Dear Vector Prime, have you ever spent time with and helped Nightbeat crack a big case?
Why yes, on many occasions. I've found that we are a most excellent team—though on occasion while assessing the evidence, he must remind me of important details such as "time flows from past to future" and "the culprit probably isn't a multiversal singularity".
Most recently, he asked for my support for the "Matter of the Missing Metroplex Messages" case. Hoist and Grapple had completed the blueprints to integrate Metroplex into Autobot City, but those plans had suddenly vanished from Teletraan-I without a trace. Optimus Prime put Nightbeat on the case, and he interviewed everyone who'd accessed Teletraan in the previous week, including Sideswipe ("I don't really know what a blueprint is. Is that a new kind of rubsign?"), Sparkplug (valid alibi—he’d been playing with young Daniel at the time), and Cliffjumper, who only noted in his paranoid way that some of Teletraan's keys felt "grimier" or "not smooth like usual".
After many frustrating, fruitless days of searching, Nightbeat called me in, hoping that my time powers might help resolve the puzzle. Borrowing Nightbeat's magnifying glass and his fedora, I went back in time to when the data was last known to be present on the computer, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary—except for tiny red and blue smudges on Teletraan's keys. Empty-handed and feeling insecure about my detective skills, I returned to the present and showed Nightbeat the photograph I took.
Nightbeat's optics flared behind his visor, and with a big grin, he told me that he'd solved the case. Walking over to Teletraan, he bonked the console firmly—and the console winced! It detached from the rest of the Ark, transforming into Mainframe, who had spray-painted himself with a nice (and cheap, as Cliffjumper later noted) golden sheen to match Teletraan-I. For all the good he was at being a computer, he was not adept at spray-painting himself at first. I had helped after all!
Mainframe explained that he didn't want to leave the Ark; it was quieter than the bustling Autobot City and wanted all of his friends to stay too. Optimus, who was both kind and just, sentenced Mainframe to six months of community service at Metroplex in assistance to Hoist and Grapple, in addition to six months of daily maintenance of Teletraan-I, which he had hidden away in storage. In the end, everyone won: Mainframe learned to appreciate Metroplex while being allowed to live at the Ark, Nightbeat got to brag about solving one more case, and as thanks, I got to keep his fedora!
