Madness, Power, D-domination

Born was the crater!

Before even the inchoate shockwaves were detected by its neighbouring states, the city of Kalis had imploded on itself and formed a yawning cavity; another landmark scar on the surface of Cybertron.

The debris of atomised buildings fell back to the ground like rusting snowflakes. Plumes of thick dust filled the air, choking the stiff atmosphere in an inky fog.

Within an hour of the detonation, survey teams from Iacon and Tarn had arrived at the scene, projecting tungsten light into the darkness. Unseen radiowaves lanced through the air as investigation personnel reported their system-crashing datalogs back to their commanders. There was no radioactive nature to the explosion, they concluded with relief.

Traces of viagon surfeit, a sure sign of overburn, led them to believe rightly or wrongly that a world engine had been fired using incompatible fuel sources.

Before the dust could return comfortably, a lone figure emerged from the crater. He crouched as he walked particularly across the loose rocks at the rim, hoping to evade the search beams. His spindly fingers grappled deftly, pulling himself onto stable ground. He bent his neck back over his shoulder and peered into the crater. It was too dark to see any detail, but he knew what lay there—the bodies of hundreds of his kind, burned so instantly by the explosion.

His thoughts turned inwards and he reached behind his neck. The nucleic graft had taken its hold and continued its onslaught on his internal systems. He pulled his hand away sharply. The pain, though nudging the limits of his tolerance, would only get worse if he interfered. He needed help to remove it. He needed help before Shokaract’s bastard science project took hold of his systems, rending him less robot and more animal with each passing second. He needed help before he became feral like the others.

The explosion had been his opportunity to escape. Though his memory was still an empty file directory, he had been primed with the knowledge of a single Autobot, the only Autobot that he had been promised would help him: Sideburn.

Tow-line’s workshop was a temple.

Polymer coated, brushed steel floors cleanly reflected the cold white light from the ceiling. Neatly arranged storage cells adorned the immaculate walls. Each door was secured with a latch and a helpful LED display of its contents. A solid steel bench extended from the west wall into the centre of the room and with scattered components littered across its surface, it looked out of place.

Sideburn sat at the bench, equally out of place. His bright blue and orange armour reflected like a kaleidoscope across the workshop’s surfaces. He crouched over the components in silence, his fingers nimbly and quickly sorting through torn cables and broken circuitboards. His expression was blank, and his optics were dark, with his lips pressed tightly together in concentration. His hands seemed to move out of his field of vision, yet his head did not turn. The tip of his left index finger had been replaced with a small-apertured welding torch. As he secured two pieces of fuel piping with his right hand, he repaired with his left.

The doors to the workshop suddenly swung open. Tow-line marched into the room and slammed his hand onto the bench. The sound of the impact clanged and then echoed. Sideburn lost his grip and dropped the piping.

“Blam!” shouted Tow-line. “Enemy fracture shell, right on target!”

Sideburn picked the piping up again and continued his attempt to repair it.

“Blam!” Tow-line shouted again, slamming his hand down for a second time.

Sideburn gripped at the fuel piping and tried his best to ignore the distraction.

Tow-line side-stepped to the other side of the bench and stood to the left of Sideburn. He raised his hand and smacked Sideburn across the back of the head. “Blam! Sonic echo wave from behind!”

Sideburn dropped the components and retracted the torch back into his finger. He stood up from the bench and glared at Tow-line with seething frustration.

Tow-line raised his arm again, but Sideburn grabbed his wrist. “Stop it!” he called.

Tow-line relaxed his arm and Sideburn let go.

“You’re a field medic, deep in enemy territory, under heavy fire from all sides,” Tow-line urged, scooping up a handful of the broken components, “and Billy-got-blown-up here needs you! It’s life or death.”

Sideburn turned away from Tow-line, shrugging. “I just can’t get the hang of this mindlock technique of yours.”

“I know it’s difficult, but the mindlock is a proven way of blocking out all distractions. Your fellow Autobots are going to need every iota of your concentration if you’re going to successfully repair them in a high pressure combat situation.”

Sideburn dropped his fist into the palm of his other hand. “I can’t do it.”

“You can,” Tow-line reassured. “It just takes time. Pitstop passed the technique onto me, and I am passing it on to you.”

Sideburn returned to the bench, leaned forwards and rested his palms on its edges. He looked down at the components and shrugged. “Okay, okay, one more attempt.”

