Flashback: Crossroads

[velocity]

How could she work with all that racket going on? The femme jumped up from her desk and went down the hall fully intent on letting some poor unfortunate sot have the full brunt of her irritation. Velocity was already very well known for both her quick mind and how little she put up with when it came to her job. Both friendly and outgoing she nonetheless had quite the workaholic streak and took her job very seriously. Stomping down the hall she stopped when she came to the main room, optics scanning over everyone present and assessing the situation very quickly.

There was a miner here, a very large one at that. Vel was an incredibly quick thinker and had it easy when it came to deduction, that and she had seen him before she would bet on it. His frame was massive, he stood out this was true. There were several others trying not to get too close and some very harried looking bots who were trying to deal with the situation at hand. From what she could tell it should be easily taken care of so why was there so much trouble going on? Shouting was becoming the normal tone of speech and she easily made her way to the front to see what was going on. Vel herself was probably one of the taller mechs working here and being a custom job she tended to stand out, which was exactly how her creators had wanted from her.

“Alright! What is going on here? This needs to be resolved as I cannot get any work done in this ruckus.” Her voice, though loud like the others, was calm and calculated and demanded attention. One of her nearby workmates ran up to her and explained the situation. “Wait, so you are telling me that you are all going to sit on your afts while a sparkling needs help? I don't give a fragging bit about what caste the mech in question is from!” Her optics widened and she shove a pointed finger into the bot's chest in front of her. “No I will not keep it down! This is outrageous! If you lowlife idiots had half the sense you think you did we would all be in trouble.” Looking rather disgusted she shoved everyone on her way over to the miner in question.

“Since no one else seems to be able to pull their neural net out of their shiny metal afts perhaps I can help you. I'm sorry they are all daft and stuck in their ways.” Her bright cyan optics lit upon the miner and what was going on right in front of her. She was full of compassion and care but it was very obvious she wasn't going to be taking anymore ignorance from those around her. “I'm Velocity, if that will help. Sometimes knowing how to address another helps a little.” Considering the mess that all of this was she really hoped it would at least do something until she could figure out what else to do.

[Deleted]

Bright blue optics met hers, their coronas burning with frustrated stress and anxious need, before dropping back down to the near-hemorrhaging sparkling lying motionless but for the trembling of his arms as it was clutched to his chassis. There was energon trickling weakly from every crevice of the crimson helm - too much of it, and what had crusted down the short neck and slim chassis was streaked black.

"Mining Unit D-16," the miner supplied on reflex, as was ingrained when addressed by anyone of higher standing (which was, essentially, anyone who wasn't a miner). His helm twitched in the negative, optics narrowing on the lifeless body held tight as if just holding on might save him. "They won't repair him. Not can't - won't."

[velocity]

Horror was plain on her face and in her EMF as she truly looked at the sparkling in his arms. The poor thing needed help and bad, and now! How absurd that they wouldn't help him because of reasons that would never make sense to her. Here was a true test of things. Though she wasn't fully aware of it she had been put here to make her just as 'disgusted' with the lower caste as everyone else in her ranking was or would be. What they didn't know was that Vel was a different type and well they would find out soon enough.

“This is outrageous! Why won't you take care of this?!” She turned sharply and grabbed one of the smaller workers up in both of her hands her optics boring into their own. “I demand that something be done about this!” The poor mech in her hands trembled and looked close to leaking himself but he still stuttered out a reply. 'We... we can't! He is...his caste, were not supposed to.” Vel practically threw the useless bot across the room in her annoyance.

Turning back to the miner she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Well I work here, I will do my best to help you. So help me Primus if they do not...” Her words trailed off and she just shook her head. This hit her harder for many reasons but the biggest was because the sparkling was obviously loved, something she hadn't been. Anyone who was loved deserved to live and be helped, caste be damned!

[Deleted]

D-16 knew better than to trust words of assurance from a High Caste - bait-and-switches or plain mockery were the likely outcome. The miner was few things, and a fool was not one of them. Velocity's field read disconcertingly genuine, however, and the large mech felt a point of hope bloom in the miasma of grief that was crushing his spark.

Before the miner could respond, another mecha appeared and the bulky femme's blade-like forearms and glowering authority quickly silenced much of the commotion in the room. With markings delineating her as a Ward Chief, Cleaver put herself between the red femme and the miner. Her hard optics flickered over the dying sparkling, softening in their glow as her features turned grim.

"Too much for your assigned repair centre?" It was a statement more than a query, delivered with sympathetic finality. It was obvious that the sparkling's damage went far beyond the equipment and skills of the Kaon mining sector's centre, and standard proceedure was to euthanise and then dismantle for parts. That this mech had left with the body and come here, where he knew he would be denied but hoped that the staff would have the spark enough not to murder a sparkling by following protocol brought a tightness to her chassis.

