Ep 0 - "Quarantine" - Serotype's Lab - Thurs PM
Dec 18, 2011 13:52:10 GMT -5
Post by steele on Dec 18, 2011 13:52:10 GMT -5
This morning had been nothing but a mess for the virologist. Starscream’s unwelcome visit during her flight did not help the matter at all and in fact, made things worse. It was only until Fairwinds dropped in did she get any relief from the jet’s antics. Even with her help, Serotype still felt run down.
She returned to her lab and then what? Keep working? She could continue on her project in her current state but it didn’t guarantee her work would be clean and precise. With her line of work, absolute precision was a must. It was a risk that she didn’t wish to take. She took a seat and watched her Life Unit. She had since deactivated him for repairs and to flush the system. She was going to have to test cures. But it could wait even just for a moment.
Serotype sat there in thought. She just needed one moment to herself. One moment to clear her mind.
Long, carbon colored claws flicked lightly against the door frame. Their touch was followed by a glimpse of two narrow optics, which glistened with Sniper’s usual, cold and emotionless expression. Yet in his very composed EM field, there was a subtle trace of curiosity - which was accompanied by something ominous the spy carried with him during all times.
The virologist was in her lab again. She hadn’t been there this morning, when Sniper had first passed by, but as a spy, he had made it his business to find out when she would be back. He had no official business with her - the paths of a virologist and a spy would cross on a very rare occasion, and should such occasion present itself, spy would most likely be the only one to know of it. Much like in this case: Serotype might know of him, but Sniper knew more of her. And that was what had engaged his visit - the will to learn even more, if possible.
The spy’s silhouette slit into the door frame.
“I see you are back from you morning flight, doctor-,” he spoke with a calm, emotionless note, pausing for a moment: “-or whatever title you prefer.” No rudeness, no politeness.
Serotype looked up from her seat and stood up to meet the lime green mech. She had seen him around a few times but never really interacted with him. Of course, she really had to do something about these unexpected drop-ins. This was a lab; NOT a medbay where someone could just waltz in uninvited. But if this mech needed help, she might as well help him. She wasn’t one to turn someone away usually and for all she knew, this could have been an ally of Fairwinds.
“You may call me Doctor, but I usually go by the designation Serotype. What brings you to my lab?” said Serotype politely.
In the background, she was mentally going through databases to get a designation and directive for the bright green bot.
Sniper stood in the doorway, his lanky form framed by the purple tinted light that crept in from the corridors. The crimson red of his vicious optics was intensified by the back lighting, as his gaze drilled into the femme. She seemed surprisingly welcoming - for a Decepticon at least. Sniper made a note of this in his open research folder that had to do with Serotype.
And the said research folder was, in fact, the very reason why Sniper had decided to pay a visit to the laboratory. Despite the Seeker’s attempts to pester this particular femme for allegiance, information and whatnot, Sniper didn’t trust the effectiveness of his efforts. He took one step into the laboratory without moving his gaze from the Doctor.
“Information gathering, Doctor,” he said, his voice stable and calm - even if it carried some vicious undertones. He begun to scan the air to find Serotype’s private frequency. Soundwave was everywhere.
It didn’t take her long to find his designation and directive - designation: Sniper; directive: spy. There was only one of two mechs on the Nemesis who would be interested in sending in a spy to watch her - Megatron and Starscream. Although, Megatron already had two very proficient spies in Fairwinds and Soundwave. Starscream didn’t really appear to have anyone except... for the possibility it was the mech standing in front of her right now. She didn’t rule that one out.
Serotype could feel that *someone* was attempting to look for her frequency. It was like a gentle poke. It was clear that the mech across from her wanted something. She privately opened up the frequency to him keeping a tight band of security on it.
::What is it do you wish to ask me?:: asked Serotype.
If she was going to be speaking to a spy, it was perhaps a good idea to keep at least outloud while she was speaking over a private comm to avoid suspicion.
“Information? I seem to be getting that a lot these days. I assume you are asking about what exactly goes on in here, correct?” said Serotype.