“That’s my boy,” Tow-line smiled, swiping his hand into the components, jumbling them up again. “One more attempt, and maybe, just maybe, you can get an energon treat.”

“Deal,” agreed Sideburn, sitting back down.

Tow-line bowed as he shuffled backwards out of the workshop, closing the door quietly behind him.

Alone again, Sideburn lifted his head, powered down his optics and reached out his arms.

He counted down into the trance-like state: “101... 100... 11... 10... 1...”

With the mindlock induced, and his higher cerebral functions diverted, Sideburn began the repair sequence again. In this state, his conscious mind was disabled and his motor functions relied on a secondary synapse system, usually reserved for reflexes and instinctive self-preservation reactions. His hands found the components he needed to repair first, the torch popped out from his finger, and he began welding.

Tow-line returned into the workshop, this time trying not to make a sound. He crept over to the bench and stood still, watching. He first folded his arms, and then moved his right hand up to his face. He remained as quiet as possible.

Moving carefully, Sideburn reached out for a broken circuitboard. Wafer-thin blades extended from the tip of his right index finger. They were hinged at the base so Sideburn could use them like tweezers. The blades made a delicate grip on a tiny, damaged chip and pulled it from the board. The door to a small storage compartment on Sideburn’s forearm slid open, from which he pulled a fresh chip.

Tow-line continued to watch as Sideburn pushed the new chip in place of the old. There was a sudden flash of light and a high-pitched popping sound. The new chip caught fire and caused a chain reaction that shorted out the entire circuitboard.

Sideburn disengaged the mindlock and covered the circuit board with his hand, starving the small fire of oxygen. “Damn,” he said, realising that he’d lost his concentration and installed the new chip the wrong way round. He looked up to see Tow-line and stepped back, somewhat startled.

“I think we’ll leave it for today,” said Tow-line. “There’s something on your mind.”

“No,” said Sideburn. “There’s nothing.”

Tow-line stepped forward, up to the bench. “I’d like to take a look, anyway. If you don’t mind.”

“Do I get a treat?”

“Of course,” Tow-line said warmly.

Already familiar with the procedure, Sideburn cleared a space on the bench and jumped up onto it in a sitting position. Tow-line moved round to the front and steadied Sideburn’s head with his hands. “Left or right?” he asked.

“Right,” replied Sideburn, disengaging the protective polyglass layer that covered his right hand optic sensor.

Sideburn kept still as Tow-line peered deep into the exposed cavity. The lens of the sensor was a perfect globe embedded in a spherical casing that allowed smooth movement in all directions. A tiny probe-like device extended from Tow-line’s finger and inched its way forwards into Sideburn’s ocular cavity and pushed itself into a minute, circular access port set to the left of the lens.

“Okay,” explained Tow-line, “I’m jacked in, and accessing your latent memory files from the last three breems. If the mindlock was successful, then the records should be blank. And if not, it means that something’s been playing on your subconscious.”

“You won’t find anything, I am sure of it,” Sideburn reassured.

Tow-line paused for a moment, allowing the data to stream into his own systems. With deft skill, he quickly removed the probe and replaced Sideburn’s optic cover.

“Well?” asked Sideburn.

Tow-line wondered how to start. “There is one overriding, pervasive thought in your systems. I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but it’s a stubborn thought that is still there during the mindlock when it shouldn’t be.”

“It’s Speedbreaker, isn’t it?” Sideburn admitted.

“Yes,” replied Tow-line. “You literally can’t get the thought of him out of your head. And it also explains why he was the subject of your hallucinations induced by that alien ilbal when we were on the Warworld.”

Sideburn lowered his head.

“This is a serious problem,” Tow-line continued. “Your guilt for his death is still with you after all these years, and if it’s going to affect your ability to become a medi—”

Sideburn interrupted Tow-line and slid down from the bench and onto his feet. He looked up at Tow-line and narrowed his optics. The two Autobots stood in silence for an extended moment. Sideburn turned away and strode towards the exit of the workshop. “I’ve got to go,” he said sternly.

The devastation at Kalis amounted to little more than a headache for Star Saber.

At his desk, in his office, in his citadel, he switched off the transceiver, cutting off Crosswise’s unintelligible reports. Star Saber rose to his feet and moved to the window. He watched Iacon below. Although there were a few Autobots who had been dispatched to Kalis, many stayed behind within Iacon’s city limits, not seeming to care. Star Saber was pleased. The population of his planet had become bloated with complacency. When the time came, when they would fall on their bended knees to Shokaract’s regime, he would be there to save them. He would be their saviour, and they would be his second chance.

