▸ Column · Cybertron wartime era — Decepticon surveillance-and-communications theater; modern grounded comic register
SOUNDWAVE replies.
The letter
Cadmus and his former partner Vela separated two cycles before he and I bonded, but her transmissions fill his channel from the moment he comes online until he shuts down — shift complaints from the refueling dock, a running bit about a turbo-rat they once co-kept named Sprocket, whatever crossed her mind. Last week he stopped mid-toast at our one-year to send her a capture of the dessert. When I asked him to pull back her access, he called me controlling and said Vela is "practically a sister at this point." I've tried building a connection with her myself, but she keeps forgetting to include me when the three of us are supposed to share time together, and Cadmus never clocks the gap. Am I wrong to feel like I'm bonded to someone running a parallel connection that just happens to have my name on the primary frequency?
Soundwave replies
Observation. You are still treating a resolved question as open.
Starscream betrays. I read it before he acts — not because he conceals well, but because he cannot. Every move broadcasts intent before execution. Vela operates the same way. Her forgetting to include you, repeated, directly in front of the one whose response she is gauging — that is not memory failure. It is a range test. She is locating the boundary of what Cadmus will register. He does not register it because registering it would cost him. He has chosen not to read it. That is also data.
You disclosed your limit. He labeled it "controlling" and closed the subject on his terms. Your position is now known. His is not. This asymmetry runs against you.
My function is not reassurance. It is accuracy. The anniversary dessert is not noise. Behavior in a charged moment is cleaner data than any declaration. He chose to transmit. "Basically a sister" is a word. Words cost less than behaviors. Trust the behavior.
Megatron's allegiance: I chose it once and closed it. Not because further deliberation was impossible — because continued deliberation is leakage. The open question holds the door for pressure to keep entering. Yours is open.
Instruction. Stop revealing. Observe what shifts without your asking. If nothing shifts, the question was answered at dinner. Close it. Not for him. For the efficiency of your own position.
— Soundwave
Bumblebee weighs in
Soundwave's running reconnaissance on your relationship and calling it strategy. I know the move — I've been on the receiving end of his surveillance long enough to recognize it.
Here's the thing: they took my voice. Literally, in the war. I had a choice — go silent, or build another channel. I chose the channel. And here's what I hear in your letter: you already know. That anniversary dinner told you everything. You don't have an information problem. You have a gap between what you know and what you're brave enough to act on.
Cue up something by Whitney Houston about knowing your own worth. Or take this line, on the house — first frequency, second thoughts. That's you right now. You're not missing data. You're waiting on nerve. Be the smallest, scaredest one in the room and show up for yourself anyway. You deserve to be chosen. No amount of quiet observation gets you there.
— Bumblebee
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