Sniper’s optics narrowed slightly. He kept scanning the femme’s figure with an expressionless gaze. He had learned, even before the femme had been brought on the ship, that she had been injured upon the Tangent’s crash to the glacier. It seemed Knock Out had done a decent job in patching her up as she seemed quite well and attached - on physical level, at least. And upon this thought, his gaze sapped back to that of hers.
::There is no specific thing, per say. Not yet:: he transmitted on the same sulky note he had just spoken with. ::But maybe we’ll get to specific subjects once you’ll start to fill the blanks that the Autobot files on you have,:: this was followed by a little stir, a tug that occurred near the corner of his mouth - as though he was about to grin. However, no such expression became reality, as the spy begun to move deeper into the laboratory. Yet, he was being careful - he always was.
“Information is power, Doctor,” Sniper said eventually, his voice carrying more intense tones now. There was a glimpse of greed in the way the light of his optics would flicker. “The one who wields the most, sets the rules. And considering how this ship is ran, I am not surprised Decepticons come and seek it from you,” he continued, shifting his gaze towards bottles and instruments that were sitting on the tables. “For you might hold the kind that might be used to gain advantages in this war.”
The private frequency clicked with his purr:
::Don’t you, Doctor?::
Serotype was now able to confirm that Sniper was Starscream’s ally. The information was starting to match up.
::I am uncertain of what you are inferring but I do not have much in the ways of data on the Autobots. I was simply imprisoned by them,:: said Serotype.
Out loud, however, was another story.
“I do not disillusion myself here. I am a pawn in this grand game. Granted, what I do work on can be considered powerful if wielded properly. However, it can be wielded improperly as well, causing great disaster,” said Serotype.
The pattern of Sniper’s steps neared the femme. He passed her, his optics burning red and mysterious as they laid a gaze on her. After the said gaze had marked the Femme, it moved towards the Doctor’s desk, like the rest of the spy did. He placed lazy glances over the clean, well organized equipment. He did, however, feel a remote cringe in his spark chamber when the femme would speak of properly wielded information. Disasters caused by information. He knew of those, but preferred not to think about them. He pushed the encrypted memory files back to the darkest corner of his mind and let his shoulders relax again.
“How right you are, Doctor,” he said, calm and collected, quickly drifting away from the uncomfortable matter. “But while you might not be a player, you might be a valuable piece nonetheless,” he added on the same note, without removing his gaze from the Doctor’s equipment.
::So where does your allegiance lie in this game?:: A red optic would glide it’s stinging gaze over a green shoulder when this message hit the sealed frequency. ::For I have certain files from the Tangent’s system that leave me to wonder about such things.::
Serotype watched as Sniper walked passed her to her desk. She walked a few steps to see what he was going to do. Having him *that* close to her work made her feel uneasy.
“I am aware of my role here. To my commanding officers, I am a tool to winning this war,” said Serotype.
That was about when Sniper had added something more on her private frequency. It was like a cold arctic chill had entered the room and curled around her spark. He appeared to know her secrets. She kept her expression neutral as this relevation was made. Though, it could have been a really good bluff. She had no way of actually knowing unless she tested this. A dangerous experiment.
::My loyalty is to my Lord and the Decepticons. Anything you may have heard was simply strategy,:: said Serotype.
She raised an eyebrow at Sniper as he was looking things over. She didn’t like the idea of that spy being there.
“What are you doing?” asked Serotype.
It came across as more of a command than an actual question. This was in fact, *her* lab and it was here where she had the most control. It was one thing to have a commanding officer here. But this was a spy. Starscream’s spy. She was sure of it now. More importantly, she was sure that Sniper was the one who provided Starscream with this information in the first place. In other words, Sniper represented a risk to her and one that threatened her status on board this ship. He could, quite conceivably undo everything she managed to accomplish and bring it crashing down on her head.
The gears in Serotype’s mind were starting to turn. She had to put a stop to this spy. It became a much larger question of how.
“That you are,” Sniper countered coldly. ”But I do question to whose advantage you have been and are being played,” he continued - the long claws stirring by his side as he spoke of such matters. Are you watching Soundwave? You go and report this to your Lord and Master.
