The Transformers are copyright of Hasbro and a bijllion other entities. The song "It Don't Mean a Thing" is copyright Duke Ellington, I guess. I only borrow because I love. Oh yes, this fic is based on the principle that on Cybertron, while looking very similar to their changed outsides, the Transformers that crashed here had different components in their robot forms. What--you gonna believe that Jazz had a Porsche's front half for his chassis on Cybertron? Also, this is based on a hypothesis that Jazz has optics under his visor. But it's only a hypothesis. As for the real truth…WHO KNOWS?! It is the heart of the mystery!

It Don't Mean a Thing

By Themis56

First there was nothing, nothing at all. No sight, no sound, no sense, no thought. Absolutely nothing. Zilch, nada, zero, nihil, zip. If he had any amount of emotion or cranial activity Jazz would have found the situation insufferably boring and, more than likely, would have gone utterly insane from the sheer emptiness of it all.

Thank Primus for small mercies: he was offline at the moment, his emergency stasis function having shut down everything in his broken, critically wounded body but the tiny spark of life within in his main CPU. One little chip imbued with Vector Sigma's essence kept him in artificial emptiness to prevent him from entering into the true void.

And then there was everything.

The first components to fire into life were his auditory sensors; he detected the creaking of joints, several distinct, somewhat familiar voices along with their specific frequencies and timbres, the hum of electricity feeding into machines, and the hissing of various damaged air pipes. Next came the synapses all over his outer structure, and he felt the cool, hard floor beneath him. Finally his optics kicked in. And then he became aware of the presence of Ratchet hovering nearby, vigilant as ever but not in the best of moods.

Just to make sure that he was truly up and functioning, he called out Ratchet's name. He noted that his voice had gotten a little rusty from lack of use, but other than that. . .

"Awake at last, I presume," Ratchet grumbled in his usual ever-so-compassionate bedside manner, frowning upon Jazz with a look of deliberation in his optics. "Can you stand up on your own, or do you need me to hold your hand?"

Jazz sighed. "Aw, praise t' Primus! Some things never do change. If you had started being nice to me after all this time, Ratch, I would have doubted the sanity of the universe."

"Shut up. If you can jabber, you can get up on your own," grunted Ratchet. He then turned away and left Jazz's meager field of vision, leaving the black and white Autobot to be content with staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. The sound of a heavy body scraping against the floor then reached his audio, which was enough of a stimulus for Jazz to make an effort and lift himself up halfway, hoisting his upper body upright against a wall. He watched as Ratchet unceremoniously dragged the poor broken twisted mass of a carcass--the faint patches of remaining paint seemed like Sunstreaker's colors--into the scanning range of one of Teletran-One's remote repair consoles. The console expelled a thin beam of healing energy, bathing the body in a soft essence. Circuits were replaces and repaired, casings unfolded and straightened, and a hundred of over things happened all at once, things which Jazz could not see take place but could hear them happening. It sounded like one doozy of an overhaul. But lo and behold, in no time at all Sunstreaker was whole and new once more, laying supine just as Jazz had been. Sunstreaker immediately inquired after his paint job.

"Oh, no! I can't move my head! I can't SEE! I hope I haven't gotten chipped anywhere. Damn! Can't move my arms either. Why doesn't this stupid ship have mirrors installed on the ceiling? I hate this! Ratchet, is my color scheme the same as it was?"

While Ratchet took a very unethical swipe at his patient and cursed, Jazz opened his mouth to have a hearty laugh at both of their expenses when he remembered something. The frequencies and tones coming from everyone's vocal transmitters were not the ones he remembered. They had changed, shifted, transformed into a speech so different from their normal Cybertronian dialect that the sheer gulf was impossible to describe. Yet he could understand every single one of Ratchet's forbidden words.

"Hey, Ratchet?"

The medic whirled upon Jazz in mid-curse. "What?"

"Umm…question?"

"Speak."

"Where are we? And what the slag happened to us? All I remember is--"

"A bunch of booming noises and crashing, yes?"

"Uh-huh."

"I don't know all the particulars," Ratchet said, dusting off his hands before idly bopping Sunstreaker on the head with a wrench to shut him up, "but the Ark's crash-landed on a planet called Earth. Yeah, I've never heard of it either. Not much info on it in our charts, just that it's an organic world populated with beings of untold diversity. We were all pretty much scrapped, but Teletran somehow got booted online and repaired us." He paused, an uncomfortable signal of bad news. "And the Decepticons with us as well."

It took some seconds for the gravity of that statement to fully register in Jazz's still addled mind, but when it did it felt as if all of his circulatory fluid had been drained out of him, making him feel hollow. His vivid imagination conjured up a vision of the Decepticons running amok, stripping the land of all energy and life, their ugly laughter ringing high and clear in the silence. "Oh, damn."

"That's right. That's why I have to get everybody else back online. Prime's wanting all personnel, when able, to report to him immediately. He's outside." He began to move away and fetch another damaged Autobot, but the big question from which Jazz had been sidetracked made itself known again with a vengeance.

"Yo, Ratch: one more question?"

A glare was the only response; but since Ratchet didn't swear or swing a punch, Jazz felt it safe to continue. "Did Teletran modify or alter our vocal transmitters in any way?"

