Rung's good mood faltered the next morning when he checked his messages. He'd received a summons to a meeting in the high command's office. In just a few hours he'd be required to report on his progress with Deadlock.

"It's fine," he assured himself, staring at the blocked out time on the screen.

Who would be behind the desk—Ultra Magnus or Rodimus? The message hadn't been signed, which pointed towards Rodimus and his cavalier attitude. But it could be Ultra Magnus purposely setting a trap.

Rung dropped his gaze to his knuckles, clenched tight on the back of a chair, and frowned at the irregular streaks of paint on his lower arms. If it was Magnus, and Rung went in looking like this . . . Oh dear.

Throwing the doors of his cabinet open, he pulled out an armful of brushes, bottles, rags, barely sparing a second to tap the comm button.

"Ore, there's been a change of schedule. Deadlock's sessions are cancelled for today."

"But we just got to his cell," Ore complained. "He's already in cuffs."

"Hm." Rung had an idea. "Take him to the medical bay; they can give him an overhaul. Which is to say," he hastened to add, "just repair his face." Best to be specific when it came to the medical team, lest they take liberties. Rung cut the comm before Ore could complain.

There. Deadlock would surely benefit from some downtime for reflection. As much as Rung tried to guide his patients, he had discovered that some things just couldn't be forced. At a certain point, you had to allow bots think things through on their own.

Besides, he did find Deadlock's crumpled nose and dead optic an unpleasant sight.

Rung set his lower arm on the desk, palm up, and went to work. Speed was of the essence, but the paint also had to be smooth; Ultra Magnus would look askance on a bubbled or streaky coat. He worked steadily. Finish one side, let it dry, flip, work on the other, flip, apply a second coat . . .

Not having time for a full-body repaint, he settled for finishing his arms. His chest got some minor detailing too, so he looked a little more cohesive and a little less like he was wearing someone else's limbs.

Still . . . an odd appearance. Rung allowed himself one grimace before giving a mental shrug (it hardly seemed worth a literal one), resigned to his new look. No one would remember it anyway.

No. Don't be negative.

At least the paint was smoothly applied.

Better.

As soon as the paint was dry, he hurried into the hall. Just an hour left before the appointment, but it would be enough. It had to be. Ultra Magnus would expect results. And since therapy was a gradual process, Rung would have to invent some.

Or, to be more accurate, buy some. He tapped at Chromedome's door.

"Just a minute," came a muffled voice, then a sound of rustling. A minute later the door slid open to reveal a lanky, pale-hued bot leaning in the doorway. His bristling armor sank into a relaxed state when he saw Rung. "Oh, it's just you. You'd better come in."

Rung murmured his thanks and stepped inside. The hab suite was messy in a casual way, a few empty energon cubes stacked on the desk and a collapsible movie screen leaning in the corner. A couch took up much of the room, opposite several chairs.

Chromedome pulled out a built-in drawer under the berth and picked a datastick out, throwing it towards the floor. "It's just the shrink."

The datastick transformed into a diminutive red bot, half Chromedome's height, with a blinking light inset beside his visor. He landed lightly on his feet.

"Hello, Rewind," Rung said kindly. Rewind looked up at him but was, as usual, silent. Rung had only seen him speak once, in a frantic whisper to Chromedome, and that had been during an extraordinary circumstance; the ship had been in danger of crashing into a star because Rodimus mishandled the controls.

Well, maybe the circumstance hadn't been extraordinary. But at least infrequent.

Chromedome spoke with characteristic bluntness. "You need something?"

"Yes, I would quite appreciate your help."

It always paid to be polite, but it especially paid to be polite to an expert mnemosurgeon. Rumor had it that Chromedome would remove a memory every time someone mocked his "nontraditional" color scheme (pastel orange, pink, and green). But not a memory of the bot who'd mocked him, no. He went for their conjunx, amica, or friend.

Rung didn't feel threatened by Chromedome, however. He was not silly enough to try to bully him, for one thing, and he had nothing to lose. When the mnemologist gestured towards the couch, Rung sat on it without fear. Chromedome settled on the edge of a chair across from him, his dataslug standing at his side, leaning on his arm.

"So what's up?"

"I've been working with a patient for a while now," Rung began. "Deadlock."

"Oh yeah, that guy. I swung by his cell when he first came in. He was pretty fun. Sure likes guns."

If they'd been in a session Rung would have gently asked whether Chromedome thought losing himself in other people's thoughts, as he was wont to do, was a healthy hobby. But they weren't in a session and currently Chromedome's habitual invasion of privacy and lack of boundaries were good news.

"Oh, good!" His exclamation broke the eye contact between Chromedome and Rewind. "I have to report my findings with him, you see. So if you happened to have a, a—"

"A convenient memory?"

Rung nodded. It was still strange to him, that being a thing one could just get.

"Sure, no problem," Chromedome said. The red minibot tugged fiercely at Chromedome's arm, his visor glittering. Chromedome gave him a single glance before returning his gaze to Rung. "What kind?"

"Something to do with Decepticon strategy? Something that suggests further information to come . . . Nothing that would make him a target for termination. I'm sorry, I'm being vague."