::Strategy:: he repeated on the same note as before, his transmission holding only a little emotion. One couldn’t say weather or not he was convinced by the femme’s explanation. Not until- ::While it is not uncommon for Decepticons to double cross each other, after what happened to you before your capture, I find it hard to believe it was simply a strategy.:: His optics studied the scientific gadgets lazily, filing away research data as quickly and as efficiently as possible, given the circumstance. Then their gaze flicked back towards the femme. Yet, his face did not turn.
“I am simply following my directive, Doctor,” he answered rather calmly, his voice cold and emotionless. His sight glided to a set of small glass vials that sat on the edge of the desk - all holding a liquid of different color. His claws flicked idly on the vials, hearing the glass clink against the sharp metal of his servos. He didn’t pick any of the vials up, not before determing if any of them were worth anything.
Serotype scowled slightly at what Sniper was saying both publicly and privately. He seemed absolutely DETERMINED to get her in to some sort of trouble. She wasn’t going to have any of that. She was determined to survive and she wasn’t going to let this spy take her down!
“If you are implying that since I hold a fair bit of power based upon my work that I would simply decide to hold Lord Megatron and his ship hostage for my own self service, you are gravely mistaken! I know what my place is here and I know well enough not to step beyond that! I will not nor will I ever stab him in the back! I believe I had made that perfectly clear prior to this!” said Serotype, “You are *no longer* authorized to be here!”
She grew annoyed with Sniper. In fact, she was tired of Starscream’s prying and this whole plot he had going on as well as him attempting to drag her in it. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that this whole thing was a dangerous game that if she failed, she was most certainly dead. The stresses of everything coupled with her own sense of burn out was eventually bearing down on her and she felt herself about to snap.
::And I very well *know* that you are operating for Commander Starscream. I shall give him some credit for sending one of his...minions to attempt to sway me. Mark me, Sniper, should you even dare to use such methods in an effort to undo me, I will not hesitate to take you with me!:: Serotype snapped, ::I am not nearly so foolish to get between the affairs of Starscream versus Lord Megatron as that would be an act of sheer suicidal stupidity!::
The key difference between Sniper and Serotype was, like she had just snapped, that while she wasn’t prepared to cross lines. As risky as it was, Sniper had already done that. his red optics widened to tense, red orbs as their gaze shifted towards the Doctor. Her cool was gone of a moment, causing the spy to connect certain dots in the pattern that had fallen under his suspicions. The reaction, even while very negative, was to Sniper’s liking - it could be percieved as a a flag waving go to his theories about the femme.
No amusement was, however, present in his EM field or on his sulky faceplate. And the remote one that was felt beneath his chest plating would vanish soon, as he was called a minion of Starscream’s. Sure, the two had many mutual … understandings that would place their affiliation underneath a shadow of suspicion. But even then, Sniper disliked the Seeker enough to hate being called his minion - or any kind of servant at that. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that while Sniper was pursuing ambitions of his own, he was also doing Starscream’s bidding. The spy bit his dental plates together in irritation.
“I am more concerned about possible information leaks than I am of Megatron’s well being, Doctor,” he snarled right back to the femme, covering his private transmission from possible eavesdroppers. ::You are flattering yourself if greatly you think you know anything about my affairs,:: he transmitted on a very cold note, sounding somewhat threatening. His optic was peeking from behind a green shoulder - burning with silent rage.
‘I will not hesitate to take you down with me’. A grimace tugged the corner of the spy’s mouth as he heard this. He turned around before the desk, facing the femme. ::If you are attempting to threaten me, I can assure you, I have taken down far more significant-,:: his transmission came to a sudden halt as he felt his crouched posture straightening as much as physically possible for him. Clink? Like glass against the floor tiles.
‘Taken down’ was such an unfortunate choice of words at the moment.
Serotype was about to say something more to Sniper and his insinuations but she froze entirely when a glass canister was brushed off her desk and had hit the floor; the breaking of the glass was all that it took for the next flurry of motion. The lab had been turned in to a biological hazard.
“GLITCHWIT!” She shouted at him.
She spun around and glanced at her monitors as a cloud of blue smoke hit the air.