"How do you mean, Jazz?"

"Well, just listen to yourself, man! You're not speaking Cybertronian, that's for sure. But I can understand you and you understand me. Doesn't it come off as a little freaky to you?"

Ratchet gave a weary moan and sunk his forehead into the bright red palm of his hand; he looked suddenly weary and very old. "Yes, I am aware of that fact, Jazz, though I have to admit that I didn't catch it as quickly as you did. Look. I wake up from the memory of us crashing to looking up at Prime's face-- he tells me that we're on a different planet, one not in our main galactic charts, and that all of the other Autobots are injured and need repairs from Teletran. I've been hauling all your chasses around since I could stand. Can't you see I'm a tad bit tired? Now kindly shut up before I chop off your fingers."

"Yes, sir."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?"

"Yes, sir."

"Graaaaagh!"

As he made his way through the twisting rabbit-warren tunnels of the Ark everything at last fell into place in Jazz's sense of perception and he audibly exhaled a sigh of relief to finally have regained all his senses and wits. He had not been very impressive in interacting with Ratchet and understanding the situation. His cheek manifolds would have colored red if blushing were physically possible for him. But now--

His relief lasted for about a second before the Autobot realized something was amiss. He stopped. His quick mind went to figuring out the problem and soon it hit him: it was too quiet. He heard the sighing of the air vents and the faint ringing of the echoes from his previous footsteps and a few other small, irrelevant noises. That was all. Not for a long time had he witnessed such emptiness. Then another realization came to him. Life just held so many surprises for good ol' Jazz today!

If Jazz truly hated anything more than tackiness and lack of good taste, it was this: silence. Many others in the past, Perceptor and Mirage most notably, urged him that silence did not warrant fear or discomfort, that it stimulated thought and brought peace to the war-weary soul. Those discussions usually came to a quick end, with Jazz easily giving in with a smirk and a dismissive wave of his fingers; he didn't feel the subject deserved an argument. Some 'bots liked silence and truly did think it soothing and ideal for expressing all of the deepest and intangible matters of the spark; Jazz hated silence because it held no stimulus, no action, and he himself could not contemplate without them. Silence jarred Jazz's inner workings as much as blowing a klaxon-whistle (one of Wheeljack's many goofy inventions) in Perceptor's audios jarred his. Jazz knew that for certain--he'd tried it.

So, to combat the oppressive lack of noise, Jazz had long ago tweaked a component of his audio sensors to receive certain electromagnetic transmissions which were scrambled and converted into streams of Cybertronian music. It was like having a portable radio imbedded inside his head and Jazz liked it that way. But now the transmissions had stopped. He raised a fist and lightly conked himself on the side of the antennae. No luck. His fingers twitched slightly. He leaned up against the cool wall as the world around him suddenly titled off its axis to one side. He felt like fainting or shrieking bloody murder.

With an enormous effort, Jazz forced himself to take action against the skewed world: he tried singing one or two bars of a song, finding to his joy that despite his new language and vocal enhancements he still could make the old sounds. The world slowly righted itself as he sang softly and did a little swan-diving dance (popular in the old dance clubs before they all were destroyed) down the hall to meet with Prime.

Compared to the normal standard of any organism that relies on eyesight, Jazz's own optical sensors were quite lacking. If one were to look through his perspective the visual world would been seen through a blue and ultra-violet colored spectrum with no shading or shadows, flat and without depth, like looking at a stark, surreal painting. Except for the high-frequency waves of this color spectrum Jazz's receptors picked up no other forms of light--day and night were the same to him--and instead relied on electronic synapse relays to detect motion. It was not very efficient: to Jazz, the world, in addition to being essentially one color, was out of focus and blurred because his relays had not been created to be the most sensitive instruments in the world. Luckily his visor helped remedy this situation; whenever he so wished, his visor could act as a sort extremely selective telescope, bringing specific targets into crisp, clean view, gauging their distance from him with uncanny accuracy. This was good for sharp shooting--he could hit almost any target--but served little other practical use. A flat, blue, stilted, world stretched out before him, and, even with his enhancing visor, left alone with only visuals he would have been lost.

Yet he was not lost. He did not need sight, for Jazz had sound and touch and movement as his guides. His audio sensors, naturally, were sharp and could pick up more frequencies than the average Transformer and his arms, legs, and hands contained many thousands and thousands of tiny sensory relays, allowing him to feel the slightest vibrations, the tiniest gust of air. These three perceptions combined allowed Jazz as clear a sense of the world as could be offered, perhaps even more so; for such a mixture of feelings produced in him the ability to discern auras--he even could differentiate between 'colors,' so that if he was asked to pick up something green he would, though he really had no idea of what green was.

