Ep. 1 - A Rook and a Hard Place - Closed

[Deleted]

Set at the end of week one!

---

”My guess is he's gone to ground somewhere in the city,” said Ratchet. “Or he’s dead.”

Optimus said nothing, though his expression radiated disapproval.

Ratchet shrugged.

“I only mention it as a possibility,” he said. “These days we have to consider all of them.”

“Whoa!”

Miko stuck her head up. She lounged on a beat up couch not far from the two Autobots, her feet up and a game controller in one hand. She regarded Ratchet with wide–eyed interest. “Who’s dead?”

“Never you mind!” said Ratchet sourly. He swivelled from the monitor he was watching and glared at her. “It's none of your concern. Drink your soda and play your game. Go back to shooting more hapless aliens.”

Miko made a face at him. "They're Reapers, and they're evil, dude. I'm doing the universe a favour."

But she slouched back down again, her pigtails disappearing from sight, and both Ratchet and Optimus breathed a little easier.

A moment of silence followed. All three were gathered in the control room. Well, the Autobots were gathered. Miko loitered in front of the television, in the hopes that in between beating the infested research laboratory level she might overhear mention of an exciting mission in the making. The sound of laser fire from her game echoed loudly through the old missile silo.

An earlier transmission had brought Optimus Prime and Ratchet hurrying to the monitors. It was a short message, one that had been curtly interrupted. They had discussed it in low tones, partly to avoid worrying Miko, and partly to avoid intriguing Miko. The news it carried was bad. The implications of its abrupt end were worse.

The transmission was a distress call. And now it was silent.

Optimus looked grim but composed. Ratchet knew better. The Autobot leader wore what Ratchet privately thought of as his 'heavy is the crown' expression. It often came out when one of his Autobots was in danger.

"The last transmission came from within Boulder City," said Ratchet. He tabbed up a map and allowed the cursor to automatically centre itself. "From these coordinates, to put a fine point on it. We'll have to be careful with this one, Optimus. It's a built-up area. Whoever we send will have to stay in cover or else remain transformed. And if there are indeed hostile surveillance vehicles still in the area, then he may need to evade an ambush while escorting back a potentially injured Autobot as well."

Optimus turned his gaze upon him. "I believe we now have on base someone fitted to this kind of assignment.'

That's right. They did. Ratchet had read the mech's dossier while scanning through his medical files. Yes, he was a snoop. It was one of the rare privileges that came with the rank of Chief Medical Officer.

"I think we're on the same wavelength,' said Ratchet.

He touched the side of his head. Over his internal comm he gruffly said, "Rook - this is Ratchet. If you are on the base as you receive this call, please report to the control room. Optimus and I need to speak with you."

[Deleted]

Twenty-three steps from the corner of the hallway to the door leading to the maintenance area. Thirty-two steps leading from the corner to the T-junctions where the secondary hallway joined up with the main path through the base. Six running steps to the pipes running along that hallway. You could crawl your way from one side of the base to another without ever setting foot on the actual floor.

Rook might admit that his way of passing downtime could have been misconstrued as odd, had anyone actually caught him at it. No one had, though. For all the time he'd been in the base, he wasn't sure if half the resident Autobots even knew him as more than 'that guy', and he would have readily admitted that it was his fault; the lack of activity was driving him slightly glitched, in the most metaphorical of senses. He was more acquainted with the structure itself than the residents of it, Autobot or humans. The humans were a weirdness all on their own, for that matter. Slightly cool. Definitely intriguing. All-out weird.

He was hanging upside down, knees hooked over a cooling pipe, on one of the lowest levels of the base when a call came over his comm, freezing him to the spot.

"Rook - this is Ratchet. If you are on the base as you receive this call, please report to the control room. Optimus and I need to speak with you."

He dropped down lightly, the impact nearly silent. He was in one of the maintenance runs, a borrowed datapad in his hands that he'd been using to report on incredibly dull and (he imagined) very necessary safety checkups.

"On the base and on my way, sir."

He used the walk to the Control Room to collect himself; regardless of what the call was for, he was about to do something that did shake him to the strut: meet his Prime for more than idle conversation. Training, however, demanded that he remain calm, steady, unreadable. He had to prove he was the weapon that could be trusted, always; he could allow himself nothing else.