“INITITATE EMERGANCY LOCKDOWN PROCEEDURES!” Serotype shouted.
The lab’s security was activated and all the doors leading in to the lab were sealed shut with the loud clicking of the locks and the hiss of sealed vents. Alarms briefly sounded warning others near by of the drama that was taking place. Serotype’s mind was already racing.
She was now sealed in with the mech who had been causing her trouble and she couldn’t help but to glare at him. She quickly pointed at an open diagnostic table.
“Diagnostic table. NOW,” and when Sniper wasn’t moving fast enough to her liking, “STAT!”
She couldn’t believe this was happening. She really just couldn’t believe it. Her lab was in quarantine and now one of Starscream’s spies was trapped inside with her.
This was something very unusual for Sniper - both being clumsy and unaware of his surrounding, and being trapped into such a tiny, foreign space. But he didn’t have time to worry about that, as he felt his spark chamber running cold the very minute he realized what had happened. Sure, he was not familiar with the Doctor’s experiments but being very well informed about her in general, Sniper knew she was good at her job. Something lethal was lingering in the air, and Sniper had just done the Autobots a favor and inhaled it. How could this-
His petrified gaze darted back to the femme, who seemed as though she had grown significant amount of height since he had last given her a look. Mainly, this was a result of the obvious fury that danced about her faceplate. Sniper felt his posture crouching even more so than usual, yet his expression - or the little there was - was only shocked, petrified, and even a tiny bit scared. Sniper’s mouth cracked open, as though he was about to say something - yet no words occurred to him before the femme’s ‘STAT’ sent a startle to his petrified protoform. He tried to give the femme an offended grimace, but apparently, he too could feel shame. It was written all over his face when he stumbled to the diagnostic table.
Wasn’t this mission going so very, very well.
Serotype could see it. It was a very familiar expression and feeling on Sniper’s faceplate and in his EM field. One she knew all too well five years earlier. It would be all too easy for her to make an exchange - his safety for her’s. But this was far too close to home for her. She couldn’t really do it to Sniper. Not without seeing herself in his place.
On her walk over to the diagnostics table, she picked up an empty container. She thrust it in to Sniper’s hands.
“If you feel the need to void your tanks, use that. It is preferable,” said Serotype.
She grabbed up some tools from a nearby table and looked back at him.
“I need you to tell me how exactly you are feeling. Since I’m not too sure what you dropped, we have to wait for the symptoms to manifest themselves before I can do anything,” said Serotype.
After he had uncomfortably settled his form on the table, Sniper’s gaze darted back to femme - and his narrow optics grew wide, lighting up with crimson hued panic. He was still good at keeping his emotions at bay - which might have also told something about the actual extent of his his fear. Sniper had no idea what was going on. So, imagine his confusion and the subsequent shock, when Serotype threw him an empty container. The long claws nearly dropped the thing at first
“I am supposed to do what?” he exhaled, his gaze freezing to the object he was holding. He had heard the femme quite loud and clear, but the moment was just … he couldn’t believe this was actually happening. For a moment, he just let it sink in, his long claws digging into the canister in shock. Before the Doctor gained another shocked gaze from him, that was. “...we have to WAIT?” Sniper was known for his composed and cool way of acting, so Serotype was getting to see a very unusual side of him - weather she cared to or not. His optics kept shifting their gaze from one point to another on the femme, as though he was looking for signs of bluff.
But with a sudden nausea cringing within his system, Sniper quickly saw that the femme couldn’t be further away from bluffing. His gaze became a bit disoriented at first, turning to linger on the canister his servos were holding. And then, he cleared his throat a couple of times. Something was … off. And soon, he could tell what it was, when all of his rations shot into the canister. All of them.
And the only thoughts that kept occurring to the spy were different ideas on how to strangle a Seeker.
She remained calm on the surface despite the whirl of emotions lurking below the surface. Sniper looked outright scared and he had good reason to be. Serotype could remember the same fear she had back when Wisp betrayed her. It was very much like seeing herself on that day. She gently placed her hand on Sniper’s shoulder and waited for him to be done.
“You need to lie down. You will feel better if you do that,” said Serotype.