D-16 gave a shakey ex-vent by way of response, anger beginning to give way to shock. "Blunt force trauma," he started, the words coming without inflection as he blankly repeated everything that those who had ordered him to turn over D-16-N05 for scrapping or leave had told him. "Damaged his internal processor casing. Energon got in and flash-burned motor nodes, language modules and sensory centers. Too extensive to repair without a circuit surgeon." And the closest one was here.

Cleaver hummed a short note, her quick sensors having determined as much already. There were two circuit surgeons in the building, and one on personal leave. She knew for a fact that none of them would touch a Tier 3, let alone undergo hours of illegal surgery and risk their licenses on one. Proceedure in these circumstances was to escort the mecha off the premises, with security if necessary, but to attempt that with such a large and powerful mech in distress would be too dangerous. And in the face of what was about to happen, unnecessarily cruel.

"I'm sorry, truly. What is his designation?"

"Courier Unit D16-N05." Then, softly: "Nos."

One hand shifted out of its plane configuration into a highly articulated hand, and Cleaver touched two fingertips to the sparkling's chassis. "He's not long," she uttered softly, nodding towards the closed door of a side room. "You can wait with Nos in there, and leave when you're done. Primus will keep him after that."

[velocity]

Vel could sense the presence of Cleaver simply by the hush that fell over most others in the area. Sure there were some whispers and whatnot but that was normal. It irked her though that she stepped between her and the other but it was momentary and didn't go beyond her own thought process. In this moment Vel felt more than just a little outclassed. She had tried but she wasn't as worldly as the other mecha and so she kept her mouth shut like a good worker but didn't go back to her job. She had already said she would help but they were words spoke in the heat of the moment with little knowledge of what really was going on.

Listening to Cleaver speak made her sad. There was still a lot Vel needed to know and honestly she still thought that they should take care of the poor thing. Caste be damned there was no good reason for this! The thought was now permanently etched into her mind and she vowed she would not be like these...others. She would not lose site of the 'little' people and step over those in a lower caste than herself.

They had a circuit surgeon here, a pretty good one at that. Though Velocity knew that the likelihood of them helping out in this situation was slim to none. The disdain they held for the lower caste was rather sickening. Without that kind of help however the poor sparkling had no hope. The miner would lose him and since it was obvious he cared so much it would leave him scarred and broken in some way. There was so much injustice in this that it hurt, both her spark and her neural net.

She didn't know what to do or say at the moment, overcome with emotion. Her optics lingered on Cleaver a moment then back to the miner, she had moved a little to the side so that she could see them both, along with the sparkling. “If you would like someone to sit with you I can do that.” Her field was sympathetic but there was a fine vein of anger laced in there. She was outraged at this injustice and annoyed that they wouldn't do anything about it.

Looking at Cleaver she spoke in calm even tones but again that anger was still there. “What if someone else vouched for him? Someone who had a good reputation and was higher up, like myself?” She didn't even know this miner but it seemed right to at least try and put herself on the line for him. What he was being put through was torturous.

(OOC: Let me know if this isn't going the way it should. I had a hard time figuring out what to do on my reply for some reason and I'm still a bit eeh. I'm sorry about this.)

[Deleted]

<OOC: Looks fine to me. Little bit more interplay with Megatronus, then it'll be on Velocity and Cleaver, if that's cool? Griping, essentially, and maybe foreshadowing how this little moral atrocity ultimately led to Very Bad Things...>>

Cleaver's features darkened in a frown, a low note of disapproval rising from her chassis.

That ingrained wariness flooded back into D-19's field, his tarnished armor tightening reflexively, but he still met the small femme's optics with small, dared hope and no small amount of confusion. "You would do that?" he asked, sceptical but desperate enough to latch on to the impossible notion.

[velocity]

Ignoring the note from Cleaver probably wasn't a good idea but right now Velocity was going with what felt right and not worrying about behaving.

Peering back at the miner she nodded her head and gave him a small smile. "I would do this for you yes. I said I would help you and I meant it." There was a firm resolve in her voice and she nodded once at him. "Honestly this is just ridiculous and there is no reason in my opinion that it shouldn't be done. So I will do whatever I can."

Speaking so boldly like that in front of Cleaver probably was not a good idea but Velocity was not about to back down, that wasn't one of her strong points. She may be loyal but there wasn't anything here to be loyal to. If she could use her power and position and caste to help him out then she would, if not she would fight about it.

[Deleted]

Cleaver had allowed the situation to go on far longer than she ought to have, but now she was compelled to put a hand atop Velocity's shoulder in a gesture of restraint, even as her optics fixed on the miner. "I'm sorry, Unit, but this isn't possible. You know this. Now please, take him quietly to Primus, and do not further the trauma of his passing. If you do not comply, we will regretfully need to force you."