The door to the Control Room hissed open to gunfire and... stereo, hi-def death shrieks. Someone was saving the world in one of two dozen different fashions. Rook glanced briefly towards the TV to cover up his momentary, wary pause, before letting his quiet steps take him to the two senior officers waiting for him. "Rook, reporting in, sir. Prime." He nodded to them both, standing at as much ease as he could muster and, should anyone mark it, just out of immediate melee range. "What can I do for you today?"

[Deleted]

Both Optimus and Ratchet had turned away from the monitors the moment they had heard Rook's soft footsteps enter the control room. The latter now leaned back in his seat and sized Rook up. His expression, usually irritable, relaxed into one of grudging approval.

"Well!" he said. "It's good to see someone around here who knows how to be prompt. Glad you're here, Rook. We have an assignment for you. Miko! Turn that down!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it!" she hollered.

The noise from the television muted. Ratchet and Optimus exchanged a glance, and then Prime stepped forward.

"Twenty minutes ago we received a distress call from the human settlement known as Boulder City," he said. He spoke in a measured tone, his voice low. His calm and steady gaze was fixed upon Rook. "An Autobot distress call."

"We managed to get a fix on the last transmission before it went dead," said Ratchet. He tapped the map. "It came from here, just off Georgia Avenue, roughly in the area of a mind-sized apartment complex. I can send you the precise coordinates once you're underway."

"It came from an Autobot we knew to be working in the area," said Optimus. "That his transmission was interrupted suggests he is in duress."

Ratchet grunted.

"It gets worse," he said. "Before he cut out he implied that he was being followed. Tailed. Not by Vehicons either - by human vehicles. I'm sure I don't need to mention that the last thing we need right now are humans getting suspicious about who or what we are."

For a moment Optimus stood silent. He seemed to study Rook with an air grave contemplation, taking in the grey carbot's attentive stance and quiet, focused demeanour.

"I know that you have only just arrived on Earth and are still finding your footing here on this planet, and among the rest of the Autobots on this base," he said. "But it is my belief that, among us, you are the most ideally suited for an assignment such as this."

"The long and short of it is we need you to go to Boulder City and escort the Autobot who sent this distress call outside the city limits, to an isolated area where I can open a ground bridge to bring you both back," said Ratchet. He folded his arms over his chest, his mouth set in a grim line. "I'll bridge you to a location outside the city right now. Go to the coordinates I provide and attempt to contact the Autobot over your internal comm. I imagine that whoever is following him isn't friendly, in which case you'll need to figure out a way to evade them before exiting the city. If you can't shake them, and they prove outright hostile, you have permission to engage them - without transforming, please. It goes without saying that we don't need any more giant robot sightings hitting the human internet. Giant robot sightings make Optimus' spark grey early."

The big Prime gave him a mildly arch look at that. Ratchet almost grinned.

Miko hung over the railing, her arms dangling. "Can I go with him?"

"No!" said Ratchet loudly. To Rook he added, "Any questions?"

[Deleted]

The medic’s words, and the fact his rather shallow irritation was turned towards the nearby human, reassured Rook that he’d done nothing wrong or, at least, that he hadn't been caught at it.

But then the Prime spoke, his expression as grave as his tone, and Rook was immediately reminded of a fact he tried hard not to dwell on as he passed his days on Earth: wherever the Prime and Megatron strode, there the War’s front-line was. Rook knew he was not a good frontline soldier; he understood this and he accepted it, and he could only hope his senior officers knew and understood it as well. This would be a slag-aft of an occasion for him otherwise.

Even as he subconsciously worried over that, he focused and sifted out the critical details as they were given to him, head lowering minutely and optics dimming by a thin margin. Twenty minutes. Boulder City. Autobot distress call. That was exceptionally hot ground; good. He was used to being deployed breems after the fact, with any trail cold and potentially outdated info backing him up.

He frowned at the next bit. Georgia Avenue, apartment complex. That meant high-density residential, and did the natives ever like the high-density concept. It meant no room for mistakes; it meant no transforming, even if the humans seemed to think their grainy giant robot videos were proof of government conspiracies, not backyard aliens.

He could not, despite his training, hide a brief flash of surprise at the next bit. Humans? He would not have put it beyond any enemy, no matter how small or different, to take on anything and anyone. But the fact the mech, whoever he was, had managed to fire off half a message, meant he'd been on his guard. Which would usually put the advantage directly on the field of the multi-ton metal guy with the big weapons. Still, if it wasn't us, and it wasn't them, the third possibility perforce had to step up to bat--

"...it is my belief that, among us, you are the most ideally suited for an assignment such as this."

