There was peace in the nothingness, or at least an absence of turmoil. Time was nearly meaningless and pain was nearly imaginary. Feeling was foolish. Why waste your time feeling things when you didn't have to? Wheeljack sat and watched the others. He watched Downtime tremble and Highnote laugh and Borealis dream of escaping. Why would anyone want all of that emotion?

He recalled wanting it, but couldn't imagine why.

As time went on, and the mecha around him moved through the stages, Wheeljack eventually started to feel again. The first thing was fear. It started as a vague uneasiness in the back of his processor. He didn't feel as if there was something wrong with the situation, though. He felt like there was something wrong with him. It was unpleasant, and made him somewhat jealous of the other mecha, because they seemed to have some reason to exist and he didn't. Then the fear grew until he remembered why he was afraid. Slowly, other things returned, and the world came back into focus, until the orn that Wheeljack could care again.

The guards dropped Downtime on the floor of his cell and walked away. He lay there, silently for a few astroseconds, and Wheeljack started to worry.

"Downtime?" he said softly.

Downtime took a shaky vent and let out a quiet sob.

"Downtime?" Wheeljack scooted over to the edge of the cage and reached his hands in through the bars.

"I wish they'd kill me," Downtime sobbed. "I wish they'd kill me… I want this to be over. I just want it to be over."

"Come here," Wheeljack said.

Downtime got to his knees and stared miserably through the bars at Wheeljack. "I'm never getting out of here anyway," He said. "I'm never going to see my sparkling again."

"You'll feel better in a few joors," Wheeljack said. And he knew he was right, but he pulled his arm back through the bars. Why bother? It was true Downtime would feel better in a few joors, but then they'd just take him out for another session and he'd feel worse again.

He was right about none of them ever leaving.

"They're going to take you again soon," Downtime said.

Wheeljack nodded. He knew it was true, and it terrified him. Part of him missed the numbness at the beginning of respite. A large part of him missed it.

He was going back into stage one.

Fear.

Downtime eventually sat up again. Wheeljack remembered how Trueblade had been stuck in sadness from the orn Wheeljack had showed up to the orn the other mech had offlined. That wouldn't happen with Downtime. He always tried to be optimistic, even when he wasn't on stage three, and he always stayed on that stage longer than the others.

Wheeljack stomped on the sudden jealousy he felt. Hope was somewhat pleasant when you weren't in a session, but there was no reason to feel jealous of anyone else in here.

He wondered how long he'd been in the Institute. Part of him felt like it had been vorns. Another part realized it couldn't have been more than forty or fifty decaorns.

His fear only grew as he was more and more aware of his situation, until the orn that they came for him.

The guards stopped at his cell door. Wheeljack had known somehow, that they would. He got wearily to his pedes, conscious that the others were watching him. None of them wished him luck. The only lucky thing that could happen to you was dying, and he wasn't sure whether that was good luck or bad luck.

He walked between the guards up the stairs, trembling, but with his helm held high. He would walk there with dignity, at least this first time.

They reached Neurosis's lab, and the guards made to strap him down to the berth, but Neurosis held up a hand to stop them.

"Wait," he said. "I want to talk to him first. Wheeljack, would you please sit down?"

Wheeljack hesitated, then, with the guards still looming over him, he sat down on the berth. Neurosis sat down as well, in a chair by the side of the room.

"Now," he said. "I'm sure you all wonder about what happens when you're done disconnecting yourselves from all emotion."

"What do you mean?"

"After a certain number of rounds, we take the subjects away and don't bring them back," Neurosis said.

Wheeljack blinked. Surely he wasn't ready for that. "But…" he said. "You said it would take me three or four rounds…"

"No, no," Neurosis said. "You still have a few rounds to go. I just wanted to explain to you what is about to happen. There is a second level of shadowplay. Once you learn to cut yourself off from all emotion, we can build those emotions back in whatever way we want. For example, we could give you a thrill of love and hope and happiness every time you think about assisting the Council. Then, you would be even more loyal, because the only thing you would care about was furthering the goals of the government, and you would feel nothing toward anyone or anything else."

Wheeljack took a deep vent and let it out slowly. "That's horrible."

