Different Wavelengths

A (Looking) Glass of Energon

Shockwave's gaze met the reflection in his table mirror as he tried to calm his nerves.
It was rare for people to come to his lab and even rarer for it to be Soundwave that visited. While his personality had shifted after the cube incident, Shockwave was still highly anxious about having the spymaster in the same room as him. The scientist recalled when they first met, how loud-mouthed and arrogant Sir Soundwave was, how bothersome it felt when the then gladiator called him unprofessional titles like 'Doc' and (oh Primus, this particular one did things to him) 'Sweetspark'.

The latter was simply a mere joke but to Shockwave, he craved for it to be reality. He had no idea why Sir Soundwave's obnoxious personality made him feel the way he did but he'd be damned if he was going to let the spymaster slip through his fingers. Now if only he wasn't such a nervous wreck!

Shockwave ventilated to ease his stress. "Focus, Shockwave", he muttered to himself. "Just practice what you're going to say. Okay... Um, h-hey! How are you? No, too simple. Uh, hey-o! How's it hang- No, not my style. Primus, think!"
He pulled at his fins in frustration. It was just a simple greeting! How hard was it?
He reset his voice box and tried one last time.

"Ahem. Good evening, Sir Soundwave. Uh... I'm glad you could make it." Habits kicked in and Shockwave began moving around a bit exaggeratedly, as if he were truly speaking to Soundwave. "Just take a seat whilst I pour the energon. I'm sure you've seen many things, my friend. That's why I am here. To talk to you about what you've seen. I want to help in anyway I can. I'm sure with my knowledge of the artifact I can- AAAHH!!!"
His practice speech was interrupted when he turned around and saw Soundwave just a foot away.

Shockwave stilled his thumping spark. "Primus, Sir Soundwave, you scared me! I didn't even hear you come in!"
Soundwave's visor lit up and displayed the interface for the ground bridge controls. Well that explained how he got there so fast.
Shockwave fixed his posture and tried not to let his nervousness show. "Right. Well just... Sit down if y-you'd like to..." He gestured towards a counter that had been cleared off with two stools on either side. Two cups filled with high grade sat on the counter, waiting to be sipped from. On one side near a cup was a datapad, likely indicating it was Shockwave's place. The two took their seats.

Shockwave held onto his cup with his good hand while Soundwave merely glanced at his own. Shockwave wasn't sure why he didn't want to touch the drink until a memory passed through his mind. "Oh right. You said you weren't comfortable with people seeing you with your visor off, right? I'll offline my optic for you, if that's fine."
There was a bit of hesitation on Soundwave's end but the spy soon nodded. As promised, Shockwave cut his optical feed, letting his view be shrouded in darkness.
He heard a small noise, sort of like a gentler version of the sliding doors opening. There was silence for a good while until Shockwave heard a click and received a private message from Soundwave.

Shockwave: may look now.

Once his vision came back online, Shockwave glanced down at Soundwave's cup. The once completely filled glass was now only half full, indicating that Soundwave had indeed ingested some of the high grade.
But of course, Shockwave knew that they weren't here to just have a chat over drinks. He had promised an interview with Soundwave and he was going to stick to that promise.

"Let's begin our talks", Shockwave began. "Tell me, Sir Soundwave, were you able to see anything when the cube sucked you in?"
Soundwave dove through his memory drives, struggling to recall the incident. But when he did find the memory, all he saw was colors and patterns. He relayed the images to Shockwave's datapad. The scientist took a look at the screen caps of Soundwave's memory drive. "Fascinating", he muttered. "Nonsensical, but fascinating. Maybe it's some kind of pocket dimension? I'll have to examine this later."
He looked back at Soundwave. "Were you able to recall anything else? Like if there was any noise or people inside?"
Soundwave shook his helm, for the whole experience was nothing more than a technicolor blur.

Shockwave typed something onto his datapad. "Right then. I want to know if you remember anything from before the incident. So, do you?"
Soundwave nodded and displayed the information that was logged when the cube's energy was discovered. Shockwave seemed to engross himself in the stream of information on Soundwave's visor. "Location and time matches up", he mumbled to himself. "Please continue."
Soundwave uploaded a report on the excavation to Shockwave's datapad. The scientist started to quickly read over it but stopped at a particular line.
"Wait, Vehicons? We don't have any Vehicons onboard and never have." Soundwave expected as much. Shockwave's EM field crackled with confusion with a tiny bit of fear. "S-Sir Soundwave", he stuttered, "You are aware that Breakdown and Skyquake were the ones t-to excavate the cube, right? Right?"
Soundwave said nothing.

Shockwave fidgeted. "I... Um..." Words were lost. The scientist shook his helm. "Maybe you just, ah, misremembered! Y-yeah, that has to be it." He sounded unsure of himself as he said that. Suddenly, Shockwave stood up. "I'm, uh, going to review this", he stammered. "Sorry that this was short, but thank you for your time, okay bye!"
He practically sprinted out of the lab and into his berthroom, locking the door behind himself.
Perfect.

Soundwave left his seat and located Shockwave's lab computer, which was foolishly left logged in.
He typed away at the monitor and found a file labeled 'fallen_star_notes'. He clicked on it and was greeted with a few pages of highlighted excerpts and messily typed paragraphs. Most of it wasn't very useful, but Soundwave did take interest in the excerpt of what appeared to be an old Cybertronian tale titled The Tragedy of Starfleet. While the passage was mostly lost, the contents did raise a brow. It seemed that whatever happened to Starfleet could be what happened to the Spymaster. Copying the file into his drives, Soundwave closed out of the files and looked back at Shockwave's berthroom door.

He wasn't sure why, but he found the scientist's odd demeanor somewhat amusing. Something about Shockwave of all bots being a nervous wreck was quite entertaining. Though that begged the question: was the Shockwave back home like this at some point? Or was this behavior exclusive to this strange world?
Soundwave didn't have an answer at the moment. Besides, that wasn't why he was here. Unfortunately, Shockwave's report only mentioned that the cube was in an undisclosed area away from all of his other projects, so finding it was going to be difficult.

Content with the current information, Soundwave opened another ground bridge and stepped through, this time outside of his room.

There were still a few hours left in the day, and it would be a cold day in the Pit if he had to sleep in a room that smelled like stale motor oil and trans fluid.

AN: Okay yeah I rushed this, lol. I wasn't sure how to write a whole interview and I didn't want to take too long to get to the good stuff so I speedran the chapter. The next one will probably be the same way, but the one after should be a little better. Regardless, thank you all for supporting the story! See you soon!