The worst thing that she could think of doing right now was to do something that would cause the spy to go in to an all out panic. Therefore, she avoided telling him about the possibility he may be infected with Mark III. As she very well knew, that was the worst of the worst case scenarios and she has seen what happens when the infected go in to a panic. There were times where she had watched Autobot POWs attempt to tear their spark out just to have the pain and fear over with. Serotype wasn’t going to allow that to happen to Sniper. Which seemed like an odd thought considering that moments earlier, she was angry enough to start considering drawing one of her blades. Now, even she was worried.
“You will recover. You need not be concerned. You are in safe hands,” said Serotype calmly.
This was important - keeping the patient calm or as calm as she could keep him while they waited.
Sniper’s vocalizer gave out s broken moan - both out of nausea and surprise of how quickly the femme’s virus was beginning to do its job in his system. His torso twitched uncontrollably , as though his body was about to reject some more of his former meals. But apparently, there was none - only some spasms before he stirred beneath the femme’s touch. He placed the laid away the canister with shaky servos. His optics, which were a couple of shocked crimson voids at the time, would swift their sight towards her. She had calmed down quite quickly and significantly - and it also gave the spy an inkling of the seriousness of the situation.
“What...what in the name of Primus are you brewing in this laboratory?” he replied, nausea piercing his voice as he laid his back on the table slowly. His voice carried a bit of spite, but it was very easy to tell it was mostly because he was so darn ashamed. And as he bit his dental plates together and let his gaze drift to the ceiling, the feeling was present on his faceplate as well.
Yet this expression was fractured by a grunt that made him grimace briefly. Sniper wasn’t comfortable - not in the least. He shifted uncomfortably every now and then before he begun to feel a certain kind of heaviness in his lanky limbs. The sensation showed on his disoriented faceplate as a subtle frown.
“Typically what I brew in here is death itself. If one does not die by the shot of a high powered rifle, it will be by one of my creations,” said Serotype.
She let go of Sniper’s shoulder as he laid down on the table. She didn’t directly have access to rations, but she did however, have access to energon transfusions which, as she suspected, might be a way to bypass the nausea. She went over to the nearest corner of the room to get some lines ready. Every so often, she would look up at Sniper ensuring that he wasn’t going to attempt anything drastic. Suicide was a very real threat.
“As I had said earlier, you have to tell me everything that you are feeling right now as they happen. It will help in narrowing down what exactly was dropped on the floor,” said Serotype.
She gave for a verbal pause thing about how she was going to phrase the next question as she knew that given how delicate the situation was, this was far from a delicate question. But it was every bit as important. With the lines in her hands, she was thoughtful for that moment. It was only until she walked back that she spoke up again. Try as she might, she just couldn’t be all that delicate. For that moment, she had to be at least a little blunt.
“I need to ask you a question. It is a matter of importance to me and your well being. Did you taste any mech fluid when you purged?” asked Serotype.
The answer to this question was in fact very important to her. It meant the difference between a most certain undesired fate and a far more pleasant future. She gently picked up Sniper’s arm and started preparing it for the line.
“So it seems,” Sniper grunted, trying not to compliment the femme. Spite still lingered about his voice, yet it was only a shadow of its former self. It seemed that Serotype was good enough to take the snark out of the spy - which made her kind of an expert of her field as it was not an easy thing to achieve.
Sniper blinked as the ceiling begun to grow blurry to his optics. That, combined with the wavering nausea and the growing heaviness of his limbs, didn’t seem all that promising. He felt his spark cringing within his chest - it was dimming quite rapidly, which caused worry to rise in the back of the spy’s mind. Yet, the femme’s following question sprung him back to life momentarily. Sniper raised his head slightly, his optics wide with both shock and embarrassment.
“Did I taste m--NO!” he exhaled, a petrified expression invading his faceplate before he realized the amount of expression he was showing. His head would slowly fall back to place, his optics growing narrower, his expression wearing down with a heavy breath. “I...didn’t,” Sniper replaced his words with calmer ones. He blinked slowly now, his vents drawing breath to cool down the engine that was heating up while trying to expel possible viruses. His optics went disoriented, staring past the femme. “I just..,” he said, pausing while his protoform grew more desperate for cool air. “...I feel kind of...heavy,” his optics widened yet again, but their gaze continued to be disoriented and hazy.
