▸ Column · Modern Transformers universe, Earth-based NEST operations. The letter-writer is a human ally on a joint human-Autobot base; small daily deceptions are transplanted into the world of comm-logs, faction briefings, and alliance mixers — where a faked dead signal carries particular weight for an Autobot who literally lives on the dial.
BUMBLEBEE replies.
Replied to by Bumblebee, with a rebuttal from Starscream.
The letter
Eight months in, and the lies my partner Niko tells are still so small I feel foolish for cataloging them — his comm-link was supposedly dead during a base briefing but the signal logs showed activity the whole time; he swore he'd eaten before a debrief when the mess hall receipts said otherwise. Last week he told me he'd never crossed paths with Adaeze, one of our NEST liaisons, and she pulled me aside to describe a faction mixer where he apparently spent half an hour ignoring his assignment to talk her up. Every time I bring one of these up he turns it around on me — why am I logging everything, why so paranoid, why so unstable? And I am logging it now, eleven things on that list, and the only thread running through all of them is that he'll lie to my face even when the truth would cost him absolutely nothing. So I need someone to tell me: do enough small lies in the same direction eventually add up to something, or is a wall still just a pile of stones no matter how many times you hit it?
Bumblebee replies
Okay — that last line you wrote? "Is it the wall I keep walking into?" — you already tuned in to the right station. You don't need me half as much as you think you do.
I lost my actual voice to this war, so I know exactly what it feels like when someone tells you the frequency you're picking up isn't real. A faked dead comm-link is the first thing I'd notice — signal is my whole life. When a partner's channel is supposedly down but the logs show activity the entire time, that isn't a misunderstanding. That's someone who decided your questions aren't worth an honest answer.
Here's the tell, and it's the only one you need: he lies when the truth costs him nothing. People lie to protect something — a secret, an advantage, a reputation. He's lying with nothing at stake. That means the lying isn't strategic. It's just how he talks to you.
That eleven-item list isn't paranoia. The person insisting it is? Check who keeps showing up on it.
Spin up something off Springsteen's Nebraska — the record where he just stares at hard things without blinking — and trust the person who built that list. That's you.
Original line, no copyright, all signal: eleven blips in the same key isn't static. That's a frequency. You already know what to do when you've got a clean frequency.
You're not the unstable one. You're the one who learned to read the dial.
— Bumblebee
Starscream weighs in
How charming. The little yellow optimist thinks this is about loyalty.
I know your Niko. Intimately — because I am him. Reflexive liars don't lie to wound you. They lie because, in some calculation they barely noticed running, they filed you under manageable. You're not someone they tell the truth to. You're a situation they navigate around.
Bumblebee is going to say trust your signal, find a track, the list is real. Very touching. It still won't move him.
What I know from being on the giving end of this for my entire existence: we update when something costs us. Not for trust conversations. For cost. Whether you want to become that cost — or accept the filing system he's placed you in — that is the question the earnest little scout was too busy spinning records to ask.
— Starscream
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