Being Human (Transformers Prime)

Chapter Five | Coexistence

"Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honoring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities."

~James Fredricks

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It was many hours later when he returned to the lab, Shockwave immediately busying himself with three-dimensional models of what he wanted, the computer programming easy to manipulate . . . at least for him. Whether incompetents like Starscream could or not was a whole other question. One that did not need answering.

His audio receptors picked up deep intakes of air and even louder outtakes from two of the three humans. Miko, he was not surprised to learn was the loudest of them, Jack merely sighing as he slumbered on. Rafael, however, was not asleep.

From what he could tell, humans needed at least eight hours of recharge to function properly the next day. But if the little one didn't tire soon, at most he would get about four or five. His shaking and hyperventilations kept his brain on overdrive, and Shockwave couldn't think of any better solution than to just wait. His body would tire soon, and hopefully his mind would continue to function as well as it did before.

Shockwave's internal clock told him it was, in Earth time, approximately 12:43:09 p.m. at wherever their location was. A quick look told him they were somewhere above China, Asia. Approximately 12 hour difference from their mother county North America, which meant it was the middle of the night for the humans. He knew enough about them to know that humans were not nocturnal creatures, which meant that the little human was not sleeping when he needed to.

Did that concern him? Only a little. If his sleep was disrupted his mental capabilities would be impaired, and that could interfere with the experiment.

An ex-vent escaped the scientist. Humans were trivial subjects, his Predacons- both the ones in the laboratory and the one currently sleeping on the deck of this very ship -had been and still were less trouble than them. The Predacons didn't try to escape, nor had touchy edocrine systems.

Which left him with the problem of Rafael Esquivel remaining awake when he quite obviously should have been asleep. His adrenalin levels were still much more higher than normal; did humans ever run out of energy?

"You haven't stopped shaking yet." He breaks the silence, sensitive audio receptors picking up the sound of the human jolting. He turns halfway to look at the human, who had the table closest to him. The human had an unnaturally pale face, face and palms excreting more sweat than average. Clear physical signs of fear.

"I-I'm just uncomfortable." Came the stuttering reply, voice high pitched and strained. "The energon is biting into my wrists . . . c-can I get energon poisoning from that?"

Shockwave paused for a moment before pressing a button, the energon bonds releasing Rafael and allowing him to sit up. His back made an unnatural popping sound as he bent over to look at his wrists.

A peep of surprise escaped his lips as Shockwave's digit tips came into view, grabbing on to his hand and pushing back his sleeve to look for any signs of damage. Raf expected his wrist to snap in half, but the scientist was gentle with his appendage, taking great care to not bend it at unnatural angles or twist it too far.

"It has not broken your skin." He notes. "There is also no sign of irritation."

"That m-might have been because my c-clothes shielded my skin." Rafael lied, hoping the Cybertronian didn't catch it.

Shockwave's hesitation made his already fast heart accelerate, and he prayed that the scientist attributed that to his fear, and not to the fact he was lying.