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Humans liked posting pictures of themselves, Skywarp learned, after just five minutes of web-browsing.
The information sharing network the humans had set up was pretty good for organics, but there wasn't all that much 'information' on it. Most of it was them complaining about their lives, arguing with each other, and uploading poor quality videos.
And pictures. Lots of pictures.
"I know her," Thundercracker surprised him by pointing to one of the pictures on the security monitor during their usual daily browse. Soundwave wouldn't arrive for his command shift for another hour yet, and Megatron was asleep in the big chair at the comm console. It was an easy way to kill time.
Skywarp scrolled back to the picture and wrinkled his nose
"No, you don't."
"She makes videos," Thundercracker explained.
Skywarp stared.
"Of her dog!" Thundercracker explained quickly, cheeks darkening in colour.
Skywarp studied the image. There was no dog in this picture. Just a woman. She was blonde and tanned, leaning at what must have been an uncomfortable angle over a chair and wearing a skimpy red bikini. Her legs were long. Her waist was narrow. She was wearing big sunglasses that made her look like a bug. And open-toed stiletto heels.
She could have been a seeker, Skywarp thought blithely.
He flicked through the other pictures, looking for the dog Thundercracker had mentioned. But it was just more of her, wearing different clothes and leaning over various furniture. Everything was so sunny and bright and glamourous. It felt like such a decadent self-obsession that Skywarp was reminded of Starscream's over the top persona as a socialite, in the earlier years of the war.
He was disappointed. He'd wanted to see the dog.
"If she wants to look at herself so bad why doesn't she just buy a mirror?" He complained.
"Other people like looking at her," Thundercracker pointed to a series of numbers underneath the pictures. They were high, and seemed to indicate how much engagement the images were getting from other users. "It's how she earns money."
"How'd you know that?" Skywarp frowned.
Thundercracker didn't answer.
Skywarp side-eyed him, clicking onto another user profile. It featured videos of another women with a flawless complexion and long, dark eyelashes, going through her skincare routine. The video was an hour long. It was almost enough to rival Starscream's morning armour maintenance...
"We could do this," Skywarp suddenly realised.
"Huh?" Thundercracker seemed transfixed by the video. The women was smoothing chap-stick over her lips and smacking them together.
"Think of the money we'd make!"
"Human money," Thundercracker grimaced, tearing his optics away. "Which we could only spend on this planet. It's non-exchangeable currency."
"We could buy stuff here."
"What?"
"I dunno. Energy. Stuff."
Thundercracker seemed unconvinced.
Skywarp thought for a moment. "Dogs? We could buy a bunch of dogs?"
Thundercracker's expression turned thoughtful.
It was Carly who found the first account.
It was past midnight when Spike roused out of a doze and realised the space on the bed next to him was still vacant. Carly had yet to come up.
She hadn't worked late in years, so he got up, rubbing at his eyes as he followed the source of an eery blue light to the kitchen. Carly was sat on a stool at the island, still fully clothing, staring transfixed at her laptop.
"How long have you been down here?" Spike called from the doorway.
Carly didn't lift her gaze from the screen. "I don't know." She said distantly, softly. "What time is it?"
Spike squinted at his watch, bringing it close to his face to see in the poor lighting. "Nearly one."
"Couple hours." Carly's finger clicked the touchpad.
Spike came around the island, walking into a vacant stool on his way and bumping his knee. He cursed and hopped the rest of the distance, "Jeez, Carly! What the heck is so import-?"
A Cybertronian jet was posing on screen. Posing like a swimsuit model. The sort of pose that might make a feminist kinda angry if it was a women doing it. The kinda pose Spike wasn't sure he was allowed to look at. "...uh..."
Carly's head turned to look at him. Spike diverted his eyes. "You see this?" She said.
Spike glanced up again. Glistening armour, pouting expression, incredible curves- the longer he looked, the more...
He looked away. Best not to continue that line of thought.
"I didn't know they were branching into this kinda stuff..." He mumbled, bracing his hands against the countertop. "I know there's money in it, but-"
"Are you even looking at who this is?" Carly challenged. "Or were you too busy staring at that fake aft?"
"It's not fake-" Spike protested, taking another look. "And I wasn't staring at anything. God, I had one tiny crush on Bumblebee when I was a kid and you think I wanna bang everything from the microwave to Mr Stanley's Beamer-"
"Spike!" Carly snapped. "It's Skywarp! The Decepticon!"
