Flashback: On Cybertron, before the war, Nightbeat and Quark meet outside Maccadam's New Oil House to discuss the increase of violence in the face of the Clampdown and the rise of the Decepticon movement. Nightbeat is sympathetic to the worker class cause, while the science-class Quark fears for the future... but their argument ends when a drop of energon lands in Quark's drink, and the pair look up to discover the dead body of Senator Sherma, suspended from the Interstate Bridge!

Present: Aboard the Lost Light, Ratchet arrives late to a meeting called by Rewind in Swerve's: the archivist has called him, Drift, Chromedome, Whirl, and Skids together (with Swerve and Tailgate as an audience) to help him tell a story that will aid in Rung's mental recuperation. The true-life tale is set shortly after the instigation of the Clampdown, beginning with the assassination of Senator Sherma, and reveals how, thanks to one Autobot, all those present played a role in a greater story than they ever realized...

Chromedome begins the story by recalling how he and his partner in Mechaforensics, Prowl, were called in to investigate Sherma's murder, easily deducing the Decepticons as the culprits from the presence of their insignia, graffitied on Sherma's back. Skids interrupts to ask for some clarification on Prowl, who he doesn't remember; Swerve has a few choice words to describe him, and Rewind tries to emulate his fondness for flipping tables over, but can't quite manage it. Drift, receiving some messages from Rodimus, tries to hurry the story along, so Rewind turns narration over to him, asking about his time as a homeless circuit booster addict in the Dead End. Drift recounts how he was attacked by Sonic and Boom and was saved by decorated police officer Orion Pax and brought to a medical drop-in center run by Ratchet. Ratchet takes issue with Drift's embellishment of the facts, as he jokingly claims the atheist medic was praising Adaptus and Primus as he worked, but what he begrudgingly is unable to deny is that he told Drift that he was special. Drift tells of how he lied to Ratchet about going to a local Relinquishment Clinic, prompting Tailgate to ask exactly what the clinics were; Rewind plays an infomercial for one, which explains that they were used in the days of functionism to give 'bots the chance to experience life in bodies with other alternate modes via Sparkswap technology.

Never a fan of the clinics, Ratchet picks up the story, remembering the news broadcast that played immediately after he had repaired Drift: the broadcast that announced the death of Nominus Prime, with its claim that he was the victim of a rust infection that Ratchet, having operated on Nominus following the attempt on his life, knew was a lie. His part in the story complete, Drift leaves to respond to an increasingly irate Rodimus, while Ratchet goes on to summarize how he accompanied Orion to a rendezvous with his senator friend. The senator confirmed Orion's suspicions that Nominus was killed by the Senate after the Matrix of Leadership within his chest was revealed to be a fake and revealed his fears that the Senate's head of security, Sentinel, was planning something involving the Decepticons. For the sake of drama, Rewind has Ratchet stop there, turning things back over Chromedome to have him carry on with the story of Sherma's murder. Having discovered through autopsy that the senator was shot to death, Chromedome describes how he and Prowl traced fragments of cerulean glass found in Sherma's boots and treads back to the privileged community of Translucentica Heights and headed there on Skydarts. They discussed Prowl's upbringing in the strict town of Petrex and the existence or not of the Institute along the way, but upon their arrival, a corpse came flying out a high-rise window and landed in front of them, sporting another graffitied Decepticon symbol...

Meanwhile, down in the Lost Light's oil reservoir, Drift arrive

---