Rook's mind came to a crashing halt. Many other mechs, plenty he was acquainted with, would have found those words a source of pride. To the infiltrator, they came down on his shoulders like a ten-ton weight of responsibility. They erased any chance of failure, however infinitesimal; he dared not fail, not after that.

Still, Ratchet's attempt at levity, and the sudden and utterly shameless verbal attempt at latching on by Miko put at least a ghost of a smile on Rook's faceplates, if only for a moment. And the job did seem straightforward enough: bridge in. Get the mech out. Don't be seen. Deal with hostiles. Granted that he was usually getting in to x-out a body, not bring it out alive; that one was going to be a novelty.

He put the datapad down delicately. "Mech might not have the time, boss. How about you put me on the ground, and if I think of anything to ask I'll do enroute? Ready when you are."

[Deleted]

Ratchet nodded.

"Well spoken," he said. He swivelled back to the monitors, crackled his knuckles, and pulled a lever. A low rumble echoed through the silo as an unseen generator fired into life. A moment later a ground bridge blossomed open, spilling green light across the control room.

The faint scent of arid earth and dusty winds drifted through the air.

"All right," said Ratchet. He studied the map. "I've opened a bridge to a sheltered location among the foothills just northeast of the city. They should keep you hidden from sight as you arrive. Less than a mile to the northwest is Route 93. If you follow it, it will take you south and into the outskirts of the city, and then into the heart of the downtown area itself."

He looked back at Rook from over his shoulder. "Contact me after you step through the bridge to let me know you've arrived without a hitch, and I'll send you those coordinates. Maintain an open radio channel. I'll be monitoring things should you need any mission control. I think that about sums it up. Optimus?"

"Good job, Ratchet," said Optimus. He inclined his head. "And good luck, Rook. When you find our friend in Boulder tell him I look forward to seeing the both of you here again."

Still draped over the railing, Miko waved to him.

"Later, new guy!" she chimed.

[Deleted]

Rook couldn't claim that he'd ever been deployed in this kind of style before. Usually there was a lot of flying. Lots of driving.

So much walking.

He tilted his head, listening to Ratchet's last directions, even as he called to mind what he'd driven of Boulder City's roadways. He'd have to grab a map of the place as soon as feasible. For a moment he was thrown at being asked to keep an open channel, then reminded himself that he was not going in Con-covert. Humans weren't going to hack his line, and if they did, those were humans he definitely wanted words with anyways.

He ran his hands in a seemingly absentminded fashion over his own chassis, much as a human may pat himself down to make sure he's presentable before walking out the door. Rook, however, was mentally tallying what he had on him that could be accounted a weapon in a pinch.

He nodded to the Prime, trying for a smile; often-times the gesture felt so unfamiliar. "Have him back to you as quick as he can drive, boss --" He turned a bit, startled by Miko's casual, cheerful optimism. Either she thought this was as easy as it sounded, or she had a good poker face. Rook knew most pegged her on the first, but the little squishling was a little too... intense for him to put full stock on that.

He threw her a lazy, half-meant salute and folded down into the sleek gray of his alt-mode, accelerating for the 'bridge. Light swirled and danced; his sensors were full of the desert even before his tires hit the hard-scrabble surface of the desert. He bled speed for a moment as he got his bearings, but Ratchet's aim was as good as promised; he could hear sparse traffic going by on the not so distant highway, and he could see the small black ribbon of a secondary road close enough that he could see its merging point.

In a moment he was just another vehicle on the road, field closed tight and passive sensors out in a subtle mantle of forewarning; he'd traveled 93 before, looking for races and learning the speed-trap locations, but at the time he had not been looking to the natives for trouble. He hadn't even thought they could get that restless.

He opened the requested radio channel. "Through and on the ground clean, boss." Idly he wondered at the misspeaking of that: to be on the desert was automatically to accumulate enough dust to build a whole 'nother him, no matter how tightly you closed up vents and plates. "So as he doesn't shoot the messenger in a fit of nerves, what can you tell me about the mech? Designation, for starters? What was he doing down here? "

A bit of judicious speeding ate away at the distance between him and the heart of the city, putting him probably five minutes from the northern tip of Georgia Avenue, unless he met one of the local finest on the way.

