Several hours later the Intelligence Officer lowered his head to the crook of his arms with a long groan and banged his forehead quietly against the desk. He half-suspected Prowl of rearranging the shifts so that everyone and their damned Creator had been up for one reason or another in the wee hours of the morning… either that, or the ‘killer’ had gone to an awful lot of trouble to make Jazz’s life very long and boring. Without lifting his head he stared at a data slate by his side and blotted from it the names of Fireflight and Air Raid. After a moment he blotted out Blades as well, with a mental shrug. Primus knew there was about only one thing those three were capable of whenever their paths crossed, and if he was going on gut instinct… Well, that was the whole bloody point.

Grimlock stepped back into the office. “Who you Jazz want see now?”

Jazz craned his neck without lifting his head, envying the Dinobot’s stubborn determination. It suddenly occurred to him that he was not relying on another part of Grimlock’s personality that might just come in handy. “Surprise me, Grim.”

The Dinobot paused. “You Jazz want me Grimlock choose?”

Grimlock had a predator’s nose when it came to this kind of thing. Very few Autobots got away with playing pranks on the Dinobots because of that, though Jazz didn’t think many of them realized it. “Just be nice an’ polite about it, a’right?”

Grimlock nodded, a smile growing by leaps and bounds on his face. “Yes, me Grimlock know. No good-cop, bad-cop. Yet.”

Jazz chuckled and straightened up as the Dinobot walked away. Once again he opened the team’s radio frequency. Hey, Percy?

Would it be truly disagreeable to you not to call me that? The scientist replied primly. Of them all he was the only one who’d gotten a full night’s sleep, but he sure as Pit didn’t sound it.

Sure thing, Perce. Jazz could all but hear Perceptor’s long-suffering sigh. Did you get a chance to look at the fluid samples?

Indeed. I must commend Prowl, this is quite a realistic mixture. I’m afraid I cannot give you any more information than you already possess, though. The molecular structure of the lubricant and the ionization of the coolant are indicative of a  powerful -

Percy, in small words, please! Sideswipe jumped into the line.

Him First Aid agree. Swoop’s calm voice broke in before anyone could start an argument.  Very powerful gun.

Jazz considered for a brief moment. Percy, how many mechs in the base are carrying custom guns?

The scientist was quiet. That is, unfortunately, a somewhat long list.

That’s ok. The good thing about lists, you never get too many names in ‘em to match from one to the next. You wanna bring it to my office?

You have an office?, both Perceptor and Sideswipe chorused in disbelief.

Whaddaya mean I –! Jazz sighed. Yes, I have an office. Now get yer afts down here, all of you. Best if we pool what we know. In person and out of Prowl’s hearing, he though, without adding it out loud.

Seven hours and counting, Jazz, Sideswipe noted, rather pointlessly.

Whose side are you on?, the Intelligence Officer demanded, banging his forehead against the desk again after he closed the line.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Swoop and Sideswipe arrived first, the former with a data slate. “Him First Aid say it all the same as before”, the Dinobot turned to see Perceptor step into the room, looking blankly about. “First shot hit him Bluestreak’s core, kill him right away. Second shot to main memory bank. Very powerful weapon, shots go right through.”

“So no help from that quarter.” He noted that Sideswipe looked as amused by the dusty, empty office as Perceptor looked perplexed by it. At the moment it had a desk and a bunch of chairs, as well as a growing pile of data slates on one side that were, unfortunately, telling Jazz not a thing. This, he thought, never happens in the show. Everyone they question always has something useful to say. So am I missing it, or are they just all in cahoots with Prowl? He rather thought it was the latter.

“Well, we could –” When Sideswipe saw the set of Jazz’s mouth, he lifted his hands. “I’m just saying. It’s not like he can keep quiet forever.”

“You leave Blue outta this.” Jazz waggled a finger at the twin, taking the list from Perceptor. “Thanks, Percy.”

Perceptor nodded. “It could be a normal gun, you know. When fired close enough to its target –”

“Wasn’t.” Sideswipe was – thank Primus, Jazz thought- finally getting into the swing of things as he looked at the ‘autopsy’ report. “The closer you fire a gun, the more likely you’ll melt the edges of the wound. This wound’s shredded, but not melted.” He looked up. “This is nice work. Hound?”

“I think so.” Jazz leaned back, letting them talk, letting himself listen.

“Definitely something big and powerful.” Sideswipe shook his head. “It nearly took his head off. Who wrote this?” He set the slate down.

“Probably Prowl.” Jazz muttered the name of the bane of his current existence. “So, who do we have?”