"It's wonderful," Neurosis said with a bit of a smile. "It's brilliant, it's science, Wheeljack. Surely you can see it. I envision you, some orn, as a head engineer for the Defense Committee. You could make such powerful weapons for them."

"I won't," Wheeljack said.

"It doesn't matter what you will or won't do now," Neurosis said. "Only what you will or won't in the future. But this is not an argument I have time for. At the end of the second part of shadowplay, there are a series of tests and trials that the subjects need to perform and complete before they can be re-integrated into society, just to make sure the shadowplay was successful. We tend to personalize a few of these tests and trials, because every one of our subjects has different obstacles to overcome. One of our subjects is ready for the second to last of these exercises. I would appreciate your assistance in administering the test."

Wheeljack felt a chill down his back. "Why… why would I help you?"

"Two reasons. One: What I need you to do ought to be relatively easy for you. And two: if you do it, I will give you an extra decaorn of respite… or… at least a decaorn of respite after your first session of fear, which will be performed this orn."

Wheeljack looked down.

"It's simple. I just need you to beg for mercy. You will do all you can to convince the other subject to stop. Do you understand."

Wheeljack froze. He had a suspicion he knew where this was going. But...

"Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Do we have a deal?"

"We have a deal." Wheeljack could barely feel himself speaking the words. Everything seemed surreal all of a sudden.

"Thank you," Neurosis said, then turned toward the door. Not the door Wheeljack usually came through, but a different one.

One of the guards went to open it and a mech stepped through. Wheeljack felt his spark pulse increase in frequency as he stared into the optics of a friend he hadn't thought he'd ever see again.

"Good orn, Neurosis," Shockwave said in a perfectly neutral voice. Then he looked at Wheeljack. Wheeljack was almost surprised to see recognition on his friend's faceplate. "Wheeljack."

"Shockwave," Wheeljack stood. "Shocky, Primus, are you all right?"

Shockwave frowned. "How did you end up…?" He stopped and looked to Neurosis.

"You are free to speak with him," Neurosis said. "If you wish."

"I am only curious as to why he is here."

"He came looking for you, to rescue you," Neurosis said mildly.

"Shockwave," Wheeljack took a step toward his friend. The guards moved to stop him, but Neurosis waved them back and sent them to stand by the door. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't know you had disappeared. No one told me. I didn't find out until recently. I could have come and saved you before you were…"

"Saved me from what?" Shockwave asked calmly. "Shadowplay?" He shook his helm. "You do not understand yet, do you, Wheeljack? I have not been destroyed, but freed. There is no longer anything in the way of my true self."

Wheeljack shook his helm and took another step toward his friend. "No. This is not you."

"You are being illogical," Shockwave said dismissively, and looked at Neurosis again. "Am I here to complete a test?"

"Yes," Neurosis said. "Would you like to begin?"

"Have I not already begun? You have managed to locate a mech who I once called a friend."

Wheeljack froze. "Shockwave…"

"Please restrain him on the berth," Neurosis said. "He's just out of respite from his first round, and this orn, we're performing a session of stage one."

Shockwave nodded, then looked back at Wheeljack. "Please lie down on the berth," he said.

"Shocky, no…" Wheeljack took a step away.

Shockwave stepped forward. His hand shot out and grabbed Wheeljack's arm. Wheeljack didn't resist. He couldn't. "You remember me, right? Shockwave, you remember me?"

"Yes," Shockwave steered him over to the berth, and shoved him down onto it.

"I know you're still in there," Wheeljack said. "Fight it. Come on, Shocky, you'd never do this. You know you'd never do this to anyone."

Shockwave magnetized him to the berth. Wheeljack was venting hard, trembling. "I know you. I know you wouldn't do this. Please. Please, don't your remember? Primus grant that I die innocent."

Shockwave hesitated.

"You wrote it on the wall," Wheeljack said, noting that Neurosis was watching with an almost alarmed look.

"You fought it so hard," Wheeljack said. "You were fighting for almost a quarter of a vorn. How many rounds did you go through? How many, Shockwave?"

Shockwave was silent for several astroseconds.