Spike's gaze snapped up, shocked into looking again. The Decepticon insignias were artfully hidden but- Purple armour. Black wings. A shit-eating grin. It was Skywarp
"...Instagram are hosting war criminals now?!"
Shaky footage steadied and focused on Thundercracker standing under a shower stream. He was in the Decepticon wash-racks, and he was scowling. His hands hovered in front of his hips like he wanted to cover himself. "This is dumb, Warp."
"It's a tutorial," Skywarp's teasing voice announced off screen. "Welcome to 'How to Clean Your Seeker', where we go into the process with meticulous detail-"
"Warp," Thundercracker's face darkened. His wings dipped.
"First, we take the solvent," the pickup moved away from Thundercracker to face a shelf full of generic chemicals the Decepticons used to clean themselves. Skywarp's hand picked up a bottle and one the tiniest wash cloths imaginable. "And we start with the wings-"
The pickup zoomed in on Thundercracker's disgruntled face, before slowly panning down. "What are you doing?"
"Showing them the goods," Skywarp answered. "Give them a twirl, TC."
"Oh eat slag, Warp!" A hand blocked the view and the pickup shook violently before the scene cut and restarted.
This time Thundercracker was facing the wall, his wings stiff. Skywarp's hand was reaching for them.
Skywarp began a much more professional sounding voice over this time. "First, we need to get the wings all good and wet-"
"Turn that off now!" Ratchet thundered.
First Aid jumped a foot out of his seat and the 'patients' gathered behind him scattered like cockroaches exposed to the light, banging into equipment and walls on their way to the nearest emergency exit. Entirely out of reflex, First Aid frisbee'd the data-pad still playing the footage into the opposite bulkhead. The screen cracked, but unfortunately didn't break hard enough to stop the video.
First Aid watched from behind his hands as Ratchet stormed over and picked it up. He turned it around to show First Aid what was displayed on the cracked screen. Thundercracker was leaning against the wall, cheek pressed to the tile as Skywarp massaged the wash cloth into the seams of his wings. Thundercracker was moaning.
"Soft porn!" Ratchet snapped, throwing down the data-pad. And Primus only knew what it was made of because the action didn't break it. Another moan rose from the speakers. Ratchet smacked it with his wrench. It finally, mercifully, shut up.
First Aid cleared his vocaliser, "...Silverbolt ...twisted something so I was just searching 'wing massage' and that-"
"Don't you start lying to me, you're no good at it," Ratchet pointed the wrench threateningly. "You're funding the Decepticon war effort!"
"I watched one video," First Aid argued.
"It's mindless propaganda. Don't get sucked into it because I'm telling you, those seekers will sooner feed you your own fuel pump than let you admire their 'athletic psyche' in real life," Ratchet ranted. "They're promoting an unrealistic image of the Decepticon lifestyle-"
"It's their personal account!" First Aid cried.
"They've made it look like their personal account," Ratchet growled. "You really think they'd be flaunting about, doing this degrading nonsense, if Megatron wasn't making them?!"
"It's an embarrassment!" Starscream raged when he found out- because Astrotrain couldn't keep his big mouth shut.
"The most idiotic, poorly thought out idea the two of you bit-brains have ever had! Who'd want to sit around all day staring at an incomplete trine?! I'm amazed your comments aren't already flooded with demands for my inclusion." Starscream folded his arms and stared them down, waiting for a response. "Well?"
Skywarp blinked vacantly.
"You, um, you... wanna post pictures with us?" Thundercracker hazarded a guess.
Starscream's glare sharpened. "Do I want to?! Of course I don't want to! But if your endeavour is going to be in any way successful you're going to need me. Fortunately, for your sake, I'm willing to aid you my expertise."
"What expertise?" Skywarp asked stupidly. "Your dumpy little frame isn't gonna get us any new subscribers."
Starscream's optics flashed, "Why you-!"
Thundercracker grabbed Skywarp and turned him around, smiling apologetically at Starscream. "Uh, give us a second."
"What the Pit, TC?" Skywarp protested.
"We need him," Thundercracker hissed.
"No we don't! We have thousands of followers-"
"No, I mean we need him if we wanna keep doing this," Thundercracker glared.
Skywarp growled low in his throat, "But he's gonna ruin our vibe with his weird manic obsession with murder! And he's not gonna wanna pose sexily..."
Thundercracker looked back at Starscream, stood with his hip cocked and his foot taping. His full lips were pouting grumpily. One of his wings kept flicking out and catching the light with his impatience.
"I don't think he needs to pose," Thundercracker whispered. "I think it comes naturally..."