If one of his comrades asked what Jazz meant by the word aura, he could not give them an answer that would satisfy their scientific curiosity. An aura was not felt, seen, or heard but simply there. Anything that made a sound or moved had it and through the different auras lay Jazz's method of identification. Inanimate objects had one type of aura; living but immobile things another; and sentient, mobile creatures and Transformers yet another. For the latter the aura was so strong that he was able to determine different moods and personality types--he could SEE them. Prime's aura, exempli gratia, came off in smooth, unruffled waves that flowed over his body without any resistance at all and the hue, as it were, was varying degrees of blue which grew darker the more agitated Prime became. They had been a dark blue for a while, ever since the battles had taken a much uglier turn, and Jazz wondered if any of the others knew how deep the stress lay. Jazz remembered Perceptor had an aura that flowed smooth but then ended with a bit of a hike, the ending hike more pronounced if he too was agitated or had discovered some exciting new phenomena so obscure that Jazz didn't know what all the fuss was about but didn't dare say so for fear of getting a nice long lecture about it. The color had been a red, like the fruit on their new home that, Jazz identified with a quick scan of newly acquired information, were called apples. Sometimes he wondered if Primus had seen fit to make every Transformer's aura the same as their paintwork. But then he'd recall the exceptions. Wheeljack was a cheery yellow. Sunstreaker, strange enough, was a cool green. Vanity? He snickered and walked out the Ark's hatch.

Light from the sun of the new planet hit his face. Cybertron's stars had not been so warm as this. He stopped humming to himself as a new sound replaced the aching emptiness in his head. Strange chirps. The winds gusting. Grass rustling. Things living and dying, living and dying one after another and crisscrossing as they all happened so fast on each other's heels. The sounds and what dim sights he could discern whirled around him in whirlwind of newness as he had never felt before. Old Cybertron had things that lasted for such long periods of time and compared to this it might as well have been covered in goop and jelly that slowed everything to a standstill. The image brought a smile to his lips but then he quickly averted his attention back again.

He had a feeling he would like this place. The whirlwind caught him up again. . .

The reverie was rudely shattered by Optimus's summons: "Jazz! Please come over here. I need to talk with you."

Jazz quickly trotted over to his fearless leader. "What's up?"

"As you know, Jazz, we have crashed upon an alien planet far from Cybertron, and we have estimated that it has been four million years since the crash--"

"Whoa, long nap," he grinned.

Prime gave him a long-suffering look. "This isn't the time for levity, Jazz. We are in uncharted territory here and on top of that the Decepticons are surely out there somewhere. They'll do Primus knows what to this place. Scans have determined that this is a resource-rich planet and that we can make energon out of many of the products here."

A low whistle came out. "And the Deceps'll probably do their usual strip-minin' routine, eh?" He attuned his sensors to the sky above. "Could use some cleanin' though. Kinda unlikely that this'd be a planet that has much material value."

"More is at stake here than mere materials," Prime admonished. "Life is abundant here. Millions and millions of species. Tiny organic insect creatures seem to be the most numerous but it appears the dominant form of life is a carbon-based bipedal species that call themselves 'humans.' They have built a civilization here; Teletran determines their numbers are roughly six billion."

"No wonder the atmosphere's kinda messed up. How advanced are they?"

"Teletran reports that they have vehicles and can travel a limited distance into space. However, their technology is far behind our own. I have been informed that our outer structures have been modified from our old Cybertronian modes to resemble those of human vehicles."

Jazz gave a cry of distress at that; he had liked his vehicle mode. He glanced down at his new chassis and noted with alarm that the front had been totally altered and even sported a (admittedly rather cool looking) number 4 on it. But it looked like he could still crank out some good tunes, though, judging from the speakers. A random thought hit him. "Oh, man, if Sunny's been altered in any way, he's going to be slagged off."

"Pay attention, please, Jazz. I know it's a lot to digest, but I have a special assignment for you." Prime interjected. Jazz snapped to reality and nodded curtly.

Prime continued: "I want you to go out and find the nearest piece of civilization you can find and do a recon job for me. Try to blend in, don't get stuck on details. I'd like your initial opinion. Don't take too much time on geographical surveys; I have Hound and Trailbreaker doing that. But you'll be the best one in determining what the inhabitants are like. From what I understand, these 'humans' are the only species here that have communicational abilities like our own and self-awareness."

Jazz's hand rose in salute, happy for the job that would get his mind off the natural confusion the recent events had brought about. "Gotcha, boss man. I'm outta here."

What kind of deranged forces had put so many trees around this area Jazz had no idea, except that they slagged him off. Sure, they'd been kinda pretty at first but after tromping through miles of them, totally lost and unable to transform because the trees were packed so tightly together he couldn't drive through them without major damage, he decided they were some kind of sick joke played on him. Not only were some of them so tall that they were just above visor sensory level, the sounds of the leaves and decaying rot and the auras that were similar he couldn't make sense of them had scrambled up his feel of direction. He could recall every detail of the information Teletran had given him but what good were they now when he could barely get a grip on his surroundings and didn't know where he was? All that was certain was that he'd definitely strayed off the path. His chin tightened. Getting acclimatized to this new planet was taking longer than he thought. Prime must have had other things on his mind and hadn't thought of his poor sap of an underling. Still didn't hold him back from wishing that he could give his almighty leader a good kick in the tailgate though.

