Transformers: Survival of Defective Products

The rest area on the other side of the Autobot base was relatively quiet and farther from the main hall, so normal conversations wouldn't carry. But for a group of Cybertronians who had their audio receivers set to the limit, the walls didn't really matter.

Jazz walked to a lower platform and sat down, with Vector following and sitting down next to him.

"Are you tired?" the jazz asked.

Vector looked at him and said, "You guys have lined up so many machines in a row, what do you think?"

"I didn't participate in fighting for the seats."

"In the end, we had to queue up."

"Then I'll just chat casually."

The gentleman placed one hand beside her, palm up, and waited for her to slowly place her hand on it before he gently took it, his movements very careful, holding it loosely.

"Let me start with an easy question," he said. "Were you happy before?"

The vector was slightly taken aback. She thought the knight would first ask her why she had concealed it, or what happened when she died.

The Jazz only asked whether that period of life itself was good or not.

"I'm very happy," she said. "My family is doing very well."

Jazz's optical glasses brightened slightly: "How good is it?"

"How do we quantify this?"

"Just saying."

After thinking for a while, Yin Xiang realized that those memories were from so long ago, yet many details were still there when he tried to find them.

The lights, the furniture, the occasional sound of cars coming from outside the window, the smells wafting from the kitchen, and the keys that my mother always casually left on the counter in front of the door.

"I used to live with my parents," she said. "I never had to worry about making a living."

Who usually takes care of you?

"My father is a little more."

The jazz were somewhat surprised: "He doesn't work?"

"My previous job."

"What are you doing?"

"Private investigator".

The jazz musician's expression showed a clear increase in interest: "No wonder...did he teach you how to investigate cases?"

Yin Xiang recalled, "Not entirely. He liked to ask me what I saw on the street that day while we were eating. If I said I saw someone wearing a black coat, he would ask if the coat was new or old, if there was mud on the shoes, if the cuffs were clean, and if the person was walking fast."

"Can't answer that?"

He would say, "Great, I see someone wearing a black coat."

The jazz musician couldn't help but chuckle, then asked, "Why did he stop doing it later?"

"The economic environment has changed, and the industry is becoming increasingly difficult. In addition, my mother is very busy, and someone in the family always has to stay at home. So he gradually stopped taking on commissions and focused on taking care of the family. Besides, he is quite good at cooking."

"You're quite good at it?"

"At least that's what I thought when I was a kid. Later, as I ate more, my standards rose."

Jazz chuckled softly again, and Vector felt his thumb gently flick the side of his fingers.

Where is your mother?

"She worked for the government and also inherited the family business and assets, but she no longer directly managed the day-to-day operations, leaving them to a professional team."

The jazz quickly connected this to the conversation they had just had: "So you've known how human officials talk since you were a child?"

"I've seen quite a few, since people often come to visit. They think children can't understand, so they don't really hide their conversations from me."

"You actually understood everything?"

"I didn't understand it then," Yin Xiang said, "but some things you hear, you'll understand when you grow up."

"for example?"

"For example, 'support in principle' usually means they're unlikely to offer help; 'further research is needed' is sometimes another form of refusal; and suddenly raising your voice doesn't necessarily mean anger, it could just mean you're realizing the conversation is getting out of control."

Jazz recalled Fuller's performance at the negotiating table: "No wonder that human was looking at you more and more strangely."

"That's because his own rhetoric isn't fresh enough."

A very soft metallic scraping sound came from the direction of the main hall.

The volume of the vector was raised slightly: "If people outside want to hear it, they can listen normally. Don't make the audio receiver turn so obviously."

The distance fell silent for a moment, then the sound of something falling could be heard, probably from the smoke.

The jazz singer tried hard to suppress a laugh: "It seems everyone is quite concerned about your past family... So, do you mind?"

The vector is directed towards the direction of the hall.

In the past, she would probably have turned on the soundproofing system in the rest area, or simply turned it off.

But not now.

She said, "We'll find out sooner or later anyway."

The jazz musician's fingers tightened slightly: "What were you doing then?"

"Go to college."

Jazz was visibly taken aback: "Not graduated yet?"

"no."

"What to study?"

"Law".

"That's a perfect match for my major."

"Only part of it," Yin Xiang said. "His specialization leans towards administrative law, but he also took minor courses in economics and public administration."

"Haha, after all, school didn't teach you how to establish a judicial center and a war leader whose judgment can transform." The knight shook his head. "Human education is still not comprehensive enough."

Vector was amused: "Even if my professor heard that a student had gone to another planet to draft laws, he would probably find it very difficult to revise the teaching plan."

"After all, you were just a college student back then." Jazz turned to look at her. "You were younger than I originally thought when you came to Cybertron."

The vector did not deny that, even by human standards, she was still young and had not even decided where her life was originally going to go before she suddenly reached the end.

The knight asked, "What do they call you?"

"Introducing the Sky Arrow."

I mean your home.

Yin Xiang thought for a moment: "When my mother is angry, she calls me by my full name, my father usually calls me Tianya, and my aunt likes to call me Xiaoya."

Jazz repeated, "Little Arrow."

The vector immediately looked at him: "You're not allowed to call me that."

Why?

"It's not suitable for now."

"I think it's quite cute."

Say it one more time and I'm going back to the main hall.

The jazz shrewdly replied, "Okay, I won't call."