Once he began to find the first suburban outposts, the Aero switched lights, shaved his speed by the most minute of margins, and started running something from Covenant with a heavy bass-line through his speakers as he skirted the more populated streets in favor of side roads with less traffic (and less traffic light cameras): typical fancy-car driver with a posh sound system and no respect for The Law, that was him; you saw them all the time, come down from Las Vegas to show off their rides, following the highway and getting lost in the sudden residential glory of Boulder City. The locals might glare, or gawk... but they would not remember him.

[Deleted]

The outskirts of the city and their view over Lake Mead soon gave way to the busy downtown area. The sun blazed overhead, brightening a pleasant urban scene.

Low shops with entrances and doorways arched in a Spanish colonial style lined the long boulevard that Rook now found himself on. They were decorated with rock formations and gardens of cactus, agave and desert flora, shaded by well-manicured palm and olive trees. Cars parked diagonally along the curb; the air rang with the sound of music playing from open-patio restaurants, with the rumble of traffic and the din of human voices as people noisily shopped up and down the sidewalks.

And with the bass-beats thumping out of the Aero's speakers.

"What is that racket?" grumbled Ratchet as Rook drove down the street. "Eh? What IS that? Is that what human youths call music these days? Primus. Even here in the control room I can barely hear myself think."

But Rook was right - although many pedestrians stopped to ogle him, most were content to brush him off as an expensive Vegas plaything. By the time he had reached the turn-off onto Georgia Avenue he had only been honked at four times, and had one Ford Mustang rev its engine at him in an attempt to egg him into a drag race at the intersection of Adams and El Canto. But you know what? It was a six-cylinder, and he was an eight. So eff that guy.

Georgia Avenue was a quiet street, suburban and blooming with flowering trees. Sunlight and leafy shade dappled the pavement.

"I see you've turned onto Georgia," said Ratchet through the comm. "Excellent, excellent. I'm sending you the coordinates to the location of that apartment complex now. It shouldn't be much further ahead of you. Ahh. You might see it now, on your left."

Indeed, three blocks down the street a tall, Mediterranean-style villa had reared into view above the trees. It was a handsome four-story building, dusty pink with graceful red-tile rooftops and terracotta patios nestled amidst a citrus orchard. Honeysuckle vines climbed the old world stone arbour mounted at the glass entrance to the lobby, which was surrounded by colourful gardens.

A short driveway wound to the back of the building, where several cars were parked in a nondescript lot. Not one of them looked very much like an Autobot - just a few hatchbacks and SUVs, a big black Land Rover, and a motorcycle propped on its kickstand.

Rook might also spot what appeared to be an entrance to an underground parking lot beneath the apartment.

"All right, this is where the transmission ended," said Ratchet. "The signal just... vanished. I don't get it. He has to be here somewhere. To answer your previous question, he's currently doing investigative work under the name 'Lancer'. We've been avoiding using his real name over the radio while he's been on assignment, mostly to throw off any Decepticons who have been listening in. And by Decepticons I of course mean Soundwave."

[Deleted]

More to himself than to the cranky medic on the line, Rook murmured, "It's good music." Not that he liked it at the strut-shaking volume he was playing it at, but the point was to blend in with the one kind of forgettable creature the area could provide.

He pulled into the complex's drive and dropped the volume to something barely within the human audible range. He drove around, to the parking lot, slowly, then turned back and idled momentarily by the closest spot he could fetch next to the lobby. Just a lost out-of-towner trying to get his bearings, or perhaps here to pick up a hot date. Nothing too important, just some rich dude with a hot car and not a lot of sense. All the while, he wondered whether it was worth it to run an active scan, and that underground access was singing a siren's song he didn't like. If there had been trouble, that's where he'd have pulled back. Stood to reason someone else doing recon would have shared in the thought.

Automatically, he logged the model and make of the cars in the parking lot, tossed in the licenses and wondered if the place had designated parking spots. If humans were entering the fray, better to start keeping track of their nests when they came up under suspicious circumstances.

"If there was trouble, he might have gone to ground literally, boss. I would have. Place has an underground lot" He wished he had a better angle of the lobby, certain there would be security cameras for the underground area.