Then he spoke again. "There is no such thing as innocence," he said, "only ignorance. When I wrote that, I was ignorant."

"No…" Wheeljack said. "Please. Don't do this…"

"Fighting shadowplay is illogical," Shockwave said. "Neurosis, would you assist me?"

Neurosis stood and walked over to join them.

"Stop," Wheeljack said. "Keep fighting it."

"There is nothing to fight," Shockwave said. Wheeljack felt a pain chip slipped into the port on his shoulder, and a moment later, his helm was opened up.

"I'll show you how this works and then I'm sure you can continue on your own," Neurosis said.

Wheeljack shuttered his optics as Neurosis walked Shockwave through hooking everything up in his helm.

"There," Neurosis said at length. "Now, I want you to watch and notice what happens when I stimulate the fear. Can you see how you would cut it off?"

"Yes," Shockwave said.

"Shocky?" Wheeljack said.

"That is not my designation, nor does it even decrease the number of syllables in my designation," Shockwave said. "It is illogical to speak to me in such a way."

"I know this isn't you," Wheeljack said. "It's okay. If you're still in there, I want you to know I forgive you."

Neurosis snorted. "Really, Wheeljack? He isn't sorry. He's not capable of regret anymore. Thank you, though. You did very well."

A wave of terror washed over Wheeljack. He screamed as it engulfed him and waited for it to be cut off. He waited for the numbness to come, and then the fear again, and numbness and fear and numbness and fear until this nightmare was over.

Part of him had hoped he wasn't too late. Part of him had still hoped Shockwave wasn't completely gone.

There was no reason to hope anymore.

Wheeljack lay curled up in the corner of his cell. He was shaking, but he wasn't afraid anymore. He was too busy to be afraid. He was finished. He had come to save his friend, and he had failed, and now there was only one thing left to do. It had fixed itself in his processor as a singularity: one goal, while he could still complete it—while he wasn't too far gone.

"Wheeljack?" Downtime asked. Wheeljack narrowed his optics and focused on what he was doing. The tiny device in his fingers wouldn't quite cooperate. He was shaking too hard to finish putting it together just yet. He needed another half a joor. Then he could stop pretending he was afraid. He had a decaorn. He didn't need to rush.

He didn't talk to Downtime. He was too afraid of telling the other mech what he was going to do. If Neurosis knew, he would step in and stop it. Wheeljack would have one chance. He practiced his plan in his processor again and again, coming up with scenario after scenario, planning each one out as he built tiny devices out of parts of himself and the cell, bending them into the right shape with his fingers. Pain didn't matter.

When he was finally ready, he stood up.

"Wheeljack?' Downtime said. "I was worried about you…"

Wheeljack walked to the door and stuck one of the tiny bombs he'd made right over the lock.

"Wheeljack?" Downtime asked.

"You said you wished they'd kill you," Wheeljack said softly.

Downtime just stared at him.

"With any luck, you'll get your wish." Wheeljack detonated the bomb. The lock broke and the door swung open. Everyone in the room stared. Then Zinc started begging to be let out of his cell as well. Wheeljack ignored him and sprinted up the stairs. He tried the door at the top and found it locked. So he stuck another bomb over the lock and backed away. He turned back to look at the room behind him one last time. The rest of them looked back. Wheeljack met Formulaic's piercing gaze and saw her smirk.

Then he detonated the second small explosive, and opened the door at the top of the stairs.

He made directly for the lab. He didn't know where anything was except for the three lab rooms. None of them were occupied at the moment. He had waited for that, before beginning. If they were all locked, he'd have to use a larger explosive to open them, because the doors were reinforced.

But fortunately, the first one he entered was unlocked. He slipped in and shut the door behind him. He locked it, then for good measure he dragged a heavy medical berth in front of it and tipped it on its side to block the door.

The effects of his most recent session hadn't quite worn off yet, and he was terrified.

He shuttered his optics and tried to calm down and focus on what he needed to do. After a few astroseconds, he felt something snap in his processor, and he wasn't afraid anymore.

Wheeljack flung cupboards open and dumped equipment out onto a pile on the floor, looking for the pieces he needed. The very first thing he built was a spark dampener to hide his life signal. Fortunately, Neurosis's lab had a wide variety of materials.