But no matter what, he wasn't going to throw in the towel just yet. It hurt his sense of pride to have to call the Ark and ask for directions. Ratchet would give him no end of heckling for that and Prowl'd grouse him for butting in on tactical checks with the transmission. Plus the scouts would have a bloody field day with him. Nobody could or would say that Jazz was a quitter who couldn't find his backside with two hands, no sir! Lastly, he wasn't in that big of a hurry. If his reaction to this Earth were any indication, the Decepticons wouldn't make any huge moves either and were getting their bearings as well.

He grumbled to himself for a while, tromping and leaving a rather unsightly swath of broken, crushed limbs behind him, when he, by Primus's mercy, came to a relatively clear space. But that was not what made him pause in his tracks.

There, in this clearing, he caught a glimpse of his first in-the-flesh human.

The human man was short and thin with wrinkled deep brown skin and a sunken mouth. Tight white curls capped his head and strange things that almost looked like black optical sensors fastened over his ears and around his face. The human was looking straight at him, no doubt alerted by the noise coming his way. Jazz suppressed a grimace--it would be very hard to blend in these parts of Earth, it seemed. At least the Decepticons would have the same problem, and now he had finally made contact. Time to put on the charm.

"HI!" said Jazz. He gave an enthusiastic wave, really quite friendly. The old man made a noise that sounded like 'eep,' clutched at his chest, and slowly wilted to the green earth with a small sighing sound, the longer blades of grass tilting over his body and muffling his outline, making him appear even smaller and fragile, so very fragile. Jazz, overwhelmed by curiosity, reached out his hand; he wanted to understand this strange yet ineffably wondrous planet and its inhabitants.

He gently picked up the frail being up and held him so lightly that he didn't even notice he was exerting any effort, as if he were just grasping empty air. The little optics on the human's face slipped off onto the ground, startling him for a second, but then realized that the real sensors had been underneath them. He felt the small, hearty tic of the human's heart; he rubbed the tip of his finger against thin ribcage, arm, and leg; he even, by putting a centimeter of space between his index finger and the man's nose, felt the tiny gust of breath. What a piece of work! Jazz then saw the human's aura, strong although faded and frayed at the edges. The human teemed with the sounds of life. It was enough to even stun Jazz into complete silence and let all the intricate processes of the body do the talking.

Presently the Transformer felt his delicate specimen's heart rate and breathing accelerate and knew that the stasis-like state was about to be broken. He eased the old man down onto the earth and watched him come around to the world of the activated. The man slowly up righted himself and swiveled his head around, muttering about 'laying off the whiskey.' Old smeary eyes fell once again on Jazz's (relatively) gargantuan legs and widened. Jazz put on his easiest, most gentle expression.

"I'd 'preciate it if you didn't fall into involuntary stasis, please."

A wrinkled, veined hand reached up and rested near the collar of the human's faded plaid shirt The aura flickered erratically but eventually settled down into a faint but steady rhythm as the old, worn lips worked open and shut. After many false starts and odd choking noises the human finally found his voice, much to the relief of Jazz's anxiety and patience. The Autobot knew that many beings did not possess his own resilience and ability to improvise but he believed that when you wanted to say something you did it immediately and with grace. But, he reminded himself, the poor human was probably frightened out of his wits. Who knew what was he was thinking? Best to be patient--that tactic never failed.

"Are--are you real?" asked the human, voice scratchy and weak but possessing a timbre that pleased Jazz's auditory sensors.

"Yep. I am most definitely real." He wanted to hit himself for such a lame response, but what could one honestly say in this kind of situation? 'Nothing snazzy,' he thought grimly.

"I don't believe it. You--you have t'be some sort of hallucination! Or a dream."

"I say you're wrong. I'm here, sure as you are." Jazz said quietly, changing the volume of his voice to its lowest level when the human flinched and covered his ears. He had forgotten for a moment how delicate these beings were; it didn't help that his vocalizer was almost as big as the human himself. It had to be giving off some nasty vibes.

"What--whatever you say."

Jazz regarded the poor trembling human with sympathy. "You don't get lotsa visitors from other places, do you?"

A beat of hesitation skipped before the slow answer came: "No--"

"Thought so. Must be tough. And lonely, too. But lemme tell you, I ain't going to hurt you."

"You promise?"

"You're still here, uh?"

The human rubbed at his face viciously, covering his eyes. "Yeah, I guess. I still don't think you're real, though. This has to be some kinda dream."

"Then I couldn't do nothin' to ya--which I won't."

"Well, then I better just play it by ear," muttered the human. He probably thought that Jazz couldn't hear him but the Autobot could detect each word plain as day. Then, in a louder voice: "My name is Bobby."

"Name's Jazz."

A feeble laugh escaped the old lips. "How about that?"

"What's so funny? Is it some kinda bad word or something to ya?"

Bobby vigorously shook his head, hoping to God that had hadn't offended the hallucination. "No. In fact, I guess it suits ya. It's a type of music here."

The old man could have sworn the giant visor sparkled and the hallucination cried, "You guys have music? With rhythms and beats and everythin'?"

"Good news?"

"Primus, yeah."

"Why, I'd say you'd get along just fine here," Bobby laughed a little. "People here play music all the time. Records, concerts, radio--"

"Did'ja say radio?"