There was almost an audible sigh of releaf from Serotype. It wasn’t Mark III. The signs seemed to point more towards weaponized Cyfluenza if anything. This meant that if at the very least, his chances at survival were higher.
She connected the line to Sniper’s arm.
“That should help to keep some energy in your system. You will need it to help fight off the infection,” said Serotype, “but perhaps in better news, I think I am certain that I know what it is that you have. It’s one of my older projects - weaponized Cyfluenza. It is essentially like its’ wild counterpart only mine is far more faster acting. The most important thing here is rest. You need to keep your energy levels up.”
She withheld the fact that he only had approximately a day and a half to live if left untreated. That would have made everything so much worse. She went over to her desk with care to look for the cure. Every so often, she looked over her shoulders to check if Sniper was still fine or at least fine in the relative sense of the word. Once she located the proper cure, she loaded it up in to the injection pistol.
Serotype walked over to Sniper and picked up his other arm.
“I have the cure. However, it takes a few hours for the cure to take effect since it appears that you weren’t vaccinated before hand. I estimate three hours to take effect plus I would like to keep you here for an hour and a half for observation,” said Serotype.
She injected Sniper with her cure. Focusing on the patient was a good thing. Not only for him but for herself as well. It at least for the moment allowed her to forget that they were under quarantine. The last time she was in a locked down lab, it was far from a pleasant experience.
“So in that period of time, you will feel rather uncomfortable and at times you will feel as though you were dumped in to the smelter itself. But, you will feel better. That at the very least, I can tell you,” said Serotype.
No persistence when the femme connected the line to Sniper - only a subtle tension that turned the long claws into loose sickles.
“Weaponised Cyinfluenza,” the spy repeated, his voice growing very dim. “How very comforting,” he continued with a grunt, his voice lacking every tone aside from the pained one, even if it was attempting a sarcasm of sorts. His condition was growing worse by the minute. The lab kept blurring in his optics - and soon only movement and noise revealed Serotype’s presence in the lab.
Everything Serotype said, Sniper was able to register, but a bit slower than he would have cared to. So, once the injection came, it was a bit of surprise - yet his limbs had grown all to heavy and tired to actually form anything that would have passed as a startle. Only a twitchy grimace would pass his faceplate when the cure hit his system. However, nothing felt different. His expression fell back to a weary one. There was no change until the femme informed him of the upcoming hours and what they had in store for the spy. They lured a lifeless, dark chuckle from his vocalizer - it was more a cough than it was a chuckle, almost. “Well...this...won’t this be delightful,” he breathed, more to himself than anything.
Then he closed his optics for a moment, his system concentrating in trying to give him some sort of a relief by cycling out hot, contaminated air. There was a silence, before Sniper said: “Why would … Why would you do this, Doctor?” his voice was finally empty again. Then there was a weak click in the femme’s private frequency. ::It would be so much easier to just...,:: let me die. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, for it puzzled him far too much. Sniper was from a world were mistakes had high prices - and he himself had discovered just how high they could go. So he grew silent, almost completely so. There was just some uncomfortable shifting.
Serotype was completely off guard when she was asked the question. She was about to pick up her datapad when Sniper spoke. She looked over her shoulder a moment before turning around fully. She tried thinking of the best way to answer that question. She wasn’t even prepared for it. Instead, all she had was a hastily hashed out answer.
She seemed frozen for a few moments before a reply escaped her vocalizer.
“Lord Megatron has forbidden my experimentation on his crew,” said Serotype.
It was a stupid answer and most certainly a lie. She didn’t feel comfortable in admitting the actual reason why she was saving him. It was like reaching back in time and saving herself. but she did allow for a hint as to why in her private frequency after a long pause. She had forgotten she had still left open to the lime green spy.
::Everyone deserves a second chance at some point,:: said Serotype.
She turned back and picked up her datapad and went to write a quick report to send off to Megatron about what was going on.
