Ep. 1 - "Need a hand?" - (Closed)

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Human technology was frustratingly primitive. Granted, Red Alert had come across various other alien species which were vastly less advanced in comparison, but he never had to rely on their limited technology before. Especially not for something as important as making sure he had the proper tools for doing his job.

So, to find himself in such a situation, Red Alert was, in a word, frustrated. In a long series of words, he was vexed on an almost personal level by now inefficient and frankly simplistic the surveillance cameras at his disposal were. Even the best the humans had to offer, their so called ‘top of the line’ models, were pitifully basic in design and lacking in overall quality (something which he found himself muttering repeatedly as he looked through list after list of disappointingly sub-par specs.) A few times he even had to pause and wonder how such a pitiful device could possibly be classified as a serviceable camera, before crossing it off his list and muttering a few choice words which oughtn't be repeated in polite company.

There was, at the very least, one perk to working with primitive technology: it was easy to reverse-engineer and improve. After dissecting a few of the blasted little cameras, and taking note of what did what and how, the task of upgrading them to acceptable standards was a fairly easy (albeit repetitive) one. The “difficult” part would be actually installing the the things, and even then the difficulty was due primarily to the sheer number of cameras (about three utility carts full) which needed to be placed in hard-to-reach places. The job would be more time-consuming than difficult, honestly, but Red Alert was dead-set upon finishing the installations in a timely manner, so he could move onto his next project before the day’s end. He wanted to look into extending the range of the proximity sensors around the outside of the base, perhaps add a few motion-detectors on the dirt-path leading to the front entrance, and of course he had to wire in a few more alarms and look into the installation of reinforced blast-shields for the doorways in the event of a lockdown---

He mused upon these ideas, jotting down a few key notes and reminders on a dataslate as he gathered his equipment and loaded it upon a utility cart (putting cameras on one side, tools for their installation on the other, with a few duplicates of each tool just in case something broke while he was working with it.) He paused briefly to examine the cart, checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to include anything, before nodding to himself in affirmation and setting about taking the cameras to their first destination. As he tugged the cart behind him with one hand, he used the other to scroll through the entries on his dataslate, so that he could spend the few kliks of travel-time being productive. (Because Primus forbid he not be actively doing something for three minutes.)

[Deleted]

The sound of somemech walking below made a certain orange minicon pause.

Setting the wire brush aside, she cocked her head; listening intently. Having been on base for a couple of weeks now, she felt she’d more or less matched the sound of footfalls to the mech who’d created them. Now had come the true test of her abilities.

…Which that blasted cart was making it a lot harder than it needed to be. Electrocap left the cleaning kit behind her (such a loss) as she stalked the source of the noise, her own steps light in the ventilation shaft above. The grinding rumble of the wheels and the squeak of the cart suggested that whatever was being transported was pretty damn heavy. And from what she could make out, the underlying gait of the mystery mech was short and brisk – a smaller frame, most likely, and in a very big, officious-sounding hurry.

Aha! It could only be one. Possibly two, but Dusk tended to hang out in the medbay, which meant that left…

Being obscenely careful to keep her steps as light as she could, Electrocap sped up to reach the nearest vent cover before the other mech. There wasn’t meant to be a single creature in all of creation who could sneak up on the Autobot’s Chief of Security and surprise him.

That was, until the universe had transpired to gift her this very moment. And she wasn't about to let everyone down.

The vent cover was flung open, and an orange frame followed right after. Her lower legs mag-clamped to the shaft, Electrocap dangled upside-down - arms crossed, and an optical ridge raised.

“Hey!” She grinned, radiating nothing less than pure mischief. “Whadduuuup?”

[Deleted]

Electrocap may have kept her movements as light as she could, but unfortunately for her, there was a very good reason why Red Alert had a reputation for being impossible to sneak up on. If he could hear a microchip drop from nearly a mile and a half away, he could most assuredly hear the pitter-patter of tiny movements in the ceiling above him. Even distracted as he was, Red Alert was keenly aware of his immediate surroundings. There was scarcely a time he wasn’t, honestly. He had long ago mastered the fine art of multitasking, so keeping an optic on whatever he was doing while simultaneously keeping an audio on the rest of the world wasn’t a terribly difficult task for him.