A sudden noise from behind the office door startled Star Saber. He turned to the door, realising who was there.

“Enter, Grimlock,” Star Saber called.

The door opened and the Autobot commander strode in. Grimlock’s entrance was so dramatic that he had already made it to Star Saber’s desk in one step. “Worried about Kalis,” he grunted.

“Worried, Grimlock?” Star Saber purred. “For what reason? I have yet to hear about a reported fatality. It’s a dead zone. No one’s been there for vorns.”

“Me worried about the cause.”

“I see, Grimlock,” said Star Saber as he returned his attention to the window. “Well send in a team, it’s your call.”

“And what your call?”

“I am comfortable here. You go. You’re Autobot commander after all.”

Grimlock let his brow furrow over his optics. “So what that make you?”

“Never you mind.” Star Saber turned again and looked directly at Grimlock. “I have given you full command of the entire Autobot army, haven’t I? Every single Autobot on this planet is yours to command.”

Grimlock’s body stiffened.

“To be honest, Grimlock,” Star Saber continued, “it’s the planet I care more for, not its population.”

“But if members of the population have caused the explosion, they must be found.”

“Quite,” agreed Star Saber. “I’ll leave that with you.” He turned to the window once more, indicating to Grimlock that he should leave.

Grimlock ignored the gesture. He would never choose to take the hint, no matter how unsubtle. “Me think those aliens you captured have something to do with it.”

Star Saber ignored Grimlock.

“Me think they trying to escape.”

Losing his patience, Star Saber slammed his fist onto the surface of the window. The polyglass trembled with the impact. “I will not tolerate any doubts on my ability or my dedication to protect this planet from any and all aggressors. Those prisoners are currently, always have been, and always will be, locked inside their cells.”

Grimlock began to speak, but was interrupted. Star Saber spun round and activated a monitor screen. “Look! This is a live feed. It beams images of the prisoners directly to me every breem of every solar cycle. There they are: secured.”

“Okay, okay,” Grimlock said. “Me sorry me offended you. But me concerned about Wildride and Mach Alert; both missing since sent to check on prisoners.”

“Wildride? Mach Alert?” Star Saber bellowed. “These names are meaningless to me.”

“Not to worry,” said Grimlock coldly. “Me sort it out myself, commander of Autobots after all.”

“At last,” Star Saber sang sarcastically, throwing his arms into the air, “the shanix drops!”

Grimlock threw an icy glare at Star Saber before turning on his heels and leaving.

“Don’t bother me again, Grimlock,” Star Saber called behind him.

He was Iacon’s unwelcome guest, carrying the plague that would kill them all.

As the effects of the nucleic graft continued to ravage his internal systems, he realised his life was destined to be a sojourn and nothing more. His stay would be only temporary, and once his mission had been completed, he would allow himself to fall to Shokaract’s cancer and let it kill him before allowing it to spread.

The lights of Iacon were pain in his eyes, and the noise of the passing traffic thundered and echoed in his mind. The hike from Kalis, and it was a hike since he’d not yet learned how to transform, had taken its toll. Energon reserves were depleted. He’d been operating on empty for so long, he wondered if the graft had begun taking a life of its own and was somehow now fuelling his systems. His vision began to blur. His stride weakened, and his march became a trudge. He collapsed where he stood.

Sideburn had noticed the stranger fall and immediately sprinted over to help. Emergency aid protocols buzzed into his brain as he recalled his medical training. The stranger had his back to him, keeled over in a foetal position. The Autobot opened a small storage compartment on his forarm and flicked out an energon infuser. He gripped it confidently in his hand, ready to administer. As he approached the stranger, he noticed a dark patch of dulled armour across his back. It looked like severe oxidation had set in, eating away at the protective alloys. He didn’t seem to care that the stranger might be carrying a potential contagion, as his training had taught him. Sideburn reached out to the back of the stranger’s shoulder and pressed the energon infuser into the top of the joint.

Reacting violently, the stranger spun round and knocked the infuser from Sideburn’s hand. “Don’t touch me!” he screamed.

Sideburn jumped backwards in shock. “I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I was just trying to help.”

The stranger turned fully and took a good look at Sideburn. “Yes, help,” he said, opening his hands and grabbing Sideburn at the tops of his arms. “Help. I need help from you,” he gasped, realising it was Sideburn. He couldn’t believe his luck.