Instead, he backed up and idled slowly up to the ramp, keeping his engine to a barely audible purr. Once he was as close as he could get, and still play at being the king of back-aft parking jobs, he went as quiet as he could. If the humans had taken on a mech, they had to have some measure of confidence. Anything he would have feared might reveal him to a 'Con presence would have to be suspect until proven otherwise. That meant no sensors... but his senses, he could still use. He listened, keen to anything that didn't belong to this little slice of suburbia; he scented the orange-and-honeysuckle breeze for mech-fluids or the ozone and cordite mix of gunfire.

And still that shady unknown beckoned. Even as he hunted in the most mundane fashion for hints, Rook pulled back from his lousy parking job, and slid down the ramp one careful inch at a time.

[Deleted]

Logging the cars in the parking lot and cross-referencing them was a clever idea. It seemed likely that the back lot was for visitor parking, however - there were no signs indicating that each parking spot was associated with a certain apartment number, at least.

The underground parking lot, however...

"An underground lot?" said Ratchet, startled. "Hmm... yes. Yes, good thinking. That's a distinct possibility. Our radio communications on this planet predominately fall within the UHF range, and are thus reliant upon line of sight when there is no repeater in the area. Even terrain and large buildings can block the radio waves in the right circumstances. And given the lack of temperature inversion in the region we can't re...y up... troposphe.... cting to ben... ignal furth..."

Sure enough, as Rook drove gingerly down the ramp white noise began to invade his internal comm. Ratchet's voice crackled through it, the words broken and staticky -

"... ook? Ro...? ... ou rea... ssion is bre... ange... up your si..."

- until eventually the Aero's radio went quiet. He was on his own.

At the bottom of the ramp was automatic garage door. It was rolled up to the ceiling to reveal the interior of the underground lot. It was not a very big parking space, but cavernous and gloomily nonetheless, lit by grimy fluorescent bulbs. Power cables, caked in years of accumulated crust and old paint, ran along the low ceiling. The air was cool and damp, and smelt like a cellar. There was a tiny security booth next to the garage door, though for the moment it stood unmanned. An elevator's steel door was visible at the very back.

The lot was big enough to accommodate almost forty vehicles, with parking spaces arranged in four rows. A letter and a number was painted on the ground in front of each parking space - A2, B4, D7, etc. Most of them were occupied by a variety of cars, from luxury sedans to sporty little hatchbacks.

Rook had hit a spot of luck, however - there were no humans in sight. The only noise that could be heard was the traffic on the street outside.

[Deleted]

Silence. In a paradoxical way, the dying of the sound was reassuring; as someone had once said, no plan ever survived contact with the enemy untouched, and if losing comms was as bad as things were bound to get, Rook would take the silence over blaster fire and missing limbs. He did hope the medic wasn't taking it too hard; bad enough to lose one signal on the spot, worse to have two go out.

As the Aero took in the lot, he slowly cruised along the parking rows. Some part of him wished he could cross-check parking numbers with whatever registry the complex had; problem being one, he had no idea if the place kept data or paper records, humans being awfully capricious about it and two, he wouldn't have known where to start looking. On the off chance he could find something, he took down the information for the cars in the garage, just as he had the ones above, and went looking into the local wireless ether to see if he could find a cross-reference with the complex. Or the local police.

There was, of course, the possibility that he was thinking too hard over this whole entire, issue, and he casually looked about for any actual Lancers in the parking lot. Never let it be said Rook couldn't just knock on a locked door and see if someone on the other side would open it.

At least there were no bystanders, should things go slagged. Rook was still well aware he was either in, or inching into, enemy territory; he was sure there were cameras watching him somewhere, the locals were fascinated with keeping visual records of themselves. He wasn't as concerned about that as he was about trying to explain to the higher-ups why a human might end up squished underfoot.

Ratchet had, however, said something fair interesting: line of sight.

The garage, technically, could be as much of a shield as it could be a trap. He slowed down by the elevator door, and opened his comm. He wasn't trying to get a message out, and he had no idea if 'Lancer' was in the garage, or even nearby. But he'd come as far as he could, for the moment, on cruising alone.

If someone was listening, however, it wouldn't do to go shouting for the mech; he just wanted to let him know a fellow mech was cruising by, listening. And possibly get him curious enough to react.

"Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life’s tournament."

Humans had interesting poetry sometimes.

[Deleted]

Happily, there was a site for the apartment complex online that included a registry of parking spaces available in the garage. It was lightly protected, implying perhaps that it was only intended for the residents to look at and interact with.

