my cerebral module. He ordered me to monitor you for anomalous behavior."
Scalpel didn't look worried. In fact, he looked triumphant. "Ze-ze-ze~ He used a Neuro-link Pulse, didn't he?"
"I don't know what it was. It just appeared in my consciousness."
"It's a Short-range Cerebral Pulse," Scalpel explained, surprisingly helpful now that he thought Nathan was his co-conspirator. "It's a high-priority interrupt signal. It bypasses the standard comm-array and hits the neural net directly. It's fast and leaves no electromagnetic trail, but it's limited to line-of-sight. He used it because he didn't want me to intercept the transmission."
Nathan felt the weight of the situation. Starscream was using the "Independent" drone to spy on the "Traitorous" doctor. It was a circle of paranoia.
"Don't worry about his little text messages," Scalpel said. "As long as you're in here, you report to me. We have three days before he returns. Three days to ensure you're ready for the real mission."
Nathan dipped his head. "I understand, Doctor. What is the mission?"
"Not yet, little one. First, we finish the armor refit. You're going to need to be much thicker-skinned if you're going to survive what's coming."
Nathan settled back onto the slab. He had seventy-two hours. He would use the Doctor to get stronger, use Starscream to get out of the base, and use his own knowledge to find the AllSpark.
Everyone thinks they're playing me, Nathan thought, his optics dimming to a low, predatory glow. Let them keep thinking that until it's too late to stop me.