Hell, if anything, it was a habit for him. One which he probably couldn’t break himself of, not after it had been ingrained for so long, and reinforced so often. Being in a constant state of awareness had saved his life more times than he could remember, and prevented more break-ins, near-assassinations, and disastrous fuel leaks than he cared to count. (It also made it a bit difficult to recharge at times, by virtue of his systems refusing to power down while his sensors were on high-alert, but that was an acceptable drawback as far as he was concerned) That being said, on the long list of things his audios have alerted him to, the presence of a mischievous minibot crawling about in the ceiling was rather low on the danger-scale. So low in fact that after taking a moment to tilt his helm and confirm that, yes, that was indeed the sound of Electrocap’s sparkpulse, he did not even bother to stop walking and question what was going on. He had more important things to do then question the proclivities of a femme who decided to occupy her time in ventilation ducts.

...And pop out of them on a whim, without warning, apparently. Not that he had needed the warning, but still. He had to stop short to keep from accidentally headbutting her as she dangled from the ceiling, and on the off chance he hadn’t been aware of her presence, he would have been rather off-put by being head-checked out of the blue. As it was, he simply paused a foot or so in front of her, slowly lifted his gaze from his dataslate, then favored her with a questioning look. The frag did “Whadduuuup” mean? Was that even a word?

“...Excuse me, what?” He asked, before glancing back down at his dataslate without waiting for a response. He didn’t need to make optic-contact to hear her response, after all, and he had already proven just by noticing her presence that he had excellent hearing even while paying mind to something else.

Sure, it probably wasn’t a very polite thing to do, but then, neither was dropping out of the ceiling in an attempt to startle a (supposedly) unsuspecting person.

[Deleted]

Behind that slag-eating grin, she hid her disappointment well. Damnit! Not even so much as a twitch. This guy was REALLY good.

But though she may have lost the battle, this war was hardly over.

Any plans Electrocap may have been concocting for a counterstrike were belied by the idle way in which she began to swing back and forth. “‘Whaddup?’ It’s an amalgamation of ‘What’s up’ – y’know, the English phrase for asking things like how someone’s day is, what they’re doing, stuff like that.”

At the apex of each swing, Electrocap tried to crane her neck to get a better view of the datapad Red was so absorbed in. It was really starting to stretch her linkages in all kinds of uncomfortable ways, and there really were better ways of getting information without transmutating into a giraffe. Her swings began to slow.

“S’cool getting to see you down here. I haven’t really seen you around all that much. You’re kinda like the base Batman, with all your gadgets and gizmos and stuff. Keeping everyone safe while staying in the shadows. The hero the Autobots need, but not the one they deserve.”

By now she was rocking gently back and forth. “What are you doing down in this pokey little section anyway? Anything exciting?”

Her gaze moved past his shoulder. “What’ve you got in the cart? More traps? Lasers? Latest victim of your security net?”

She raised an optical ridge at that. “Do we even have a smelter?”

[Deleted]

The clarification was all he had asked for. That’s it. He just wanted to know what Electrocap had asked him, so he could answer her and be on his way. Instead, before he could even think to brush her off with a curt response, she launched into a long, confusing stream of consciousness that left him wondering if they were still speaking the same language. He found himself so perplexed by the string of nonsense pop culture references that flowed from her vocoder that he actually had to put down his datapad for a moment just to stare at her.

And stare he did, his optics squinting slightly as if he could telepathically inform her that she just babbled gibberish at him if he just looked at her hard enough.

...Did he even want to know what the frag “Batman” was? Would he lose processing threads trying to comprehend the absurdity of it? It sounded absurd. He was fairly certain he didn’t want to know. He was even more certain he didn’t want to waste time looking it up. He had things he would much rather be doing, like getting back on task before Electrocap distracted him further with her nonsense words until he slowly descended into madness.

Realizing his processor had melted out of his audio a bit under her onslaught of questions, Red Alert shook his head to clear it, before answering her last inquiry. If she actually wanted answers for the others, he reasoned, she would have paused long enough for him to answer.

“If we did, and you had good a reason to have access to it, you would already have the answer to that question.”