It was going to be harder to build large enough explosives.

He was still working on the spark dampener when someone started banging on the door. He didn't let it distract him, but stayed focused. He realized that he was going to have to keep moving. He wouldn't have time to make bombs here. He'd have to bide his time, or find a better bomb.

When Wheeljack's spark dampener was finished, he found a welder and turned it onto its highest setting, then started cutting a hole in the floor. The banging on the door got more desperate, and Wheeljack heard the berth scrape across the floor slightly. He didn't have much more time.

He finally got a smallish, roughly oval hole that he could barely fit through. He squeezed in and dropped into the floor below. It seemed to be storage of some sort. He turned his optics as bright as he could and started looking for a way out. He knew they were going to break in above him before too long, but fortunately he found an exit in the form of a locked door and ran to it. His last small bomb went on the door. This door was flimsy, though, and it was blown completely off its hinges. Wheeljack dodged through it and ran. He had one more bomb. It was larger than the others, but not nearly large enough.

They were going to find him. He knew they were going to find him.

Wheeljack skidded to a stop in front of another door. He could see a faint blue glow coming through the crack at the bottom.

A sudden idea hit him. If he was right about what was in that room, then maybe he had a chance. He peered closely at the lock and realized it shouldn't be too hard to hack. It took him only half a breem before he managed to get the door open.

The room was full of large containers of energon.

Perfect.

Wheeljack left his final bomb stuck to a cube near the bottom and out of the way. They'd have a terrible time locating it, even if they did know what room to look in.

Then he ran from the room and down another corridor. It would only be a few breems. Then the whole place would be a pile of rubble.

Wheeljack still had the welder from the lab. He wondered briefly if he ought to try to escape. But what would he do if he managed it? At the thought of the outside world, a seed of fear wormed its way back into his spark.

This place was under a mental hospital.

The explosion was going to kill possibly hundreds of innocent mecha.

Wheeljack slowed to a stop. He hadn't thought about that.

Was it worth it?

In the distance, he could hear running footsteps. The bomb was about to go off. Wheeljack braced himself and counted down in his helm.

Two… one… zero.

Nothing.

No.

Wheeljack stared at the wall in front of him. No… it hadn't gone off. They must have found it. Or maybe it had been faulty.

Wheeljack turned around to see two guards coming for him. Terror won and he sprinted in the other direction. A dead end rushed to meet him, but even before that, the guards ran him down. He screamed as one of them jabbed an energon prod into his back, using it to force him to the ground. They picked him up and dragged him, struggling and kicking back the way they had come.

Wheeljack was afraid again. He screamed as he struggled, relishing the pure, vibrant emotion, because he hadn't felt anything like it in ages. Real fear, not simulated terror. Fear for his life.

They had to nearly knock him unconscious with the energon prod before they could take him up to one of the labs—one of the ones that didn't have a hole in the floor. Wheeljack expected to be greeted by Neurosis there, but he was not. Just two of the medic's assistants.

"Put him on the berth, then go," One of the assistants said.

Wheeljack was forced down onto the berth, then restrained there. One of the assistants hooked something up to Wheeljack's helm. It hurt, but he was nearly beyond caring about pain. He had failed. The bomb hadn't gone off.

Then one assistant went to the other side of the room, while the other stood over Wheeljack.

"Now," he said. "You're going to tell me exactly where you put that bomb. Do you hear me?"

They hadn't found it then.

"What?" Wheeljack said.

"We saw you break into the energon storage room on the cameras. Give us the exact coordinates of the explosive device, and we will let you live."

Wheeljack didn't want to live.

He said nothing.

Pain hit, like nothing he had felt before. The ceiling blurred above him, and he was beyond screaming.

When it finally backed away, he could feel himself slipping into blackness.

"Pit," the assistant said. A few astroseconds later, he felt something injected into a primary energon line in his arm. His senses sharpened, and his processor started running full speed again. The pain intensified, no longer dulled by the fog of imminent shutdown. Wheeljack screamed then, and fought to get off of the berth.