That's what he said, but the smile in the optical mirror didn't diminish at all; he was too lazy to argue with him.

The gentleman asked some more ordinary questions: what dishes her father cooked, whether her mother came home late, whether there were arguments at home because of work, and who she was afraid of getting angry with when she was a child.

The vector said that his mother was indeed busy, but she never missed anything important.

The father is in charge of daily life. He seems to have a good temper, but when it comes to matters of principle, he is even harder to persuade than the mother.

When the two of them argued, it was like a debate. She liked to watch the show from the sidelines, observing the process from arguing to laughing and joking, and finally making up.

After listening, the jazz judge commented: "Your later establishment of the judicial center may not have been entirely due to professional reasons."

"The long-term effects of the family environment," Vector joked.

"That sounds like a very good influence."

After a moment of silence, the vector said, "Yes, my home is fine."

She repeated it again, speaking even slower.

The jazz looked at her, his voice even softer: "They love you very much, and I'm glad."

The vector seemed somewhat surprised, and the jazz noticed: "They used to be by your side."

Jazz won't say that there are many opportunities around her now, nor does she want to say that Cybertron is also a home.

That home can't be replaced by other homes or machines to prove that what comes later is just as important. He only needs to acknowledge that that life was good, that they loved her, and that's enough.

The rest area was quiet for a while. The jazz still held her hand. After a moment, he asked, "Were you scared when you woke up on Cybertron?"

The vector instinctively wanted to say that it was okay, but the words stopped at the edge of the speaker.

The jazz man watched her quietly, his fingers gently tracing her skin, almost as if offering comfort and encouragement.

"I'm scared," Vector finally admitted. "Very scared."

This was the first time she had said it so directly, without explaining how it was resolved later or adding that she had already accepted it.

"I didn't know where I was, why I had become another kind of life, or even whether I was alive or dead, and my body at that time could break down at any moment."

Jazz carefully tightened his grip, the optical lenses beneath his goggles gazing at her tenderly.

Vector continued, "But there were too many things to do back then: finding energy, repairing the machine, avoiding recycling, figuring out how this world works. The problems I encountered every day were very specific; I didn't have time to be fearful."

The jazz musician asked softly, "I just can't afford to."

"right."

She gradually became more and more capable of handling problems, repairing the machine, acquiring an identity, and then slowly building her own life.

Survival is no longer something that needs to be constantly calculated, but the things left behind in the early days have not completely disappeared.

"It definitely has an impact." Vector slowly revealed his thoughts, "I don't like to entrust my survival to things I can't control, or for an organization to rely on only one machine to operate... I also don't want to think about what I'll do if I lose something before I gain it."

The man listened quietly, and only after she finished speaking did he say, "You've done very well."

"Don't tell me I'm strong." The vector interrupted.

"I'm not going to say that." The jazz moved closer to her. "You didn't need to be strong back then."

The vector was stunned.

"You didn't have any other choice back then, and the fact that we feel sorry for you now doesn't mean we think you didn't do well enough later."

His tone seemed relaxed, yet it carried sincerity: "I just think that a human college student who hasn't even graduated yet shouldn't be responsible for repairing defective machines, evading retrieval, and surviving in Charon."

Yin Xiang chuckled, his tense nerves finally relaxing: "I'm complaining that this is seriously beyond the scope of the curriculum."

The jazz musician laughed, and after the atmosphere eased, he asked, "Are you still scared?"

Vector suddenly remembered the things he had been dealing with since returning to Earth: the Dark Super-Energy Being, the Gray Death, the Relic, the Human Government, and the Machine that kept coming to talk to him.

This time, she finally spoke out about her past in her own words, not because she was forced, nor to prove anything, but simply because someone gently asked her, and she was willing to speak.

"I'm not afraid anymore," said the vector.

Jazz: "Really?"

"I'm not afraid of this becoming known. I used to think that once it was out in the open, people would start to question where I belong, and there are still many questions about that."

Just as the jazz was about to speak, Vector added, "But they weren't asking me about my qualifications; they were just asking if I was going to leave."

The jazz chuckled: "The two are very different."

She used to be wary of being ostracized if her secret were exposed.

When it actually happened, a group of machines lined up to stop her, as if afraid she would return to the human side, even though the method was a bit noisy.

"Does talking about this now still make you feel bad?"

Vector looked down at the two machines' clasped hands: "A little, but I'm willing to say it."

The jazz gently shook her hand and asked with a smile, "Can I still ask later?"

"Sure, but don't ask too many questions at once."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

From the direction of the main hall came a low-pitched comment amidst the smoke: "He clearly asked the longest questions."

This was followed by a flurry of boos.

The jazz singer called out towards the hall, "Can you hear me?"

There was no reply from afar. Yin Xiang looked at him speechlessly: "You knew they were eavesdropping all along."

"They didn't hide it very well."

"You deliberately didn't tell me."

"You didn't kick them out either."

The vector had no way to refute it, so the jazz pulled her hand a little closer:

"One last question."

"You just said that too."

"This is truly the last one."

"Ask away."

What kind of music did you like before?

The vector was stuck. This problem was both ordinary and sudden. She carefully searched through her memories from a long time ago before she could recall some melodies and names.

Jazz waited patiently, and the machines in the hall remained silent.

Finally, the vector revealed a genuinely relaxed smile, one that no longer cared about its identity:

"Jazz".