Well, that sure was a helpful non-answer.

[Deleted]

Electrocap’s head tilted. Hmm. Would she really? Given some erroneous interpretations of her bubbly personality, some mechs preferred not to let her near anything breakable, valuable or smeltable at all. Primus, the way they carried on about the trolley incident at Altihex, you’d think she was the Unmaker herself.

Oh, the curse of not being boring.

“Nahh. I’d like to think so, but you know the way some mechs jealously guard their smelting pits.” She raised a deliberate optical arch. Yes, you do. I know you’re hiding something.

A klik later, and her expression brightened. “But seriously, do you have a whole bunch of traps back there? Because that would be totally SWEET. I love new toys, and your stuff’s meant to be pretty good.”

Red Alert’s ‘stuff’ was, in fact, meant to make the best of the best on the market look like cheap imitation rip-offs put together with cans and string. For a minicon whose main function lay in infiltration and sabotage, the thought of prising those babies open to see what made them tick – or having the opportunity to test them out in the field – was making her field vibrate with yes/please! and do/want! before she’d even posed the question.

“What are you doing down here anyways? Anything you need a hand with?”

[Deleted]

Unphased by both Electrocap’s brow arch and her words (in the implicit nature thereof), Red Alert continued to stare at the little femme with unblinking, slightly incredulous stare. That is, until her expression brightened (which was NOT a good sign) and she inquired about his cameras, at which point he straightened, standing at his full height, and narrowed his optics just the slightest bit. Who would have thought a safety-oriented mech would get defensive of his tools and narrow his optics at the thought of someone else poking at them? Truly, this was a completely unexpected reaction that no one possibly could have foresaw.

“Working.” He replied, flatly. “Or at least I was.” He added with just a touch of annoyance, as he graced Electrocap with a pointed look.

Truth be told, Electrocap had not inconvenienced him nearly as much as he let on. He was simply quick to aggravate, and had very little tolerance for things that distracted him from his work. He was very much aware of this, hence why he at least made the effort to refrain from sniping that his tools were sophisticated pieces of equipment, not “toys.” He had, admittedly, felt a faint surge of indignation at the idea of his cameras being referred to in such a manner, but he realized Electrocap meant no harm by it--in fact, she seemed impressed with them. Which was both refreshing and mildly concerning (which wasn’t saying much, since he considered most things to be mildly concerning.) On one hand, she seemed to have an appreciation for the technology. On the other, there was a chance that appreciation translated to seeing his cameras as playthings to pull apart and poke at.

If it was the latter, then he really couldn’t trust her with his equipment, but if it was the former...well, if he had help he could cut the time needed to install all the cameras in half, and be able to make some headway into another project before the day’s end. Oh, but he didn’t like being forced to chose between his instinct to be cautious and his drive for productivity. The scales were evenly balanced, and choosing one would feel like a betrayal to the other. To make the decision, he had to perform a series of impressive mental gymnastics, weighing pros, cons, and variables, all while staring at Electrocap with a thoughtful, critical expression.

“...That depends. How familiar are you with camera-installation?” He asked, before taking a side-step away from the cart and gesturing towards its contents, so Electrocap could get a better look at them.

He simply couldn’t, in good conscience, finalize his decision until he found out what her credentials were.

[Deleted]

Cameras?

Oh.

For the second time in as many minutes, Electrocap shoved her dissatisfaction in a box behind her winning smile and kicked it aside. This wasn’t circuit-scrambling pads or silicate seepers, but it wasn’t bad either. She clearly needed to work her way up to that level of expertise first. So, cameras it was.

“Veeeery familiar.” She started to swing again from her perch, but much more gently this time.

“To be honest, I’m better at tearing this stuff down, but because of my size class I was sometimes the only one who could get at the best places for camera set-up in a few different bases - and some other security stuff.”

Just adding that nice, easy, casual hook at the end, to smooth the waters in her general direction.

…That didn’t sound quite right. Waters. Currents. Tides? Something about tides? She couldn’t remember that saying for the spark of her.

Whatever. What DID matter was if she managed to impress Red Alert enough with her speedily accurate and fastidious installations, she could be well on her way to gadget paradise. Kingsley always said you needed hard work to get anywhere worthwhile.