"Tell us," the assistant said. "Tell us the coordinates of the bomb."

Wheeljack took in a deep vent and shuttered his optics. They used this drug on him, whatever it was, every time he had a session. It would keep him from slipping into stasis. But he didn't think they'd ever used this much before. He felt… awake.

"No," he said.

He would never tell them anything. Not even if it didn't matter anymore. Not even if they were going to find the bomb anyway. Not even if telling them would make them stop hurting him. He wasn't going to give them anything anymore. None of his emotions, none of his fear or his sadness or love, or anything.

He wasn't going to give them anything else.

He screamed again when they brought the pain back, but when they asked a third time, he still refused to tell them where the bomb was. He counted down in his helm again and again, waiting for the explosion that was never going to happen, or waiting for something. For the drug to wear off, for the pain to kill him, for them to give up.

Three…two…one…

Three…two…one…

Three…

Something made the floor jump beneath the berth. There was just enough time for it to hit the ground again before the wall burst open and the room was engulfed by blue fire.

Wheeljack never quite lost consciousness. His processor never quite shut down. Warnings flashed across his vision. Temperature: Critical. Energon levels dropping. Severe damage.

His optics had been shorted out, but they came back online after a few moments. Dust drifted in front of him. He was the only light in the darkness.

He was alive

He was still alive.

Primus, why was he alive?

I will show you your fear…

No.

Wheeljack shifted, and felt more weight settle on top of him, crushing him against the broken pieces of medical equipment below.

He was free of the berth now, but he was still trapped. He might as well be offline, because he was going to be buried under this building until he leaked out.

He took in a choking vent of dust and coughed as it ground in his engines.

You will give me your hope…

They wanted everything. They wanted everything. Everything…

He struggled and somehow pulled himself forward, out into a larger pocket of empty space. Debris shifted and settled. He shuttered his optics, trying to fend off dizziness as his energon levels continued to drop. The rest of them were probably dead. Downtime and Nanolight and Formulaic and Highnote…

I'm not afraid anymore.

"No!" Wheeljack gasped.

He shouldn't be conscious, he realized. Without this drug coursing through him, he would still be under that pile of rubble. He would have offlined before waking up. But here he was, alive, and the shifting of rubble had let in a thin stream of sunlight from above.

He had forgotten how bright sunlight was.

He stared up at the light, waiting for death to take him.

At least Shockwave was offline now. All the others too. They shouldn't have been able to survive an explosion that large. Wheeljack shouldn't have been able to either.

He was the only one alive.

I'm not gone.

I'm all that's left.

He had a sudden, powerful need to get out of this pile of rubble and into the sunlight. He got to his knees, then to a crouching position. The top of his helm bumped against the slanted piece of the roof that could fall at any time and crush him.

He ought to be dead. But Primus must have seen fit to keep him alive. There was no other explanation. Part of him had wanted to die. All of him had wanted to die. But now he had to keep going. To keep trying.

You will give us your fear first.

Perceptor had lied to him. Shockwave had betrayed him. Or maybe Wheeljack had betrayed Shockwave.

He had failed. They had both failed. Shockwave hadn't lasted long enough and Wheeljack hadn't come soon enough, but it wasn't their fault.

Wheeljack started digging his way out.

It was easier than he had thought it would be. Even as badly injured as he was, he made it to the surface, and stood. The damage wasn't as extensive as he had hoped, but the place had been essentially destroyed. Only a small wing of the building was still standing. Wheeljack could hear something in the distance, like enforcer sirens. But there were no rescue teams looking for survivors yet.

Wheeljack crept away from the building, until he was free of the rubble, and then lay on the ground in a nearby empty street. Damage reports blinked across his processor, along with a warning that he was in danger of going into stasis soon.

Somehow, he couldn't care.

All of the mecha we have successfully completed the procedure on—every last one—has expressed gratitude for this freedom from emotions.

No.

Wheeljack forced himself into a sitting position. "I am afraid," He said, more to convince myself than anyone else. "I am afraid, I'm still afraid. I still care. I have to still care."

There is no longer anything in the way of my true self.

There had been no rescue teams.