“Ironhide?” Sideswipe shrugged. “Cliffjumper?”

“Recharging and recharging.” Jazz had checked the security logs.

The Lamborghini considered, then chortled. “Sunny?”

“I’m gonna smack you.” Jazz mock-threatened. “Both of you were out on patrol so for once we know you’re both innocent. I’m just waitin’ for the universe t’ collapse and pigs t’ fly.”

“Maybe him killer take someone else’s weapon?”, Swoop suggested delicately, to immediate groans of dismay.

“Gotta find that gun.” Jazz stared mournfully at the pile of data slates. “Then we can figure out who used it. But for that we need to know which gun it was. Which ain’t gonna happen.”

Perceptor picked up the ‘autopsy’ report. “I would like to examine the, erm, the body?”

“I’m sure Aid will oblige. Or Hound. Or heck, even Blue. Just don’t badger Blue, Percy. And no, ‘Sides, you can’t go with him.” He nodded to Swoop. Both the Autobots stood up – and were nearly run over as Trailbreaker charged into the office, face alight with excitement, something clutched in his hands.

“Jazz! I was going over Blue’s stuff from his subspace –”

“Blue’s subspace?” Sideswipe threw Jazz an incredulous look. “You got -?”

“As defined by Prowl.” Jazz waved the twin silent. “What’d ya find, Trail?”

The SUV set his trophy on the desk. He’d even carefully bagged it and written an ID label for it. For a moment Jazz wasn’t sure what the mangled, blackened thing was. A slow, wicked smile spread over his face when he recognized it. Now, he thought, now we start counting. He picked up the battered remains of the remote control for the TV. “Trail, d’ya know what you just did?”

“Um… I think so.” Trail looked mildly anxious, but decidedly pleased with himself. “I mean, I don’t think anyone else but Blue watches morning cartoons – and I know everyone else hates ‘em; well, maybe except for ‘Bee.”

“That’s right.” Jazz laid the remote down again, trying to adopt a grave air and failing miserably, he felt so smug. “I think we’re lookin’ at our motive. Good job, Trail.” The SUV beamed, all the more so when Sideswipe and Swoop clapped his shoulders and repeated the feeling.

“That seems an awfully flimsy excuse –” Perceptor started.

“It is crime-of-passion.” Swoop chortled. “Over TV channel!”

Jazz groaned. Prowl was definitely going for the more camp-and-cheese feel of the whole thing – or would this be Sunstreaker’s idea? Either way, he’d have to return the favor. Once he’d won. “This is a good break. Trail, go see if Wheeljack will help you go over this thing circuit by circuit – obviously it was on the wrong end of an argument, and maybe our killer left something behind t’ remember him by.”

Trail nodded, turned towards the door and hesitated. “Um, Jazz, we don’t have fingerprints, do we?”

“More’s the pity. No, Trail, we don’t. But that don’t mean we can’t be told apart. If I say dark shiny blue, what do you think?”

“Tracks.”

“Green?”

“Hound.” Trail suddenly realized what he’d said, and blinked. “Oh! I see.”

“What am I supposed to do, oh great and wise leader?” Sideswipe asked as the other three stepped out.

Jazz considered. “I want you to talk to ‘Bee and Ironhide, and the others who are on shift. Grimlock can’t bring them here so just… ” He smiled. “Be your usual, charming self.” Sideswipe gave him an elaborate bow and headed out. “And stay AWAY from Blue!”  The Intelligence Officer sat down and stared at the pile of data slates, wishing he could go out with the lot of them and play skeetshoot, due process be damned. His radio suddenly drew his attention. Me Grimlock sorry it take so long. Me Grimlock not find Mirage, look for someone else.

He’s been doing a lot of hiding lately, Grim. Give him time, we’ll catch him. Unless he’s the killer and is under orders to keep his shiny invisible aft out of my hands until the time’s up, he thought. Why’d you want t’ bring him in particularly?

Him Mirage gunner. Him Mirage can turn invisible. And him Snarl say him Prowl talk to him Mirage a lot when him Prowl and you Jazz make bet.

Jazz tapped his fingers thoughtfully over his lips – and decided that no, Mirage was not the killer. Whoever had done the dirty deed had come up close and personal, and Grimlock had put his finger on the proverbial flaw: someone who could turn invisible would most definitely have used such an ability. That didn’t mean the sniper wasn’t hiding something, though. Who’d you get?