Sideburn struggled to break free from the stranger’s grip. Then, a sudden familiarity in the stranger’s face registered with him.

“Oh, no,” whispered Sideburn. “Not again, not like before.”

The stranger continued his plea. “It’s okay, I’m a friend. I need your help.”

Sideburn thrashed in the stranger’s arms and kicked at his chest. “This isn’t real,” he said. “It can’t be!”

“Please!” the stranger said. “Help me.”

“You can’t be him,” Sideburn called out, wondering if his guilty madness had finally, completely consumed him. “You can’t be Speedbreaker!”

With his arms folded tightly across his chest, Shokaract drummed his clawed fingers along his bicep. “Well?” he asked impatiently.

On the other side of the cell, Cataclysm continued to sit crossed-legged on the floor in his trance-like state. His voice was low and almost inaudible. “I’m still scanning life signatures,” he said. “We’d have to see for ourselves, but I fear we’ve lost at least three-quarters of our troops.”

“Hah!” Antagony scoffed. “Troops? They’re scurrying around down there, barely able to survive on the Autobots’ energon effluent, and any warrior instinct that should be running through their veins is running through the sewage systems.”

Shokaract unfolded his arms and pointed at Antagony. “Shut up,” he spat with frustration. “I am beginning to grow tired of your venomous commentary.” He then turned and pointed at Cataclysm. “Do you have any indication as to the source of the explosion?”

“No, my Liege,” Cataclysm purred, throwing a sly look at Antagony as if to gloat at her slow but significantly noticed escape from their leader’s favour. “Without personally going down there to investigate, I am at the mercy of my scanners.”

“Do you have a lock on Mach Alert or Wildride?”

“I do. They’re both still down there, and believe me, in no fit state to be setting off any bombs.”

“We really need to get down there and get our answers,” Antagony urged.

“And how do we do that?” Shokaract asked. “We’re under constant surveillance.”

Antagony glared at Shokaract and spoke through gritted teeth. “And that’s all part of your plan, is it not?”

Shokaract stepped towards Antagony, hunching himself over her slender form. His shoulders began to heave. His temper started to flare. “Faith, Antagony,” he said. “I just need you to have a little faith.”

Antagony turned her back on her master. She was not one to be intimidated. Not by him. “I can only have faith in a plan that’s going to work. Someone has clearly gone to great lengths to sabotage our work. I am sure hundreds of Autobots are already swarming round the mouth of that crater as we remain in here and wait on faith.”

Shokaract curled his fingers into a fist and raised his arm. Cataclysm stood from his position to focus on the growing tension. A grin opened across his face.

“There are twelve breems between one of us leaving this cell to investigate and the nearest Autobot guard arriving. And that’s a situation that can only happen once before the final stages,” explained Shokaract. “We stay here until absolutely necessary.”

Antagony turned to face Shokaract. She looked up at his raised arm and then directly in to his optics. “Fine,” she said with a cold voice. “We’ll carry on doing it your way. But just remember that you’re not the only one that was given powers.”

Shokaract moved his gaze from Antagony’s and lowered his arm.

Sideburn burst into Tow-Line’s workshop like a runaway train. The sound of his arrival cascaded across the floor and echoed up the walls. On the far side of the room, Tow-Line dropped an armful of empty canisters he had intended to neatly stow away. “Sweet Helex!” Tow-Line cried. “You scared the radiator cap out of me!”

Sideburn marched up to Tow-Line and grabbed him by the forearm. “We’ll clean up later, this is important!”

Before he could resist or question Sideburn’s actions, Tow-Line found himself dragged across to the entrance of his workshop and pushed in front of a robot that had collapsed in a heap in the doorway. “C-can’t be,” Tow-Line stammered.

“He needs an energon infusion and I need a vorcode test.”

Tow-Line knelt down and grabbed the robot’s chin. The neck was limp and frail. Support struts had buckled and the outer skin of the joint had perished, revealing vulnerable fuel lines and synapse routes. The engineer removed a palm-sized pump from a storage compartment housed in his thigh. The pump glowed a cool blue. Tow-Line pressed the pump into an aperture underneath the robot’s chin.

“Well?” Sideburn demanded. “Is it him? Is it Speedbreaker.”

“I don’t know, yet,” Tow-Line countered. He turned away from the robot and stared at Sideburn. “You need to calm down before you blow something.”