Bobby nodded. Jazz hit the middle of his forehead with the flat of his palm. "Dang it all, you mean I could've tuned into an FM frequency and heard some tunes all this time?! Primus, the crash's made me slag stupid. Thanks for the tip, man!"

"Welcome. It's probably not the kind of stuff you're used to, though."

"Music's music," Jazz chirped as he adjusted the settings in his antennae through a long series of channels. As he did so, Bobby took an oblique glance up at the Transformer's face.

"You like music a lot, don't you. Why?"

"Long story, and you wouldn't understand a lot of it," Jazz said stopping his searching when he came upon the first radio station. He then shut off all transmissions save for an underlying thread of this new music--already he liked the sound-- so he could focus all his attention upon the human near his feet. He normally blasted his music to himself all the time, even when Optimus was speaking, but Jazz knew now that first impressions took precedence over personal pleasure. Besides, there was enough to grab his attention here without tunes.

"Oh," Bobby waved his hand, "I don't mind that. I don't have anything else to do, and since I'm already talking with a giant robot I might as well make the most of it. You don't see a robot that likes music every day."

"You like music too?"

A small smile, rueful but not bitter, dimpled the aged face. He tapped his chest with a gnarled brown hand. "I was there when the Harlem Renaissance was goin' on, man, right in the middle of it! I wanted to play-err-jazz music."

"Heh!" Jazz chuckled, feeling a bit puffed up for some reason. "Did you play?"

"No. I loved the style, loved it to death, but…I didn't have a lick of talent." Bobby coughed and turned his face toward the ground; Jazz felt his aura become subdued. "Couldn't get into a band. I just gave up and worked in garages from then on, moved here and came here when I retired. I didn't want to live in the city anymore. I wanted to hear myself think--and play my records in peace. It's a good life. I'm old but I'm healthy as you ever saw. But God, I loved to listen to it. I still have all my old albums. I remember when they first came out…" the eyes became even more distant. Have them all in my house."

"You live out here by yourself, man?"

"Ain't got no family and I can take care of myself just fine, old as I am."

"Where's your house?"

"Over there, in the shades of them two tall trees yonder."

Jazz goggled at the rows and rows of similar looking plants. "Where?"

"In the shade, over there," Bobby grunted, a bit miffed, and waved his hand in an ambiguous way--just a flutter, really.

With a dry chortle Jazz said: "I don't exactly follow you there. Whenever people talk in terms of light, shadow, all that stuff, I don't know exactly what they're talking about. I can fake it easy, but in reality…" He cocked his head a little to one side.

"Are you trying to tell me that--"

"Compared with most 'bots', my visual sensors are slag. Visor helps a bit, but…yep. "

"But you're a robot!" Bobby protested lamely. His face garnered deeper wrinkles as he scrunched up his forehead. Jazz gave a melodramatic sigh.

"Man, what's that have to do with anything? Metal and wires ain't infallible either, and who knows what kind of spark we get when we're activated? There's always chance, man. And, if I may say so, it makes life spicy. What's to complain about? I can function just fine. Besides, I have other things that more'n compensate for my deficiencies."

"Sort of like a blind man here?"

"I guess that's as good a comparison as any."

"I still just don't get it," the human muttered. "You robots are supposed to be able to see through walls and stuff, not be half blind. It's just strange."

Jazz stifled his urge to bristle; he had become quite adept at concealing irked emotions over the years. "I've been like this all my life, man, and though it may fall short of your expectations I don't mind it a bit. My creator never intended for me to have perfect visuals. He designed me like this and it's the only thing I've known."

"Your creator made you like that? He knew what he was doing? That's cruel. It's like blinding you," Bobby protested. Jazz smirked a little and held up his hand before the old human keeled over or something.

"Chill, my good man! It ain't cruel at all. I'm a second-generation creation…err…that is, I was made by another one of my kind. He was a bit…touched, didn't follow the mold at all. And he created me without normal visuals because he wanted me to see that life wasn't all about seein' stuff. He wanted me to move, to think, to feel, and to act on life, not just sit back and stare at it--from what my other buds tell me, they miss so much, man, just so much. I'm aware of all the things that go around me, I know what they mean, and I can find beauty where others would say there wasn't none. Everyone has their own sense of life; I'm just more aware of it, that's all." The words tumbled out of Jazz's vocalizer in an unstoppable rush. All of the pent up frustration of watching his friends and comrades let countless opportunities to cut loose and delight themselves with the world around them pass them by without regret, of the times he gushed about a certain dance or tune only to have it dismissed as mere hobby, and of keeping all of the wonders to himself and not share them with anyone had caught up to him. He had to tell someone, and this human was as good as any; being acquainted with music before, perhaps Bobby would understand a little.

"Is that why," Bobby ventured after a few seconds of offbeat silence, "you like to listen to music so much?"

"Partially. To tell ya the truth, I can't bear not having some kind of noise around. I prefer tunes, but gabbing with someone else does the trick. I can pick up sound frequencies real easy and direct them to my inner audios so I almost always have something playing on inside of my head. I get, eh, freaked out if I don't. Haven't had time to search around for some more radio vibes yet, but this planet is great because it's got so many things going on! It's cool! It's loud and bustling! It's great."

