Ep. 0.5 - Peer Pressure - Closed

Jazz grinned and pushed away from his lean against the doorframe. "No problem. Didn't want to distract you. Known enough engineers." He made a gesture like an expanding explosion, then let it fall into a placating double handwave. "Not sayin' you'd blow up your work! Or yourself. Or the base. Or half the continent. Just sayin' I've known mechs who WOULD. Totally by mistake, you understand.... Still traumatized, s'all."

Jazz peered about the room out of sheer curiosity rather than any real desire to information-gather. "Haven't seen you around in awhile. How've things been in Team Axalon's 'hood?"

Jazz grinned. "S'nice to have enough time to HAVE hobbies again, eh?" He gestured with one hand, taking in the room, them, the base. "It's been forever since I've been on a working base. Protected, surrounded by friendlies, AND time to waste? Think I've died and gone to the Well."

Jazz found a stool and perched on it. "S'good that folks're making use of the time. I'm glad to see it, really. It's a sign of a healthy base, when folks're comfortable enough to invest their free time in making things." He tilted his helm at Rhinox. "Or cultivating things. How's the gardening going?"

Jazz's knowledge of Earthen flora was limited to what he'd seen flying by as he'd driven down the roads of Russia and the Jasper area. Rhinox's excitement, though, made him look up the things their resident gardener was gushing about, and he had to admit that up close they were awfully pretty. The blending of the colors reminded him of some of the better metallic and electrometallic art he'd...seen? stolen? one or the other...before the war. The natural color gradients that organics produced and wore were difficult to replicate in Cybertronian plating or in metal at all without painting or embedding. The plants' forms were alien, but their colors were beautiful.

Jazz said as much. "I thought that they'd be like crystal gardens, but they're not, are they? It's weird, thinking of them as living things that need fuel and all. Strange that this planet came up with two completely different--" he checked the internet, found the word "kingdom", which led to a description "--kingdoms...wait there're...five...six?"

Jazz lost track of the conversation while he researched the entirety of Earth biology.

They had NANITES. Tiny little organic nanites. That were all over everything. Most abundant living things on the planet.

Jazz looked up at Rhinox again. "Sorry, just discovered bacteria. Ew." Jazz felt the sudden urge to hit the washracks. He suddenly understood Steeljaw's dislike of this planet so much better.

Jazz laughed. "I imagine. Humans seem to have all sorts of issues with them." He'd driven the conversation away from Rhinox's fave topic, though, and he gently led it back, asking about this photosynthesis thing, and soon they were back to discussing the intricacies of green leafy things.

Jazz mostly used it as an opportunity to observe Rhinox. Mechs were rarely so genuine as when they were discussing something they felt strongly about, and Rhinox's love for Earth flora was no exception. Rumors of Rhinox trickled slowly through the base, easy and friendly, getting along with everyone. Jazz could see why. The mech's field was soothingly longwave.

Jazz thought back to the rest of the Axalon crew and could see how that longwave might have helped.

<<He'll let Rhinox go on about gardeny things until he winds down or Jazz...has to be somewhere, really. Rattrap isn't the only reason he's down here. Teambuilding, he says! >>

Jazz was no expert on science (more a half-afted engineer of the "put it together to see if it does the thing I want, then shiffle things around until it does" school), but half of interest in anything, he'd long ago learned, was dependent on the passion of the person telling you about it. And Rhinox certainly had passion. He was a fairly good teacher, too, and Jazz found himself learning despite himself.

Jazz, always looking to make mechs happy, googled the carrion flowers, determined that there were seeds available on eBay, then that there was no way to grow them outside in Nevada soil. He tagged a few arboretums that had them...and ooh, UC-Berkeley evidently was expecting theirs to bloom this year.... He tagged the dates and set up a news search filter.

He smiled. "I'll agree with you there, big guy. Humans'n us're both social species. You'd think that we'd recognize that whole interdependance thing. Instead...well." He gestured eloquently with one hand, his feet dangling on the Rhinox-sized stool. "Too wrapped up in our own things, I guess. Always more worried about our own cohorts and teams and units and such rather than the bigger picture." He waved his hand. "Nothin' against cohorts and units, of course. Mine's kept me alive more'n I can say, in more ways than one."


<<I actually saw a carrion flower bloom when I was in grad school! They usually have them in botanical gardens and such. Jazz/Rhinox roadtrip, y/n? >>

Jazz nodded. Talking about teams, nowadays, always reminded mecha of who they'd lost. "We're lucky," he said softly, his field core-deep sympathetic. "Finding your cohort again after so long is...well...not sure I believe in anything more than luck, but if nothing else, it's some damned GOOD luck."

He pulled his legs up, sitting cross-legged on the stool and resting his elbows on his knee joints. "Actually...wanted to kinda ask you something about your cohortmate...." He unsubspaced one of Rattrap's little cameras, holding it up in his claws. Rhinox was an engineer, after all, and Jazz knew enough about mech nature to know that Rattrap certainly hadn't taken up spying on his fellow mechs as a new Earthen hobby.

Jazz slanted a look at the camera, a wry smile on his face. "Any way you can think of I can keep him from plantin' these all over the base?"