"There is a forty-five minute video of Starscream suggestively sucking on a rust stick on the beach!" Prowl slammed his hand down on the briefing room table. "It has to stop!"
"What's wrong with that?" Ironhide asked with forced obliviousness. "Mech's enjoying a snack. Better than him out there murdering everyone-"
"You know exactly what's wrong with it. You've watched the blasted video enough times," Ratchet muttered.
"Why would he post such a thing?" Optimus asked, and sadly, he wasn't pretending to be oblivious at all. "Is it some sort of coded message?"
"No, Prime," Ratchet and Prowl answered in unison.
"Look, I know you guys are all pissy about these social media accounts funding the Con war effort, but how much can they be making, really? What humans are gonna be interested in watching a bunch of seekers embarrass themselves online?" Jazz asked.
"Fifteen million," Prowl snarled, squeezing his stylus hard enough it snapped.
Optimus made a concerned noise. "Be that as it may, this is out of our jurisdiction-"
"How is it?" Ratchet interrupted. "They're Decepticons. They're corrupting the public with this scrap. Corrupting kids! It's supposed to be our job to defend the humans from them."
"What do you want us to do, Ratchet?" Jazz challenged. "Drive on down to Silicon Valley and force these companies to ban the Command Trine?"
"We shouldn't have to force them. They're terrorists! War criminals!" Ratchet voice was getting louder and louder. "I don't care how 'cute' their aesthetic is! Or how they're 'hashtag Hot Seeker Summer'! They're murderers!"
"They have a huge fan-base." Ironhide shook his helm. "Do we really want the backlash for cancelling them."
"Cancelling?!" Ratchet shouted. "Cancelling ten million year old war criminals?! What is going on!? When they were on the news last week for blowing up a dam, the reporter referred to them as 'influencers'. Five people almost drowned but those psychotic pigeons go home and upload a few pics of their latest manicures and no one cares anymore!?"
Optimus pushed away from the table and stood. "Ratchet is right. Whatever purpose these accounts have been created for is irreverent, their very existence is nefarious. The Command Trine cannot be allowed to have such an influential platform."
Ironhide sniggered, "Just be glad they're not using it to recruit."
"Don't even joke, 'Hide'. Sideswipe said MTV was trying to pitch them their own reality show. If it goes through teenagers will be signing up to the Decepticon cause just to get the insignia tattooed..." Jazz leaned back in his seat grumpily.
Optimus looked both concerned and confused, likely because he didn't know what words like influencers, hashtags, and MTV meant.
"I know how to stop this," Prowl announced with conviction. "We take it to a higher authority. To Starscream's natural enemy."
"Megatron?"
"No, the other enemy."
Starscream frowned behind his spectacles, reading the account statements on a data-pad over his morning energon. "They're seized what?"
"Our money." Thundercracker said sadly, slumped across the mess hall table.
"What 'money'?"
"The money we were earning from uploading content," Skywarp rubbed Thundercracker's back comfortingly.
Starscream leaned closer to the data-pad, frown deepening. "What is a 'dollar'? That sounds made up..."
Skywarp shrugged, "I dunno. I just know we needed a lot of them to open all those animal shelters we wanted. And to buy your Crown Jewels."
Starscream whipped off his spectacles with an frustrated noise. "Who is this IRS and what authority do they have over us?!"
Again Skywarp shrugged, "They're aft heads, whoever they are."
Starscream began grumbling to himself, reading off the data-pad again, "Taxes?!" He exclaimed. "They want me to pay their taxes?! What would this prehistoric mud ball even need those sort of funds for..."
He trailed off and glanced at his miserable trine mates.
"Well, I can always steal the Crown Jewels," the supposed. "And an animal shelter or too."
"A whole animal shelter?" Skywarp challenged huffily.
"Who's going to stop us?" Starscream argued. "We go in, take the animals, and leave. They can't follow us down here. Besides, think of the new content we could create? The views we'd get? The algorithm loves those disgusting fleabags."
"But the IRS froze our accounts, we won't make any money." Thundercracker sulked. "What's the point?"
Starscream scowled at him. "...I happen to like the attention, Thundercracker."
"Plus, it's driving the Autobots nuts," Skywarp laughed.
"How would you know?"
"Prowl left, like, a tonne of hate comments on our last video," Skywarp smiled. "And Prime accidentally Liked that picture of Starscream standing under the waterfall from two months ago."
Starscream's smirk widened. "Oh, I know. Megatron did the same thing."