Unfortunately, all of the cars that Rook had scanned registered as being properly parked in their assigned spots. Not one appeared to be a stranger.

But once again, his luck was not out.

There was a pause over his comm line. Then, a distinct sigh.

"Well, I guess that answers the question of whether you're an Autobot or a Vehicon," said a voice. It sounded tired, but amused and a little relieved. "Somehow I can't picture any of the local Decepticons quoting Great War poetry. Though I don't think I'm ready to join the men of Agincourt just yet. I'm back here. Watch for my lights."

At the far corner of the lot a little red Honda Civic flashed its headlights once.

"Sorry for the radio silence," it said. "Most of the ground-based Vehicons here on Earth have been assigned high-performance, darkly coloured cars as their alternate mode. For a moment there I was starting to worry I'd gotten MECH off my tail only for a 'Con to stumble across me. Speaking of which: is their agent in the Land Rover still parked outside? Big black vehicle, tinted windows, one headlight busted where some complete bastard may have allegedly backed into it while trying to shake the guy at a McDonald's drive-thru, but mostly out of spite?"

[Deleted]

Rook didn't slow down, or otherwise give any physical sign that he'd heard the comm. With the same sedate calm with which he'd been moving so far, he pulled into an empty parking space.

"The people at home'll be glad to hear you're in one piece." Although, to be honest, the Aero rather thought Ratchet might be the kind that expressed his relief by verbally biting your head off. "They were getting worried."

He ran through his data on the vehicles at the back of the complex. He had to go by the conclusion that the big black Land Rover was the same 'Lancer' had had... words with. "Pretty sure I saw them back there. Plenty of time for them to call in reinforcements, too; don't suppose these MECH folk have a standard ride for ID?"

Rook was already running possibilities through his mind. If the Land Rover was standard, it might mean every heavy vehicle back there was an enemy. It might mean the humans were scouring the place on foot. It might mean...

"Busted headlight, hm?" There was amusement in his tone, since the most optimistic possibility was that 'Lancer' had done more damage than he'd thought. Still, always safer to go with the worst case scenario. "Well, you get points for first strike, 'Lancer'. I'm Rook, by the by, and I'm your extraction, so the obvious question is, ready to head home or do you have unfinished business in the area?"

[Deleted]

The Honda Civic heaved another sigh over the comm line.

"Man, am I glad you're here," it said. It seemed to sink a little lower over its tires, as if in relief. "I had hoped that Arcee or Optimus might send out another agent to haul my bumper out of this. I am definitely ready to get out of here. Let me give you an idea of the situation, if that helps with planning our expedition out of here..."

It sat for a moment in silence. One of its windshield wipers tapped the glass lightly, like a mech drumming his finger as he gathered his thoughts.

"I've got two tails that I know of," it said. "That Land Rover and a big black Lincoln town car. I haven't seen that one in a while - I suspect it might be stationed out in the street. These are dedicated surveillance vehicles as well, which means they're equipped with reinforced bumpers, radiators, shocks, controllable head and brake lights - and those are only the modifications that I have been able to visually confirm."

The Civic hummed to himself. "These guys are wheel artists - they know what they're doing, I'll give them that. They've been on my tail since Colorado. They're using the floating-box system. I've only witnessed the FBI use it before this. All phased coverage as well, which basically means I've been passed from one surveillance team to the next as I've headed south, usually within a four minute window. MECH is, from what I've seen, very organized. And very interested in us."

It twitched a side mirror in Rook's direction. When it spoke again over the comm its voice was wry. "I can't confirmed whether they're armed or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are. So far they've been content to follow me south, despite my best efforts to shake them. I have a suspicion they meant to ambush me at some point or another, mostly likely outside of any city limits. I think the only reason they haven't pounced on me here is because this is a habited apartment, with dedicated security in place. I have to admit - I'm exhausted. I haven't recharged in days. So I am really, sincerely glad to see you here. I couldn't fend off a retrorat right now. I think seeing you with me will give them pause. So if you have a plan to get us out of this, I will gladly follow it and assist in any way that I can."

[Deleted]

Once again, Rook was merely silent, taking in the information as 'Lancer' gave it to him, latching onto the salient points and yet keeping it all in mind as he tried to figure out their next move.

Two tails, no surprise. Probably more, if their relays were nearby, or if they expected to move in on their quarry; perfectly possible, since they knew 'Lancer' had gone to ground and not come back out.