"Why don't you like silence? It's refreshing sometimes," Bobby offered. Jazz grinned again.

"Long explanation, and it's got lots of names and places and things you wouldn't get."

"I don't mind that! Go on, keep talking. It's not every day that I hallucinate about giant robots from other planets. Might as well get a good story out of it too, y'know?"

"Alright, then, you asked for it. I'm from Iacon, my planet's capital, lived in the suburbs as a street musician and dancer, doing pretty much as I pleased. Always was pretty good at thinking on my feet, you see, comes with the job. When the war broke out--Primus, it seems so long ago, I don't even remember exactly how or even a specific day when it started--I signed up for the Autobots as a soldier and communications officer, but soon they saw how good I was at listening and talking the good talk, usually from the top of my head, so they made me into a saboteur. Now, mind, nothing really bad had ever happened to me before that…I could tell you stories of gore, man, like what happened to my pal Bluestreak, poor guy, but I was lucky. I traveled about a lot, never had my home city destroyed, never saw a pal die in front of my eyes, nothing. I did what I was told to do, went on missions, planned, blew stuff up, all of that.

"But of course all of us have our own sob stories--every good gun-toter does. 'Cause, man, even as cliché as it is, war really is hell. I may like a rumble or two; I don't mind kicking Decepticon can if I have to, but Primus I wouldn't wish any of the hurt or pain or death on any planet. It ain't worth it. Yeah, it's been said before, but it's true.

"Anyways, I was still pretty new at the whole sabotage business and I was younger an' stupider too. Looking' back on it, the mission shouldn't have gone as wrong as it did. Me and a few others were on a routine assignment: we were planning to tinker with a Decepticon fuel supply line so that when a certain amount of pressure was put on it it'd blow to Vector Sigma an' back and give 'em some hell. A piece of energon goodie! We did it all the time!

"I won't bore you with all the details, but let's just say it didn't turn out so good. It was the first time I went on a failed mission. It was a delicate operation and it's easy to get caught if you aren't careful. We tried our best, it started out fine but slag happens. Some of my memory circuits were damaged that night and I can't rightly remember some of the things that went wrong but I'm sure it was some stupid li'l bitty mistake that just snowballed into a shoot out. We fell back, the lasers were shooting off all around us, we were trying to dodge while retreating, just a whole mess. I just wanted to get the hell outta there.

"Somewhere along the line I was hit right in the leg, got torn off right at the hip joint, and I suffered some damage to my transformation module and chassis on my merry way down the trench. Hit my antennae, too. When I finally landed, you can bet I was in a nice world a' hurt and I was leaking energon all over the place. I can't remember much of what happened after that, really, just that some Decepticons swooped over at one time but I guess they thought I was dead, and that it was totally silent. Silent. My head was twisted to the side because I'd fallen wrong and I was too damned weak to move it. I'm pretty sure I went into a state of semi-stasis to preserve my remaining energy and keep me from shutting down. I also remember that, that a friend of mine who had also come on the mission was right beside me. He was dead and he had no aura around him and his empty optics were staring right at me. He was one of my older friends. We used to hang out on the street corners together and jam. But he wouldn't be making music anymore. I couldn't look away. It was cold and there was nothing. It was silent. I remember I kept kinda fading in and out of consciousness; but it was always the same. I felt like I was dying and going straight to Hell. I didn't want to die. But damn it, the silence. I'd never known the like before. Nothin' but all the dark around me, except for those optics and face. It was like he was trying to call me so I could help him, but I couldn't do nothing.

Other good 'Bots came along the next day and managed to sneak me out, I was repaired and everything went back to peachy normal. Couldn't stand not having music blasting my audios, though. It brought back too many bad memories."

Bobby stared up at the hallucination. "Sorry." That was all he could say but the noise broke the tension.

" Not your fault, but thanks."

Another pause sifted down upon them as they both struggled for more subject matter. Bobby felt that if he didn't stop talking the dream would vanish and he didn't want that to happen yet.

"Say," said Bobby, "you said that your kind can change into all sorts of cars and such, right?"

"Yeah."

"What are you?"

"A Porsche 926 so my new info tells me though I'll tell ya that I don't know if that's bad or good. See this here? This is the front part," Jazz said, tapping the grill of his modified chassis' bumper. He was treated to a nice view of the whites of Bobby's eyes.

"Are you serious? You aren't pullin' my leg? A Porsche's one of the snazziest cars on God's green Earth!"

He wasn't familiar with the last turn of phrase but Jazz knew an awed compliment when he heard one and with a suppressed and smug smirk he answered: "But o' course! Teletran's a smart one; he wouldn't give me nothing' less!"

"Can I see?" Bobby asked, voice more than a little shy. "I'd never seen a luxury car up close before. People like me can't afford to be around the people that own the suckers much less the cars."

The black and white Autobot stood up to his full height and extended his arms out with a grace that seemed incompatible with his rather boxy form. He stood motionless for a second, gaining his sense of equilibrium and letting his natural transforming mechanism kick in; he was still very much unused to this new alternate mode. A second was all he needed, however, and he lifted his feet of the ground in a leaping swan dive, smoothly making the transition into a Porsche. His visual relays switched to his headlights and his audios into his car antenna. He heard Bobby give an appreciative whistle.

