The girl looked at herself in the reflective surface off the panel about twice her height. It wasn’t a perfect reflection, but it let her know that nothing had visible changed after Shockwave’s last experiment on her. She wondered what he had done. He had cut her open three days ago. Normally he would have told her by now. So, whatever he was doing to her this time wasn’t done yet. She had to contain a shudder. That meant he was going to cut her open again. Soon, unless she missed her bet. She shuddered but couldn’t stop it this time. Every time her experimented on her it hurt for days afterwards. She wished it would stop. She knew it wouldn’t until he was bored with her. Or she was dead. “Little Bit.” Her head swiveled in the direction the voice was coming from, “Come here. She didn’t dare disobey. Shockwave only called her that when he was in a good mood. She didn’t want to put him in a bad mood. She raced across the floor towards the main panel where she could see the Decepticon scientist. With an almost flawless ease she took a hold of part of the console. The outer casing was made of panels. The grooves allowed her to climb up to a level where Shockwave could see her. She stood where he knew he wanted her. He wasn’t looking in her direction, so she snapped her fingers just once. He turned to pierce her with his lone eye. He hissed at her, “Ah Little Bit, how are you feeling?” She had no vocal cords. As such she couldn’t speak. She used a code Shockwave developed to communicate. It involved touching her thumb to her other fingertips and required both hands to use. Different combinations equaled different letters in the current language of Cybertron. Every time her right thumb hit her right pinky equaled a new symbol. Twice meant a new word and three times meant a new sentence. She was adept at it. It was almost a quick as being vocal. Using this method, she told him, That was a lie. Her abdomen still hurt from the time three days ago. However, it was the only answer that would keep him from backhanding her across the room. She couldn’t break bones because of the time he infused her bones with living metal as she was just learning to walk but coughing up blood was not her idea of a good time. So, she lied. He nodded, “That’s good.” He spoke in Cybertronian, “Eat something.” He dropped a collection of fruit in front of her, “Then we begin the next phase.” She wanted to ask what the next phase was. She didn’t dare. He decided that it was happening today. So, if she did something to put him in a bad mood, he would backhand her, not let her eat, and still do something terrible to her. That was not how she wanted to spend her day. So instead she dropped to the console to sit cross legged. Shockwave waited to see her take the first bite of apple before turning away. He moved to the other side of the room where he kept his table and tools for experimenting on her. It was clean. He always kept it clean. The silver colored tools blinking at her mockingly. She quickly looked away. Instead she focused on eating the pile of fruit that was in front of her. It wasn’t much, but she wanted more. She was always hungry. She was always tired. She was always hurting. She just wanted to be left alone, or better yet, to get out of Shockwave’s laboratory. There were so many problems with that though. For one thing, she didn’t even know where the laboratory was located. She knew that she came from a planet called Earth, but for all that she knew she wasn’t anywhere near that planet. She didn’t think she was on a spaceship, but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even know if there was oxygen outside of the lab. It would suck to get outside and then promptly die. At least she would die outside. Then again, she didn’t even know where outside was. She never left this room. Shockwave liked to keep her contained. She figured she was close to Earth. Decepticon drones would come form Earth to get repairs or bring news. She still didn’t know how far away it was. She didn’t think she could get there on her own, and she doubted any of the Decepticons would help her. So, for all intents she was suck in this terrible place and this terrible life. She almost wished Megatron would visit again. Shockwave would ignore her for days when those visits happened. They were rare though. Besides, she never liked the way the Decepticon leader looked at her. She looked down and the collection of seeds and steams. It seemed she had finished eating. It wouldn’t be long before Shockwave came over. She hoped he drugged her. He probably wouldn’t.