An empty chuckle occurred - though it was more of a grunt than it was an actual chuckle. The spy let his head tilt to the side, his optics but a set of weary crimson slits. They weren’t focusing on anything particular as everything looked like a heated lump of blur to him at that time - only the femme’s movement, he could tell. There was the weakest of smirks on his faceplate. Yet this time, it wasn’t self-righteous, but a dark, somewhat ironic one.
::Even that-,:: the transmission was cut short as he shifted uncomfortably, letting loose a little grunt that fractured his weak expression. ::-that glitch who betrayed you?:: And by this, Sniper was gesturing towards the assistant who had been mentioned in the files he had stolen from Soundwave. There was a silence that fell in the trail of his private transmission. And with that, Sniper’s faceplate emptied of anything but a slightly pained shadow that lingered on it. His optics fell shut before they cracked open again. Thoughts weren’t occurring too clearly anymore. ::But rest assured, I ran out of second chances a long time ago,:: well, wasn’t this different? Sniper had almost countered the femme’s kindness with something that resembled sadness in a very remote way.
::Not with me, you have,:: Serotype replied.
She looked back at her report that she was writing. She paused a few moments to rub her face. She was, on some level, still tired. Today hadn’t been a particularly good day.
She finished up the last few sentences and sent it off along with a duplicate for Shockwave to look at. It was perhaps a good idea to notify her neighbour even if this was very embarrassing. She put her datapad down for a moment. A moment was all it took for her to look back at the door to her lab.
It was locked. Seal shut. She was sealed in. She just kept staring as a certain chill started to curl around her spark. The room started to seem smaller than before as she focused her vision on that door. Like the walls were closing in. That door. That door was locked. She can’t get out. She can’t escape. Her vents were starting to cycle furiously. She could almost hear fists pounding against the door. Her fists. As she stood there starting at the door. It drew her in. Lured her. She couldn’t look away.
She couldn’t stop looking.
Let me out, Wisp! Please! Let me out......! DON’T LEAVE ME......!
Her memories swirled about her mind like ghosts. She stood there in frozen horror. The walls had closed in. She had lost focus to the room surrounding her. It was just a meaningless blurr. It was just her and the door.
Her and the door.
Locked.
There was a joyless chuckle, or possibly something that fell between a chuckle and a grunt, of the identical nature as before. Sniper’s optics would fall shut again, as though he was battling stasis. It would have been more than likely, if wouldn’t have been feeling lying dying at tat very moment.
::You … you show an awful lot of compassion, Doctor. For a Decepticon at least,:: he transmitted. Yet this time the there was no mockery in the way he spoke - only a sort of bitterness. One might only wonder where that came from. ::It will be your downfall,:: Sniper continued and turned slowly on his side. It seemed he was in search of making himself more comfortable. Yet the results remained lean. While he remained like this, he would be able to see the blur that was Serotype should have been to he open his eyes.
Then there was peculiar silence - Sniper wasn’t sure how long it lasted. And when his optics were to open again, everything was still. Serotype was standing in the very same spot for a disturbingly long period of time, he could tell. Hot air vented out of his whining system, when he held his head up from the table. He had some hazy sense of confusion on his face.
“Doctor?” he tried to call out. Yet, no response. Sniper grunted and hissed as he lifted the weight of his torso on his elbow. Moving brought nausea back with it. His throat gave out a gulp. “...Doctor?” The silence frightened him as his only possible lifeline had grown silent and immobile. Hopefully she hadn’t gotten a share of her own plague. Sniper lifted his feet and let them sweep to the floor, the rest of his body adjusting to a very crocked and weary posture, while his long arm still kept it from collapsing back down.
Sniper’s system kept alarming him of how bad an idea he was executing. He let the warning flash all they wanted and, baring his dental plates, peeled his body off the table. The power had drained out of his system very quickly, it seemed. Silence continued still - it had done so for a disturbingly long time.
“Answer me w-,” the remotely irritated tones of his weary voice were cut short as he came rumbling down from his feet. There was no fainting - his limbs and his head just weren’t co-operating, causing him to fall with a variety of different noises. Well, wasn’t this dignified?