"You weren't kidding! Damn, you're smooth." He walked up to Jazz and ran his hand of the sleek white doors. Jazz felt every callous on the delicate fingers, every crease on the palms. It felt--nice.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Bobby cried, aura sparkling with a sense of delighted mischief. "Do you have to be anywhere soon? Let's go into the town and cruise the streets for a while. I ain't been there in ages and just once I'd love to go down the big streets in a fancy car. It'd kill everyone. And you'd get a better feel for the people here."

Jazz mulled over this suggestion over. He saw no real disadvantages to following the proposed course of action; not only was this a prime chance to get a very close look at the inhabitants of this planet and their cities, it would give him time to polish interacting with this human on an individual level. Prime and the others wouldn't be expecting him for a while yet. If he didn't stay out too long, nothing bad would happen. Surely the Decpticreeps were as disoriented as his fellow Autobots; and even if they were already plotting evil, they couldn't do anything about it until they made some suspicious move that would cause Hound or Trailbreaker to get a hold of them. And, most importantly, the lark sounded like a ton of fun. "Sounds like fun. Get on in!" He swung open his driver side door. Bobby gave a low laugh of pure delight and buckled himself in; he moved so carefully that Jazz figured the human was making sure to avoid accidental injury. When secure, the old man tapped the dashboard, saying, "Let's go, man!"

"Gone," Jazz drawled through his interior speakers. "You're gonna have to give me directions though. It ain't gonna do for me to get lost on the first day. I don't want Hound have to track me and pull me out of some ditch. That's just so uncool, y'know?"

"Gotcha. Go left first."

Never before had Jazz been in any kind of city like this one. This one seemed so tiny, the houses ripe for stomping compared to the behemoth towers back on Cybertron. And Primus, the sounds that came out of it! If it weren't for the traffic around him, he would have been contented just to park right then and there and just absorb everything, the lights, the music, the chattering of people on the streets, and gawk at all the different kinds of humans he saw on the sidewalks and look at the shops. He swore to himself that he would return as soon as he was able. This bustle, it was fascinating. Now he saw how the Science Trio felt when they had discovered something. Such joy.

They cruised throughout the streets of the city, Bobby giving the directions. The old man felt ablaze with joy and pride. He chose a deliberate speed and lowered the window so he could see the looks they were getting and be able to tilt down his recovered glasses and just smile at them all. Jazz chuckled at this, the engine revving a little with him, and chose a radio station, one that seemed to play the type of music he was named after.

"Ah, that's more like it," Bobby crowed, listening in. His eyes lit up. "Ah, they're starting up a great one." His voice quavered along with the vibrant, low voice of the woman who had just begun the lines. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing…"

He stopped singing and then said, forgetting the automobile he was in could hear too, "Goddamn I love this song." He began to hum and start flaunting at the passer-bys again; one or two times some people that Jazz assumed were shady characters advanced on them, eyes alit with greed, but Jazz only swung out his doors when they got too close for comfort and knocked them flat. Bobby, fearless, would only chuckle but he said no more words the entire time.

Jazz felt that he could really get used to this.

"Thank you," Bobby said, his aura tingling softly and ever so pleased, "thanks a million. I've never had so much fun in a long time. You don't know how much it means t' me."

"Aw, don't mention it. I had a blast, too." Jazz leaned back on his haunches and gave a lazy half-grin.

Bobby's voice turned sober. "No, I really mean it. I'm sure it was a ton of fun for you, but when I was cruising down those streets, with all those bright lights--and the sound! Lord, the music--I felt like I was really young again! I'm so old. I never thought I'd ever have a chance like that, ever. I was alive, man!" The voice began to tremble midway and at the very end it almost seemed to shatter it quavered so much, caught up in absolute rapture and overwhelming sadness. The aura flickered erratically, as if the old man didn't know whether to laugh or weep.

"Hey, it's all cool," Jazz said quickly. He reached out a hand and curled it behind Bobby's fragile form, resting his index finger with the utmost care on the human's shoulder. Bobby rested his head against the fingertip and remained silent and motionless save for the rise and fall of his chest.

After about five minutes, Bobby suddenly raised his head and shrugged himself free. His aura had stabilized and now felt pleasant and hummed warmly. Jazz knew the human was smiling, but just for the heck of it he focused his visor and saw the little wrinkled smile spread across Bobbi's face.

"I've got some stuff for you," Bobby cried. He turned around, hurried to the little cabin as fast as his aged body allowed and, after a few minutes of faint scuffling noises and a few muttered complaints, arrived again with a box filled with vinyl records and audiotapes.

"This here's my collection of all the old music," he said with not a little pride. "All the greats from Harlem to Motown. Might seem ridiculously small to you, but maybe you can figure out a way for you to play 'em."

Jazz leaned down on his hands and knees and peered at the little box, focusing entirely on its contents. "Man, are you sure? These look pretty old. I bet you've had 'em forever--"

"Hmph! I know 'em by heart. I don't need them anymore. Go on! You gave me such a good time; I had to return the favor. It's common courtesy. From one music fan to another."