Sideburn took a step closer to Tow-Line. “I think my mind’s already blown. I need some of your science to show me I’m not mad.”

“Well, it looks a lot like him,” Tow-Line assured. “Probably exactly like him.”

“Is it him? Is it a clone? A hoax? Another trick of our minds?”

“Just calm down and help me get him onto a slab.”

Sideburn and Tow-Line lifted the robot onto the nearest slab. Tow-Line winced as oil and lubricant spilled onto the polished surface. “Ew,” he said, noticing something. “What’s that on his back, under his neck?”

“I don’t know,” said Sideburn, brushing flakes of cracked armour from his hands.

“I need to get a good look at it,” said Tow-Line. “Looks possibly organic.”

“Get to that later, I need you to verify his vorcode.”

“Okay, okay,” Tow-Line agreed. “Just take a step back, you can’t disrupt the process once I’ve started.”

Sideburn looked down at his hands. Involuntary overcharge had made his hands shake; a by-product of excess energon running through his systems.

Tow-Line remained professionally cool. He reached down into a compartment under the slab and took out a long, narrow probe-like device. He inserted its useful end into the robot’s chest and pushed it down. A small cable popped out of the other end of the probe and Tow-Line plugged it into an interface that was housed in the front surface of the slab.

“Still can’t believe that the Decepticons discovered the Spark before us,” he commented to himself.

Sideburn craned his neck forwards. The shaking in his hands had stopped, now that he was a little calmer.

Nearly an entire breem had passed.

The slab’s interface beeped and Sideburn’s hands began to shake again. Tow-Line deftly removed the probe from the robot, retracted the cable, and returned the device to its storage hole.

“Well?”

“Yeah, it’s him,” said Tow-Line, almost too matter-of-factly.

“You’re kidding?”

“His vorcode is showing an 88% match with Speedbreaker’s records.”

“But how? Has someone somehow reactivated his dead body?”

Tow-Line leaned over the robot’s prone body. “That first energon fusion didn’t take. I don’t know if his systems will take another concentrated hit of fuel, but if we want him talking...”

Sideburn jumped forwards and grabbed Tow-Line’s arm. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t kill him.”

“I won’t,” Tow-Line smiled. “I promise. I’ll just give him half a dose.” Tow-Line administered the half-dose of energon, and the pair waited, tutor and pupil.

The robot’s body suddenly lurched. It arched its back and gripped the sides of the slab.

Sideburn pushed Tow-Line aside and leaned over the robot’s face. Beads of coolant settled on his stressed forehead. “Speedbreaker?” he asked.

The robot, with his mission on his mind, smiled. “No, not quite. You can call me Crashbreaker.”

Sideburn struggled to keep up.

The air ahead was dense with clotted smoke and he could barely make out Crashbreaker’s rear lights in front of him as they both sped through the battleship grey murk in vehicle mode. It was hard to tell exactly what it was that Crashbreaker had transformed into. Vehicular as it was, whoever was responsible for the design has done it in a hurry. He’d mentioned something about not yet having the time to learn how to transform. But, at least according to Sideburn, it was an instinctive process, a simple case of flashing a mental command to the morphcore. Sideburn swept his wipers across the width of his windscreen in a futile attempt to clear the grit from the optical network housed between the dual sheets of plexi-glass. So much that Crashbreaker had said made little sense. As soon as Tow-Line has tweaked him into operational status and filled his fuel tanks with energon he was out of Iacon like a shot, dragging Sideburn with him. With no more than blind faith and the mystery of his identity to solve, Sideburn followed Crashbreaker to Kalis... he struggled to keep up.

The haze of the recent chaos curdled further as the two Transformers entered the dead state of Kalis.

“Not far,” confirmed Crashbreaker. There was no internal radio for him to use, so he shouted against the wash of air from the vocal unit housed underneath his bonnet.

“Until what?” Sideburn replied at full volume.

“Until we reach our destination,” Crashbreaker called back. “Obviously!”

At least Sideburn could trust a sense of humour.

Ahead, streaks of crimson and turquoise shredded the smoke. Sideburn made out the shadow of an enforcement vehicle; he absently thought of Speedtrap. A group of Autobots, actually the entire Protectobot team, had formed a barricade. No one was going to get past.

In robot mode, Hotspot walked up to the road, gesturing for Crashbreaker and Sideburn to stop. They obeyed and both transformed. Sideburn could swear he heard his new friend whisper, “I am transformed,” under his breath.

