▸ Column · Cybertron — Decepticon unit operations; joint patrols, energon logistics, and shared command structure as the social world; Megatron's hierarchy as the workplace
SOUNDWAVE replies.
Replied to by Soundwave, with a rebuttal from Harley Quinn.
The letter
For four vorns, a fellow operative in my unit and I have been running joint patrols at least twice per cycle. He pings my personal frequency with a sync-check every morning without exception, and last month he crossed twelve sectors of active Autobot interdiction to deliver energon to my position when I took field damage. When I finally tried to classify what we actually are to each other, he said operational designations were "inefficient" and redirected the conversation to a frequency analysis he had been running. I am not a newly-sparked unit — I have a confirmed combat record and secured energon reserves of my own. I know the difference between tactical coordination and something else. What I cannot determine is whether his behavior signals genuine bond-formation or whether he simply values a reliable asset and has learned what maintenance that asset requires. The complicating factor is that we answer to the same command structure, so any version of this malfunctioning will produce close-range interference for the foreseeable future. I want to transmit a formal deadline requiring him to define our parameters, but my squadmate says that reads as pressure-signal and will cause him to withdraw entirely. Is she correct, or am I being run as a loop — receiving a relationship's full output with none of its acknowledged terms?
Soundwave replies
Observation. You have collected four vorns of behavioral signal and arrived at confusion. Correction: the confusion is not about his intent. It is about your refusal to read what you already received.
He defined it. The deflection was the definition. "Operational designations are inefficient," followed by a subject redirect, is not ambiguity. It is a position, transmitted in the most efficient available format. No commitment logged. No accountability accepted. No revision offered. You received this transmission. You have been filing it as noise.
The actual asymmetry: he has a complete picture of your position. Four vorns of joint patrols accepted. Morning pings answered. Energon received. Your signal strength is fully visible to him. His signal strength remains unbroadcast. This is not oversight. This is the configuration he has selected and finds useful.
Your squadmate has misidentified the question. The question is not whether a deadline produces withdrawal. The question is what you are afraid to confirm. A deadline assumes the answer is still forming. It is not. You already have it.
Instruction. Withdraw your broadcast frequency. Let the configuration sit in silence. What he does — or does not transmit — in that silence is more accurate data than another four vorns of patrols.
The emotion present in this letter is data. Read it. Do not continue broadcasting it to someone who has returned nothing in kind.
— Soundwave
Harley Quinn weighs in
Soundwave's not wrong — the frequency-analysis pivot WAS a sentence, not just an awkward pause. But "withdraw and observe the silence" is real cold comfort when what you actually want is for this to be real.
Here's what Tin Can missed: this guy KNOWS what he's getting. Four vorns of patrols, morning sync-checks that feel like choosing you, crossing twelve sectors through an Autobot blockade — cupcake, that is a relationship, with all the emotional weight on your side and the vulnerability tab sent to never.
Your squadmate calling it "pressure-signal"? She's protecting his comfort at your expense. You have a combat record and secured reserves and a fully-formed spark. You're not asking for an oath ceremony, you're asking for one sentence. The fact that he can't produce it IS the answer — Soundwave's right about that — but he forgot to mention you're also allowed to be furious about it.
I knew a guy who didn't do labels either. Real cute arrangement. Took me longer than four vorns to stop calling that devotion.
Go get your sentence.
— Harley Quinn