Also: impressing Red Alert would be a big kick in and of itself. When it came to security in the Autobot army Red was THE big cheese. In skipping out on the cleaning duties she was still technically (definitely) meant to be finishing, Electrocap was going to go hard or go home.

[Deleted]

If Electrocap wanted to see Red Alert's less... standard security equipment, then she would have loved to have been a resident of his last outpost. Circuit-scrambling pads had been one of the most mild things he had installed in that base. They had a low population but an abundance of resources, and so protecting their small numbers from dropping any lower had been top priority. Needless to say, with a more generous budget, Red Alert had been able to do far more for that base than he had been able to do for most.

From the motion-detecting plasma turrets acting as perimeter sentries, to the doors which electrocuted the absolute hell out of anyone who tried to open them without a card key, that place had been (at least by Red Alert's measure) adequately secure. That was the only reason he felt comfortable leaving it, honestly. After ha quarter of an orn passed and their outpost had remained structurally sound and free from (surviving) intruders, he felt confident enough that it would hold its own if he was no longer around to supervise.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do nearly as much for his current outpost. Their resources were limited, their energon supplies were low, and the human technology he had to work with was frustratingly primitive. (Honestly, how had these creatures managed space-travel if they couldn't even design a simple motion-sensitive hover-cam?) Electrocap would simply have to make due with cameras until he could cannibalize parts from a few other human devices and jury-rig something more relevant to her interests.

“Other as in...what, exactly?” He repeated with a raise of his brow. He shook his head before she could answer, dismissing his own question as unimportant. Whatever it was she could do, he could find out by watching her work. He did not need nor want to hear another simple question be given a needlessly complicated answer sprinkled with anecdotes and pop-culture references.

“---Never mind.” He added with a wave of his hand. “If you want to help, fine. Just be careful, and try not to break anything.”

Not that he thought Electrocap might otherwise be careless or reckless and somehow unintentionally damage his equipment if he didn't warn her beforehand, or anything.

[Deleted]

As soon as she opened her mouth to speak, Red Alert hastily retracted any need for an explanation. He didn’t want to hear about her wide and varied experience in camera installation, or the painstaking effort with which the minicon had devoted rotational cycles of her life to carefully rewiring entire security systems down to the last tendril-thin wire. He didn’t even want to hear about that one funny story she’d heard from a frontliner in Kalis, who’d heard it from his last unit’s quartermaster when she’d been stationed in Ankmor, about a scout who’d tried to get back into hir’s shared living quarters after a lover’s spat and the door’s electric deterrent system went bolts up and turned hir into something like one of those petrified kids in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, except extra crispy.

Maybe he was learning.

“Yessir!” She threw Red a crisp salute. “I’ll do better than try, sir. Those cameras won’t know what hit them. Gently. More like a lover’s tap.”

Electrocap looked over to the cart, then back at him.

“So: d’you want me to stay up here, or come on down?”



((OOC: Sorry it was such a long wait for such a short post :S))

[Deleted]

...Well, she was enthusiastic, Red Alert had to give Electrocap that much. Whether that enthusiasm would translate well to the task at hand and prove to actually be useful was yet to be seen, however, and Red Alert wasn’t wasn’t going to get his hopes up. It wasn’t so much that he doubted Electrocap’s skills, so much as he just generally held low expectations and had a personal belief that Murphey’s Law applied itself more strongly to situations that were expected to go off without a hitch. He realized that was a pretty superstitious way of thinking, but he had seen enough supposedly surefire plans go wrong to believe it had some statistical merit.

“I don’t particularly care either way, so whichever you prefer.”

If Electrocap decided to stay on the ceiling, she’d save herself the trip back up there when they reached the installation point for the first camera. If she came down, she’d be able to walk on the floor instead of crawling through the cramped vents, breathing in the dust and stale air and clogging her vents. It was really up to her, but Red Alert knew which option he’d chose if he was in her place. He would happily leave vent-crawling to minis and spec-opsers. His olfactory sensors would thank him for not subjugating them to the scent of stagnant air unnecessarily.




((OOC: No worries! It's not a problem at all~! ))