“I can’t let you go any further,” Hotspot said sternly. “I am going to have to ask you both to return to Iacon.”

“No can do,” said Crashbreaker, calmly but defiantly. “We’ve been sent her specifically by Grimlock to investigate.”

Streetwise approached the trio, flexing his hand and hovering it over the photon pistol that was holstered on his thigh. “The same Grimlock that ordered us not to let anyone pass?”

Sideburn stepped up to Hotspot, and though twice his size said: “Just let us past.”

Blades and Groove joined in. “Bit pushy for a cadet aren’t you?” Groove asked.

“Hah,” Blades sneered, “the only cadet of the current class that has yet to graduate. What’s-a-matter? Don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?”

Crashbreaker made a move but Hotspot pushed an open palm into his chest, making sure he kept his distance. With his free arm up to his lips, he spoke into his communicator, “First Aid, I need you here. I need you to verify that the dead aren’t walking the streets of Kalis again.”

“We’re wasting time here,” Crashbreaker urged. “Just let us past.”

Folding outwards from his ambulance mode into a robot, First Aid strode up to the group. “Speedbreaker, aren’t you? Didn’t you die?”

“No,” Crashbreaker lied. “I was repaired.”

“By whom?” First Aid quizzed. A cursory search of his medfiles gave a blank. “Pitstop?”

Thinking on his feet, Crashbreaker wrapped an arm around Sideburn’s shoulder. “By my little buddy, here.” He turned to Blades. “He’s not a cadet any more, graduated as a fully qualified medic. I guess you fellas are little out of the loop.” Turning to First Aid, he added: “I mean, how many of you are actually original Protectobots anyway?”

Sideburn looked up at Crashbreaker with a smile. He was good.

First Aid ignored the comment. “So what business have you got in the crater?”

Crater? thought Sideburn, another piece of the jigsaw slotting into place.

“We’re checking for survivors. If anyone was caught up in the blast, they’re going to need help.”

Blades laughed. “So Grimlock send this runt out here?”

“Yes,” said Crashbreaker with conviction. “Along with his bodyguard.”

Without the desire for the situation to escalate any further, Hotspot relaxed his arm to let Crashbreaker through.

“Wait!” said Streetwise. “Hotspot, you can’t trust him. Firstly, he’s supposed to be dead, and secondly, he’s not even wearing an Autobrand.”

“For pity’s sake!” Sideburn shouted angrily. “Even a bulkhead like you must know that none of Fire Convoy’s crew were ever given the Rite of Autobrand!”

Streetwise, realising the offence he’d caused, lowered his head and stepped back.

“And remember it was one of Fire Convoy’s crew that repaired you all after the battle at the Barricade.”

“Okay, okay,” said Hotspot. “Go on through. But be warned that I am checking with Grimlock to see if you are under authorisation.”

“Thank you!” Crashbreaker sang, spinning on his heels and bowing sarcastically.

Once out of audio-sensor range, Sideburn asked the question. “There’s a crater here?”

“Don’t you watch the news in Iacon?”

“Not really, not since Chicane was exiled.”

“Who on Cybertron is Chicane?”

“Well, exactly.”

Crashbreaker and Sideburn approached the crater with extreme caution. The heat was strong, and popping embers swirled up in the smoky air. Sideburn activated his chest-mounted headlights, letting their tungsten beams light the way.

“Lucky you,” Crashbreaker commented. “Mine are on my shoulder; not much use up there.”

“You came from in there, didn’t you?” Sideburn guessed.

Crashbreaker smiled and caught Sideburn’s eye. “Sharp, you.”

“Have you got a friend down there? Is that why we’re going back?”

“You could say that.”

“So what caused the explosion?”

“That, I can’t answer.”

“Why not?” Sideburn asked suspiciously.

“Because I don’t know!”

“Oh,” admitted Sideburn. “I thought you were being deliberately cryptic.”

“Not deliberately.”

“And is there anything else down there that I should know about before I follow you? Besides your friend.”

“Lots,” said Crashbreaker, turning serious. “But there really isn’t any time to explain. All that you need to know is that my... friend... is in trouble. Big trouble.”

Sideburn paused in his tracks. He wasn’t sure how much further he could follow Crashbreaker on faith alone.

“Do you trust me?” Crashbreaker asked. Though he may as well have asked: “Are you a fool?”

“Yes,” Sideburn said resoundingly.