Wheeljack suddenly understood. They wouldn't want anyone finding out about this place. They wouldn't want anyone alive to tell the story. If they sent teams in, they would be to kill any survivors, not rescue them.

Well, it was gone. It was over. Wheeljack had stopped them. Neurosis was dead.

He was a killer now. He had done it, and He'd done it on purpose. Somehow, in the open atmosphere, that was different. Condemning. He was a killer. He had killed the innocent..

There is no such thing as innocence.

Wheeljack still had the welder from Neurosis's lab. He pulled it out of subspace and turned it on. Then he wrote on the ground, melting the words into the metal street.

Primus grant that I die innocent.

Wheeljack didn't want to die in this place. He subspaced the welder and started limping away, broken, barely mobile, and still leaking.

The first thing you will give us is your fear

"I won't." Wheeljack collapsed, and everything started to fade. "I don't want to be everything left… left alone…nothing… we are nothing."

All that's left…

Wheeljack woke to the sound of beeping equipment. He thought for a moment that he was still in Neurosis's lab, but then before the fear could catch up, he realized he couldn't be. He un-shuttered his optics and found he was lying on a berth in a white-painted room, hooked up to a whole lot of monitoring equipment.

"Hello," A cheerful voice said.

Wheeljack turned toward it and saw a femme standing there, holding a datapad.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"I…" Wheeljack said. It couldn't have all been a nightmare, could it? "I don't know…" He didn't really feel anything.

"You were found lying in the street, nearly offline, and brought here. This is a hospital in Altihex."

Wheeljack blinked a few times.

"Can you tell us your designation? We weren't able to identify you as a citizen of this city. If you tell us your designation, we'll be able to help you."

"No…" Wheeljack said. "I can't… I can't remember."

If they found out who he was, the government would come looking for him. They wouldn't want anyone who knew about shadowplay to be running around on their own.

The femme sighed. "All right."

"There was an explosion," Wheeljack said. "A mental hospital."

"Yes, that same orn," the femme said. "We wondered at first if you might have been one of the patients, but we couldn't find anyone with your description on the list of patients there."

"Survivors?" Wheeljack asked.

"A few," the femme said.

"Did they find all of the dead?" Wheeljack asked.

The femme frowned at him. "I'm not sure," she said. "Why is that important?"

"Was there anyone else unidentified like me?" Wheeljack asked, suddenly worried.

"There were… two others, I think," the femme said. "Both of them are offline… I… do you know something about that explosion?"

Wheeljack shook his helm.

Two other mecha?

Neurosis's assistants?

They had found them.

But what about everyone else? Why hadn't they found any more bodies?

Had they evacuated?

Primus… had they evacuated? Was Neurosis still alive?

"Are you all right?" the femme asked, taking a step forward. "Calm down."

"No," Wheeljack said. "You can't have… my fear."

"Were you at the mental hospital? Do you remember?"

Wheeljack shook his helm. "I can't remember anything."

He could see in her optics that she didn't believe him. "Why don't you lie down, and stay calm, and I'll be right back with someone who might be able to help you."

"Ok," Wheeljack said.

She left and Wheeljack sat up on the berth to look around the room. There were no other mecha, but there was a window. He got up, pulled free of all the medical equipment and went over to the window.

He was on the second story.

That would be all right. He backed up a few steps.

The femme came back in with a couple of mechs, and shouted at him to stop, but he leaped forward and collided with the thin, clear crystal that made up the window.

He went straight through, and fell to the ground below, then got up and transformed. The transformation hurt enough to make him scream, but it worked, and in another astrosecond, he was driving away. In a breem, he was deep in the crowds of the city.

He didn't know if they were chasing him.

He had killed innocent mecha.

But he would do it again, and again, and again. He would kill anyone, if he could kill Neurosis with them.

He needed to find the Institute and destroy it—that was all he cared about now.

There was nothing else left.

Notes/Acknowledgments:

1. And so we come to the end of another story. Thanks for reading, hope you liked it, though it was kind of a mess, and also pretty dark sometimes.

2. As usual, this story in its current form was made possible by my beta readers. I say that at the end of every story, but it's true. They're awesome.

3. And that's how Wheeljack became a terrorist.