"That's all right. Damn it, Rewind—" The minibot had slapped Chromedome's arm in apparent frustration and now the larger bot retaliated by shoving Rewind away. "Get a drink for our guest. And stop being such an ungrateful little fragger."

The dataslug gave him one last dark look before stalking over to the cabinet above the desk and retrieving a sealed cube.

"It's really not necessary," Rung murmured. But it was pleasant, watching Rewind's clever little hands picking out a cube and knowing it was for him. And he was hungry. He accepted the cube with a nod and took a grateful sip.

"Well, anyway," Chromedome said, "I do have something that will fit the bill."

"And the bill will be—?"

"I'll transfer it."

Rung received the ping of an incoming message even as Chromedome spoke the words. As always, Rung wondered why he preferred this method as opposed to simply saying the price out loud. A file trail seemed dangerous, even if the file in question consisted only of a single number. In this case, "25".

Rung duly transferred twenty-five shanix, which Chromedome acknowledged with a grunt. So inexpensive. But it was inline with what Rung had been charged the other times. Maybe memories really were that cheap or maybe Chromedome was bad with money. There could be other reasons, too, Rung thought.

"All right," Chromedome said, pushing up from his seat. He paused when Rewind caught his left hand, miniature white fingers twined in long slender ones. Chromedome's needles were already extended on his right hand, rising from his crooked fingers as his violet visor coolly angled down at Rewind's gleaming red optical band. They remained frozen in that tableau for a long moment, broken when Chromedome shook free.

It wasn't the first such display Rung had seen. He murmured, "He's never liked the needles, has he?"

"No." Chromedome turned away from the minibot, which had clenched its fists. "But it's not up to him. He can just stay in the drawer if he doesn't want to watch."

Rewind's optic visor blazed almost white; he transformed and clattered to the floor.

Chromedome muttered something under his breath ("going to get stepped on"), scooping up the tiny dataslug and dropping him in the storage drawer, though he didn't close it.

"You're so patient with him," Rung said as Chromedome settled beside him, their knees bumping. "I wondered, initially, if you'd treat him too harshly. It's easy to accidentally hurt a disposable. They aren't sturdy."

"Yeah, well . . ." Chromedome's voice dropped to an embarrassed mutter as he looked away. "I like the little guy."

"That's good." Rung tried to encourage any Autobot behaviors based in empathy and compassion, because Primus knew they were rare. He slid his hand over Chromedome's, letting his fingertips rest atop the base of the needles. "That's the point of having him."

"Yeah." Chromedome cleared his vocalizer. His hand twitched under Rung's. "Hey. Speaking of Rewind. Magnus has been riding my ass about his certification."

"Has it been a year already?"

"No, we've got a month and a half, but you know how Magnus is."

"Yes," Rung said with regret in his voice. "Well, if you have the paperwork—"

Chromedome's hand slipped away, the needles retracting as he reached into his subspace and pulled out a holopaper form (slightly crumpled) and a stylus, thrusting both at Rung.

Rung skipped past the physical description and serial number of Chromedome, already filled out, then the section describing the same for Rewind. He skimmed over the bit where Chromedome claimed full responsibility for Rewind's behavior, as well as any damages Rewind might cause in either bot- or alt-mode. (That section made more sense when one considered the subject of the form was typically a sharp-clawed or razor-toothed bestial Cybertronian, not a dataslug.)

Finally Rung found the rectangle of blank space left for the recommendation of a medical professional. He turned his leg sideways, using the flat of it as his writing surface as he smoothed the page against it.

He leaned over and wrote:

Since bringing Rewind into his care, Chromedome's psychological evaluations have seen a marked improvement. He has shown increased sociability towards other members of the crew.

Technically it should have been 'member of the crew', singular, since Rung was referring to Chromedome's treatment of himself. But presumably Chromedome behaved similarly towards others? Rung hadn't witnessed it in person, being too delicate, physically, to risk socializing much. So often a night at Swerve's ended in a brawl.

His self-destructive and addictive tendencies have also declined dramatically. This can be attributed to the pride and sense of responsibility that comes from caring for Rewind, as well as the beneficial affection received from him.

I have not witnessed any aggressive or unusual behavior from Rewind and wholeheartedly recommend that his function as Personalized Emotional Therapy Bot be renewed.

By the last sentence Rung's nose was practically pressed to the paper as he struggled to make his writing tinier and tinier to fit in the box. He had to pause to work the cramp out of his hand before signing off with his name and credentials.

"There," he said finally, handing the form back to Chromedome.

Rung had the impression of a smile behind Chromedome's face mask as he read over the paper and subspaced it. "Thanks. This is really good. You ready?"

"Yes," Rung said.

Chromedome scooted close, pressing against his side as he ran his thumb along the base of Rung's helm. His touch was firm, well-practiced. His hand trailed farther up, gripping Rung's helm just behind his crest and the two elongated side-fins that flanked it. Rung heard the quiet shwing of the needles extending on the other hand.