Primus forbid that he insult such an earnest giver! 'Besides,' Jazz thought wryly to himself, 'you know you wanted 'em.' He opened up the small storage panel in his leg and placed the box of records securely within. He'd have to take care going back so his precious cargo wouldn't get damaged.

"Well," he muttered reluctantly, "Prowl's gonna chew my tail plate off if I don't be gettin' back now. Duty callin' and all that jazz--heh! Gotta love these expressions you guys have."

Bobby rolled his eyes at the horrible joke, but his expression softened as Jazz straightened up to his full height, dusting off his hands. "If you are some kinda hallucination or a dream, then you're one of the best I ever had, " he said, placing a wizened hand on the side of the gigantic foot. "Thanks again. If you ever wanna come back and see me again sometime, you're always welcome to. It does get kinda lonely out here and there's no one to share the music with either."

"Oh, I'll be back, don't worry." The light glinted off of Jazz's visor merrily.

"Take care, then. And remember to never let your songs die out."

"Never." With that, Jazz started walking backwards in the direction that he had first come from, waving all the time until the little house was lost in the blurry trees and the aura had disappeared. He turned and transformed, racing back to the Ark, giddy and full of songs, his radio blasting.

Time passed; the war with the Decepticons, as could only be expected, showed no sign of quick resolution and the factions once again met in a stalemate; it was almost a month before Jazz could find any true free time to himself. But he had not forgotten his promise. Minutes after hearing the word from Prime that he had earned a well-deserved furlough, he transformed and four-wheeled it to that homely cabin hidden away in the cool shade of the forest. He couldn't help but think a bit giddily that Bobby would be very pleased with the sudden company of his old 'hallucination.' He was certain that they'd have more fun than the last time since he had grown much more accustomed and comfortable with human ways and their fragilities now, thanks to his many lengthy discussions with Spike and Sparkplug. Even in such a short time he knew more about Earth and all its multiple cultures, languages, and eccentricities than any Autobot, even Prime. He couldn't wait to show off his expanded knowledge.

When he arrived in the clearing, Jazz shouted out a hearty hello, but Bobby did not come out. Jazz shouted again--no answer. He leaned down and put his face next to one of the cabin's dirty windows, the glass almost yellow with age, and listened intently, straining to hear any signs of life. The little house was a pocket of silence in the teeming mass of earthy, vivacious songs surrounding him.

Jazz stumbled back a pace before easing himself down with legs which, had they been made of less sterner stuff than made, would have been shaking. His vocalizer felt like it was being compressed in a vice. He tried to make a sound, any sound, to break the numb silence; he couldn't even hear the birds chirping anymore. He felt strangely sick.

Very slowly, he began to get back up on his feet when his visor detected a series of wavelengths not present the last time he had come. Upon a closer inspection he found a small cache of leather instrument cases lovingly stacked just behind the shelter of the rickety door frame. There was an old guitar, a moth-eaten violin, two rectangular cases, one medium and one small, which turned out to contain a saxophone and a clarinet. Crowning it all was another vinyl record; Jazz recognized the title song. It was the one Bobby had sung while they drove through downtown.

"Primus damn it, why couldn't he just leave me alone?" Jazz tried to shout out the words, but his voice cracked almost in two halfway. The dead scratchiness of his voice startled him into silence. He sat back down again, not trusting himself, and rested his face in his hands.

Or maybe he was just crying for his first friend. Maybe that was all. Who knew?

After a while he stopped and carefully scooped up the items. He would take them back and see if one of the science geeks could reproduce larger, Autobot-sized versions of them. He did love trying his hands at new instruments and the thing he knew as a saxophone had always intrigued him with its sounds.

He returned, naturally, and life continued as normally as it could for a faction of giant transforming robots stranded on a strange world engaged in a war that seemed to have gone on forever and have no end. Jazz regained his spirits with characteristic resilience. But from then on he could never bear to hear the song Bobby had sung--and it was a popular one on the jazz and blues stations he frequently tuned in to--and whenever he heard the opening notes he always snapped it off. Even if the song were playing on a radio console halfway across a room he'd do a crazy dive and skid most of the way there just to shut it up. The other Autobots found this most amusing, and Jazz himself found it pretty funny in retrospect.

Once the Lamborghini twins and the other younger Autobots challenged him to sing that particular song. "You think you're such an Earth culture hotshot," they said, " braggin' that you can sing anything that's been on the radio. Bet you can't sing that one tune you always turn off. It doesn't sound bad; it has class." And since Jazz could not resist such a dare, he cleared the static from his vocalizer and tried. He got past three notes before his voice cracked. He stopped and excused himself, voice still dull; the others, who were shuffling their feet nervously at such a display and flickering their optics at one another, were only too glad to let him off. They never asked him to sing anything after that. It bothered them too much.

But no matter how hard he tried to block out the song, when all was silent he would hum its broken cords to himself, so soft that no human ear could detect it. And then the song would wrap him up in a sheltering embrace and pull him past all memories, death, laughter, and the passage of time to a great moment of security that all was well and smooth. For all life is a song, and to hear it made Jazz feel that he had managed to touch with his very fingertips the edges of a new world. And there's nothing more noble in music than that.

THE SWINGIN' END