Of far more interest was the fact that they knew, to a degree Rook did not like, the kind of prey they were tracking down. He didn't like thinking of humans as a second issue, because numbers, penchant for violence and recklessness alone could easily put these MECH sorts on a par with the 'Cons.

For the moment, he put that concern aside. His situation boiled down to two suspect tails and one fall-down-tired mech. He would not ask 'Lancer' to fight, or do more than drive his front fender into the 'bridge, unless he absolutely had to. The Aero couldn't sink any further into his tires without actually scraping the ground, but some part of him felt tight with stress. He really wasn't used to extracting mechs alive; he usually did a lot of the entire opposite.

Still, again, the situation could be boiled down to simple steps. Find the package - he had. Get out with the package - two obstacles in the way of that. The enemy was just as interested in keeping this low key as Rook, perforce, had to be.

The enemy, however, couldn't pull into any ol' parking spot and go unnoticed. Particularly not so much so if they were armed. 'Lancer' may not be able to confirm that, but if Rook had been going up against something ten times his size and exceedingly more resilient than him, he would have most definitely brought his toys to the party.

He kept his voice even and quiet, even as he went back into the complex' parking logs, and found an empty spot to write himself into. "Here's my thought so far, 'Lancer': we're going to have you towed out of here." Not a hard thing to do, as there were signs on every column warning that anyone taking a spot reserved for the residents would be towed at the owner's risk and expense.

"And since these MECH folk seem so interested in keeping a low profile, that's exactly what we're going to deny them. Vegas odds, as you'd say, are that they are carrying, and last I checked the local finest do not like people with guns more powerful than theirs. So we're also going to call the cops on them, let them know about that suspicious Land Rover with the broken light parked in back, possibly selling weapons to the local unsavory elements. Now, it may be that they're well connected enough, but in between them explaining that, and the cops checking, particularly if they cope an attitude, the tow truck will come in, pick you up, carry you out. That's one tail down. The other will, I imagine, follow behind the truck. Which is fine, because I'll be behind them."

And I can take out all four tires and their spare with one or six sharp bits of something dropped conveniently on their paths, even if they're reinforced. And if they like their tires that much, I can take out an axle.

"Now, I don't know if we're going to have to go all the way to the tow yard - I hope not. I'm hoping we can get your tail... delayed and you off the hook before they have a chance to call in more reinforcements, if they haven't already. But even if we don't, the yard will be a lot more isolated, and it won't have as many witnesses if we want to run the fence down and hit a 'bridge home." Most tow-yards he'd seen had a dinky little fence, though he imagined it'd be different if you were flesh. They also had as few lights as possible and not much in the matter of security, living or remote.

If things went slagged, which they always did anyways, there would be a lot less damage control involved than if he had to start a fight under an apartment building full of smartphone-toting folks.

There was one last thing. "But, if there's anything at all you can think of, anything you know about these MECHs, that make you think the plan so far won't work, now's the time to say something. Otherwise, I'm calling the tow truck, and in five I'm calling the cops."

[Deleted]

The Civic was quiet for a moment, as if it were running Rook's plan through its mind and inspecting it for cracks.

"If there is a flaw, I can't see it," it said. There was an air of thinly restrained glee in its voice. "In fact, I think it's brilliant. Ha! I only wish I could see the look on the faces of those goons when the cops knock on their window. Ha!"

It rocked a little on its tires, clearly pleased. Then it sobered.

"That said, I'm sure there are reinforcements in the area," it said. "There are usually at least three vehicles involved in this system of vehicle surveillance. They can be anything too - cars, motorcycles, moving trucks, eighteen wheelers - anything. But I'm willing to bet that not one of them will intervene once the tow truck is involved. Even if we are stuck going all the way to the tow yard we'll at least be in an isolated area, as you say. Actually, let me confirm that."

The Civic went mute again.

"Yep, just did a search for area towing, and only one seems to operate out of Boulder City locally - that would be Big John's Towing. Established in 1987 and employs a staff of one to four people. Good, that's fewer prying eyes. Good bless you, Big John, whoever you are. Better yet, it appears his yard is well on the northwest outskirts of town, 1635 Foothill Drive. Route 93 is within spitting distance, but not so close as to give us an audience. Phone number is 702-555-4661. I'm ready whenever you are."