That brief light of hope burned out in the miner's field, leaving a hard point of coldness that would only widen with bitterness. Submitting to the large femme's authority, D-16 curled a protective hand about the sparkling's helm and retreated to the indicated door. It opened automatically, shut behind him, and then glowed a faint red around its edges to indicate that it was engaged and locked.

Hand tightening on the femme's shoulder, Cleaver turned Velocity a little and met her gaze with tempered sternness. "You're new to working in this Tier, aren't you?"

[velocity]

Velocity's optics focused on the hand on her shoulder and she was obviously unhappy about anything right now. The fact that this wasn't possible was just ridiculous. She didn't give a whit about caste, never had really though everyone around her said she should. Maybe a problem with her neural net because she was created for a purpose and she still ended up defying it by having her own thoughts and feelings about these things. The longer she was here the more she noticed the unnecessary ignorance of those around her.

Turning a little she watched the miner walk away with a heavy spark. That should not have to happen, it just shouldn't. Especially if what happened wasn't his fault. Vel wasn't really known as the bleeding spark type of femme but for some reason this just struck a chord within her.

If she were to be in trouble she didn't care. It was one thing to do her job as well as she did and pretty much ignore everything else, but this was something she was now aware of, completely. “Not as new as you would expect.” She tried to manage for a neutral tone but instead sounded a bit haughty though that was her default tone anyway. Velocity had been working here longer than people thought and was good at staying out of trouble and out of the way, too busy working longer hours than anyone else. Vel was a workaholic and very dedicated...but she was also that way about things that got to her.

“Apparently my optics just happened to open up today.”

[Deleted]

Her hand moving back to her side and automatically transforming back into a flat blade, Cleaver nudged the smaller femme with her field to coax her into leaving the lobby. On the other side of the thick doors that split the public face of the center from where the real work took place, she found them strangely alone in the busy nexus.

Taking the solitude as a sign, Cleaver motioned for Velocity to stop before she could disappear into a life and back into her workload. "Everyone here has this moment - it's natural and hard, and the difficulty of it is natural too. We know coming in here that the low caste have lower repair rates and much higher extinguish statistics. It's practical: they do the hard, dangerous jobs that kill or maim a lot of workers, and the ones that need repairs need the parts of those that have died. There just aren't the credits down here to support them, otherwise."

Pale blue optics flickered downwards for a moment before finding the sought-for-resolve, and there was no apology in Cleaver's features when she met Velocity's gaze once more. "It's cruel but it's the way it is, and the way it has to go on being. If the balance of death and life were upset, the fallout would be catastrophic, and we're here to save lives, not nurture hopes that could lead to an uprising."

[velocity]

She didn't protest when Cleaver nudged her as there was no reason to now. Moving with a purpose she still gave off nothing but dissatisfaction and irritation even if her mouth was shut and she said no words to anyone. Once they were alone, which was really odd in and of itself Vel faced the other femme with an even look and let the other speak. One of her biggest virtues was patience, she seemed to have a nearly never ending well of it. Her temper as well seemed very deep down, it was often hard to reach it. Oh, she could get easily irritated but that was a far cry from the real anger she could harbor.

All she did was nod to the other ones words. Of course she knew all this already, had been debriefed on it before she even started this job. She was a hard worker, that was her thing, and she normally noticed nothing around her when she was involved in a job. However sometimes that was not the case and this was one of them. “So, because some were sparked in a lower caste their lives mean little to nothing. Yes, that makes perfect sense.” No it didn't and she doubted it ever would but arguing with Cleaver was going to be a waste of both their times.

A small smile graced her features then, at the mention of a fall out. Her field was oddly neutral with no pulse of any emotion whatsoever. Waiting until the larger mecha was done she took a single step back, fixed the other with her optics and spoke calmly and evenly.

“Maybe an uprising is just what needs to happen.” She pulled her data pad out and tapped a few things on the screen. “Is there anything else you need? My workload is piling up and no one else could handle this as effectively.”

[Deleted]

"Of course not - you're very effective at what you do," Cleaver remarked, withdrawing back to her profession herself. "I suggest you stick to it, and don't trouble yourself with hard realities that you cannont change." With a curt glyph of parting, the large femme moved away and down the corridor to return to her Ward.

[velocity]

She was always effective at what she did and she considered it just fact. If she cared enough to actually do it than it deserved to be done as perfectly as possible. "Yes of course. I should just focus on my job. That is after all my primary function." Velocity gave away nothing as to how she was really feeling or thinking. She might as well have just been a wall right then.

Watching Cleaver walk off though and she changed. Her posture relaxed just slightly and her optics narrowed. "This will not be the last thing I have my hands in. I will speak with him again, something needs to happen." Though her words were for herself they were out loud because they held so much emotion in them that she could not keep them contained.

Velocity was opening up something and didn't even fully understand what was going on. More feeling than thinking which was not normal for her.