His body gave the slightest twitch when they sank in. The sensation (not pain, not really) was so slight that, the first time they'd done this, he'd been tensed up throughout the entire process, waiting for it to begin.

How long ago it seemed.

Rung's original motivation for approaching Chromedome was to help Whirl, one of his most violent and frankly annoying patients. Perhaps, Rung had reasoned, he could better understand and fix him if he had a notion of Whirl's past (which the unhelpful bot refused to speak about). So if he could actually experience Whirl's memories . . .

He'd only carried the erratic heli-bot's memories for two days before he'd returned to Chromedome, knocking a trembling hand on his door, asking for him to delete that which he'd given. Whirl's memories were a horrifying mess of pain, given and taken. Experiencing the foreign traumas had compromised Rung's objectivity and nerves in equal measure.

And then . . . and then a few weeks later he'd returned to Chromedome, and he wasn't quite sure why. Nothing about the previous experience had been enjoyable for anyone involved. (Not for Whirl, whom Chromedome had "beat the shit out of", as he put it, in the process of getting the memories, nor for Chromedome himself, who had to have half his leg replaced after said fight.)

Rung just couldn't stop thinking about mnemosurgery. How it could peer, so easily, into the memories that he, as a psychologist, struggled to unearth. And how it could change them.

It was embarrassing, now, to admit that he hadn't even had an interest in the professional applications of mnemosurgery. He'd just been excited by a silly idea, a fantasy spun late at night while he tossed and turned.

What if Chromedome was the reason no one could remember his name, his face, his existence? Wouldn't that be a perfectly logical explanation? Wouldn't it? What if he had been so upset with Rung over . . . over something that he'd crabbed his hand into a claw and slid out his needles and . . .

And that was where the fantasy fell apart. Because skilled though Chromedome was, he could hardly have modified the memories of everyone on the ship , plus everyone at every spaceport, plus all the Decepticons, plus prevented everyone from developing new memories of Rung . . .

Rung had researched mnemosurgery for an embarrassingly long time, trying to find some workaround, something Chromedome could have done to him that would affect others. He'd even experimented on his own, as much as he could, to test his hypotheses. But finally he'd been forced to acknowledge that his ideas were increasingly wild and his behavior counterproductive to his well-being. He was obsessing over nothing.

He still visited the idea in his fantasies sometimes, playing it out in his head on sleepless nights. How flattering to imagine he wasn't inherently forgettable, but had forcibly been forgotten . . .

"It's probably a one-percenter talent," Skids said on one of the rare occasions when Rung had dared step into Swerve's bar. Skids had been drunk, and cheerful with it. "You know, an outlier ability, like my super-learning. Lucky you!"

Lucky him.

"You're tense," Chromedome said against his audial.

"Sorry." He tried to relax but gave an involuntary quiver as the needles dug deep into his brain module. This was the part where he always began to wonder if it was worth it, if he shouldn't just have Chromedome write down the intel, as any sane bot would request. But Chromedome's hand held him steady.

This is more . . . more authentic, believable. This is . . . it's better.

"'Okay, doc. Here it comes."

If you knew a memory was coming, if you had enough experience, you could sort of sense the change. A brief localized ache, a flicker like a dream fading, maybe a stray flash of color or string of binary slipping across the mind's eye.

Chromedome's consciousness tugged Rung's attention to the new data. As usual, he'd given it a tint to differentiate it from Rung's native memories.

Rung watched Deadlock's green hands tapping at a desk as he watched a presentation from a green-tinged Megatron. Other Decepticons nodded along but Deadlock's impatience was palpable. He found the meeting boring. But the droning that Deadlock was so dismissive of was full of facts and figures—the ideal information to satiate Ultra Magnus.

"Perfect," Rung sighed as Chromedome pulled out.

"Glad to hear it."

Rung followed Chromedome to the door. Rewind must have transformed at some point during the memory transfer because there he was, kneeling in the drawer. Gripping the edge, he leaned over to fix his eye on Rung as he passed by.

"Here." Chromedome handed Rung the half-full energon cube.

"Thank you," Rung said again. He turned, one foot over the threshold. Now was the time to walk away, brave the corridors, and prove to Ultra Magnus (or possibly Rodimus) that one Autobot in these ranks, at least, was not a fool or a brute.

Only he was finding it hard to step away. He found himself turning back, gazing at Chromedome's violet visor and pale pink helm, tilted now, no doubt wondering why Rung was standing there like an idiot. Sometimes he wondered if Chromedome might remember his name. He'd been careful never to ask.

Always so careful.

"If you ever," Rung said, then sucked in a vent and started over. "That is, if you wanted to, sometime, perhaps grab a drink?"

"Um . . ." Chromedome's fingers hovered over the door's activation pad. He cast a glance over his shoulder, at what Rung couldn't have said. "I can't. Sorry."

"Oh! Oh, that's all right." Rung hugged the cube to his chest and gave a determined smile. He stepped backwards. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"Yeah. Sorry."

The door slid closed. Rung leaned back and let his helmet hit it with a thunk. Then, haunted by the fear that Chromedome would return to check on the noise, he fled down the corridor.