The door to his office opened in the middle of a high-pitched rant that made Jazz’s audios cringe. “- make-believe authority to bully an honest Autobot in the middle of his off-time, which is rare enough as it is –”

“Red.” Jazz tried to get the Security Chief’s attention.

“- not to mention all these absurd and time-consuming requests to access security feed with no plausible reason or explanation, as if I didn’t have anything better –”

“Red?”

“- to do, having all sorts of unauthorized personnel galloping about at all hours, in and out, but do you care about the extra effort that has to be done to keep records of –”

“RED!”

“WHAT!?” Red Alert turned to glare balefully at Jazz… and seemed to register for the first time his surroundings. He stared about himself in bafflement. “What is this place?”

“My office” Jazz leaned over his desk, hands flat on the surface.

It occurred to Red Alert, for the first time in his very long and long-suffering career, that he was talking to the Autobots’ third-in-command.

“Oh.” He hesitated, if only for a split second. But it was all Jazz needed to see to know how to handle the belligerent Security Chief – because Grimlock had done something Jazz wouldn’t have even thought of, and he doubted Prowl had either. “Well, I still do not approve of all this foolishness. It is playing havoc with the shift scheduling, with maintenance, with security checkups –”

“With Blue’s life”, Jazz added in more or less the same tone.

“Blue’s fine!” Red Alert waved an angry finger at him. “Don’t try to embroil me in this bizarre make-believe lunacy!”

“Have a seat, Red.” Jazz gestured amicably. The Security Chief seemed about to refuse out of sheer stubbornness, but behind him the huge bulk of Grimlock was radiating Bad Cop attitude like a star emits heat, and he relented with ill grace. Nice going, Grim! Jazz radio’d quietly.

Grimlock shuffled behind Red. Him Red Alert obnoxious, but him on shift last night. Must have seen something. The Dinobot looked distinctly pleased with himself.

“I don’t know what you want from me. I am not part of this absurd game of yours, I have no intention of becoming part of it, I have no interest in it.”

“You were on duty last night?”

Red stared at him. “Yes. As I am every night. Which you ought to know, as you share that shift with me every other night.”

“And all your security systems were nominal?”

Red puffed up, sputtering. “Of course they were! Do you think I would have it any other way –?!”

“And yet you didn’t see someone shoot Bluestreak right in the Rec Room?” Red Alert’s jaw clattered closed so abruptly the click echoed in the room. Eyes wide, the Security Chief stared at Jazz in utter, speechless shock. “I know you’ve got at least six cameras in there, Red”, the Intelligence Officer drawled.

“Well…”, Red stammered. “Well, he must have been shot somewhere else –” He visibly caught himself. “No, I didn’t. See. Anything. Because Bluestreak hasn’t been shot at all.” His hands were clenched into fists.

Jazz hid a snicker, his expression still polite and exquisitely neutral. “So then… you saw him walking down the corridors of the Ark with two gaping wounds on his frame, and thought nothing of this.”

“He was FINE when I -!” The Security Chief went stiff as a support beam and finally, after a few long moments, glared at Jazz. “Stop that!”, he snapped.

“Red, I ain’t the enemy.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you did see?”

Red glowered, but obviously something had been jarred within him – likely his pride. “I don’t see how the truth will help your little charade –”

“We’re all after the truth here, Red. You did see Blue?”

“Yes. He came out of his quarters some time after 0500 and headed to the Rec Room – and before you say anything, he looked fine at that point.”

“He was alone in the Rec Room?”

“Yes… no.” Red frowned. “Mirage had been there earlier. I don’t remember seeing him step out.” Jazz made a mental note to allow Red a chance to check his logs before coming around to have a look at them himself, knowing the Security Chief would be too bugged about that seeming discrepancy to let it pass. “He looked to be alone”, he said, somewhat defensively.

“Fair enough. And then?”

“And then what?”

“You didn’t see him get shot?’

“He has NOT. BEEN. SHOT!” Red shouted. “He is in the Rec Room right now and he. Is. FINE!”

Jazz, however, had just realized something critical. He did cover the night shift in the Security Room every other night.

He alternated it with Prowl.

Mentally, he caressed an image of shaking Prowl by the neck until screws flew out. “Did anything else happen? False alarms, glitches?”

“My systems do not glitch.” The Security Chief snapped. “You reported nothing unusual in your last communication before returning to base; Silverbolt reported no suspicious activity either. The next shift didn’t have anything productive to say. After that we ran the standard system checkup subroutines –” Red stopped talking so abruptly air actually hissed out.

Jazz simply smiled. “Something came up.” He prompted Red Alert on with a gesture.

