One In A Billion | TFP

𝟎𝟎𝟏𝟖

I bit my lip in concentration as I meticulously reviewed the details. Each Autobot was listed with their strengths, weaknesses, and known affiliations. I scrolled through the file, eyes scanning the lines of text. 

There were no data leaks, no breaches, no intrusion attempts; the database seemed to have been untampered with. 

Good. I grinned. Just the way I left it. 

I thought about when my commander, retired General Vassievich, wanted this file. It seemed full of enough information, information that could satisfy him and the Russian government for a little while. I didn't know exactly when I was supposed to activate, even though I've been counting (and tracking it in my own time), all I knew was I wasn't supposed to quit. And I wasn't supposed to know how much time I had left. I was just making an educated guess. 

I felt my fingers slow over the keyboard.

"Do not stop at just one, Praxina," A middle-aged man, my superior, instructed in Russian. "Keep searching, all the way to their leader."

I tore away from the flashback, in time to watch myself trying to delete a page off the file. I quickly caught myself, glad that I was able to shake the feeling off not a moment too soon. Vasileyvich wanted me to keep going, to keep gathering more information. If I have to do it, I must. But the question was what more information was there to gather?

I had gathered every possible detail about each Autobot, what makes them up from the inside out. I knew of their location, and what they did on different days. 

But maybe there was more. Maybe the bots could be hiding something, like an artifact or more Cybertronian war secrets. Maybe there was more to them than meets the eye.

Even so, I couldn't just jump to conclusions. After all, the only tangible information I got from them was that they each had holoforms. Information not too important, but information better locked away and ready to be encrypted. 

I had to keep searching. There could still be much more information I could get on my hands—I just needed to look in the right direction. 

I craned my neck toward where Ratchet was standing, which was by the computers. He was typing away furiously, his full attention on the arithmetic playing out on the screens. 

Okay, look further down. 

I lowered my gaze to the base's manual controls, the keyboard for the screens. I needed to look for a compartment or some alien port that harbored USBs, and things like downloading information.

What if everything I ever needed to know about the Autobots came in the form of a flash drive or data disk? 

This was a thought that recently occurred to me. Since accessing the Autobot mainframe once failed, I needed to know if the information contained could be stored in the hardware.

A few moments passed as my eyes scanned around the control panel for any port. Finally, I found one, though it was oddly large, with a rectangular metal outline surrounding what looked like a gaping hole, but I guess it accounted for how big Cybertronians were compared to humans. 

So where was the drive?

✘✘✘

I spent the next few hours lounging on the couch and reviewing details. I was trying to pick back up the task at hand—gathering intel, but I found it almost difficult. It was impossible to focus with my head constantly rambling on and on about the events of yesterday. 

Optimus asked me earlier about what happened on the warship and I had told him everything I could remember, minus the major detail about my powers, and, well, the death of my brother. Ratchet examined me after that and asked me the same thing. I have a feeling that this is not yet over.