“I was running a check up on the perimeter sensors when I received a malfunction message… It turned out to be nothing but… we both… It had to be checked… We turned away… I had my eyes off the screen for a minute! Just a minute!” He stared at Jazz in shock.

The Intelligence Officer let the silence fill between them for a while. “And then Prowl told you it was his little game gettin’ started, and you’ve been so crabby about it, you let it be.” If Red’s face hadn’t been so dark to begin with, Jazz had the feeling it would have been a lobster-bright shade of scarlet. “Don’t suppose you’d let me have a look at those logs?”

“You’ll have copies of them as soon as I’m done reviewing them.” Jazz had the feeling the Security Chief was contemplating the same image he’d had in his mind before, hands twitching at his sides. “May I leave?”, he asked with overt politeness.

“Thanks fer puttin’ up with us, Red.”

“Hmph.” Only slightly mollified, Red Alert stalked out of the office.

Jazz considered. “What d’ you think, Grim?”

Grimlock ducked his head. “Me Grimlock think you Jazz talk to him Prowl.”

“Nah. Wasn’t Prowl. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair questionin’ him and we both know it.” He stared at the slates, and then looked up at the Dinobot. “Mirage knows something.”

“Him Mirage do it?”

“Doesn’t seem his style, but I’ve been wrong before.” He opened a radio line. Blaster, c’n I borrow you and Steeljaw’s nose?

Are you taking the rest of him?, the Comm. Officer teased. There was a pause as he spoke to his cassette. We’re on shift, but we’ll be done soon. What do you need?

I need an invisible pain in the aft to become visible. Preferably in my office.

You -?!

Yes, I have an office, Jazz said tartly.

Consider it done.

‘preciate it, you two. Jazz tossed the slates about on his desk, hoping for some order to appear out of the morass of data. He looked up at a snort from Grimlock. “Somethin’ up?”

“Him Prowl want talk to me Grimlock.” The Dinobot’s visor gleamed for a moment. “Him Prowl say me Grimlock missed one sus-pect”, he growled his opinion of that.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Grim. Go!” When the Dinobot had left his office, he called Prowl. What was that all about?

It’s been eight hours. At this point in the show, some critical clue always appears. I am merely following the specific format for this scenario.

… This a real clue, or some more smoke an’ mirrors?

You have as much evidence as you have been able to find, have you not? Has any of it been lacking in substance?

Jazz muttered something hardly polite, but he couldn’t refute that point. I’m winnin’ this. There’s no way I’m sittin’ through twenty-four days of meetings.

On your best behavior, too.

“Go rotate yourself.” Jazz told the empty office in a growl as he closed the line and stared at the desk. Not Hound, Mirage, Prowl, Cliffjumper or Ironhide. It wasn’t just a matter of having a gun powerful enough to shoot through a mech, Jazz knew: he was running out of sharpshooters, and First Aid’s comment still burned brightly in his mind. It’s one thing to shoot at someone’s core while they’re dodging like mad, and quite another to hit it.

And how in the Pit did Grissom and Caine and Taylor found the time to get out of their offices? Jazz stared resentfully at the data slates; he was being buried alive under the slagging things. “Oh, slaggit”, he snapped irately and started looking at the slates and chucking whatever he felt wouldn’t do the case any good over his shoulder with little care for due process or broken circuitry.

He ended up rereading the autopsy, his desk once again more or less clean. The report had Prowl’s unmistakable attention to detail all over it, though obviously First Aid had rewritten it to match his own smoother and friendlier writing style. What we need, he thought, is a crack shot with a powerful gun, someone Blue trusted –don’t that narrow it down- who didn’t mind getting down and dirty and who knew not only how to kill with one keen shot but how to keep us from finding him out. They weren’t just looking for someone who could shoot a big gun, they were looking for a lot of knowledge on a lot of fields. Jazz tapped at the autopsy slate, wondering if it was worth braving a trip to the Med Bay… but he doubted Prowl had had any more luck than he had embroiling Ratchet into their game.

A quiet beep told him his ninth hour had just started counting down and he slowly tapped the slate against his forehead, as if willing it to psychically render him all-knowing. He heard the door to his office open and Grimlock’s voice, unexpectedly full of glee, announced. “Me Grimlock bring sus-pect to interrogate!”

Jazz lowered the slate – and stared in utter, disbelieving shock.

Optimus Prime stared calmly at his Intelligence Officer. “You wished to speak to me, Jazz?”

“Oh, slag”, was all Jazz could say.