Serotype was still staring at the door. The fear was starting to build. Her vents cycled furiously still. Sniper’s voice was drowned out by the low hum of her internal mechanisms. The door still drew her in. The terrified chill wrapped around her spark and stayed.
The fear stayed.
Until there was the loud sound of someone collapsing to the floor.
Serotype almost jumped. It was enough to break her hyperfocus with the door. She spun around on her pedes to see Sniper had collapsed on the floor.
“Sniper!” she gasped.
Once again, that mental switch was flipped as she moved towards the fallen mech. She glided across the floor and crouched down beside him. She offered her shoulder and her arm to help him up.
“Why did you get up? You are in no shape for that!” said Serotype.
She was still in her senses, Sniper could determined as his further humiliation had snapped the femme out of her daydream. She begun moving again, and soon, her shadow hovered over the spy’s collapsed form. He was in the process of organizing his disoriented limbs when the femme then, surprisingly, offered him her sounder. The weary set of narrow, red optics would dart their gaze upwards, meeting that of Serotype’s. There was confusion in the the way he would look at her. Her lines were blurry to him, like everything around him was, but that wasn’t the reason of his wonder.
His optics shuffled their gaze between the offered help and the femme’s optics - as though Sniper was trying to find signs of possible bluff, or a threat. He had not encountered this kind of behavior since … well, in a very long time. And never, had such behavior emerged from anyone who wore the Decepticon insignia. This trail of thought was visible on him before both his face and his EM field emptied. Weary and somewhat pained notes still remained as even Sniper wasn’t skilled enough to dispel them.
“You-,” he said, a bit cranky, as usual. “You were spacing out,” he continued and took the offered help with a bit visible reservations about it. However, they were quickly shaken, when there was in fact, only help - no bluff or cheat. Peculiar. He lifted himself up from the floor with the femme’s help and glanced at her, optics narrow and somewhat mysterious. “For a moment there I thought you had gotten a taste of your own medicine,” it was not even an idiom at this point.
Serotype helped Sniper back to his feet and back over to the table. He was quite warm to the touch.
“I am still fine. If anything, I’ve been vaccinated against just about everything in this lab therefore I have the built up immunity. I do not have much to worry about in terms of physical health,” said Serotype.
But what about mental health? She was scared of a locked door and that was absolutely pathetic. But given the last time she was in a quarantined room, this was understandable. But why now? She had control here. She could open the door whenever she wanted. She wasn’t sick and dying. But the mech she helped back to the table was most certainly still in trouble.
But still, Sniper was able to break her horrified concentration with the door weither he intended to or not. But she was grateful for the distraction. It got her focusing back on what was important which was dealing with a patient and a crisis. That was going to help her.
Once Sniper was safely back on the table, she went over to a cabnet and pulled out a chilled cold pack that she used to keep certain samples cold. She brought it over to the lime green spy and handed it to him.
“Try that,” said Serotype.
She also went to fix his line. He had tore it when he had fallen to the floor.
“Keep talking. It will help take your mind off things,” said Serotype.
And subsequently, her mind off of things too.
Sniper groaned slightly as the room spun around him. He got up from the floor with Serotype’s help. Thankfully enough, he was soon on the table again, his limbs attempting to relax him into a comfortable enough position. His gaze lingered to the femme as she connected him back to the line that kept him energized. He gave out sigh, which was colored by both nausea and his signature crankiness - though, anyone would be cranky in his position. His optics almost fell shut after he had stayed still for a few minutes, but Serotype required his attention.
There was a cold pack that she handed to the spy. Sniper’s long claws wrapped around the thing and his optics observed it for a brief while, before their weary gaze shifted back to the femme. ‘Keep talking?’ Sniper’s mouth twitched to a very weak smirk, which held a somewhat sarcastic note, even if it was more weary and grim than anything.
“Talk?” he repeated weakly. “You want to talk to a spy?” he managed to sound somewhat amused, perhaps. “Sure...let’s talk.” With this, Sniper placed the cold pack on his chest, a few inches from his core, which was heating up, making his whole system whine in the lack of cool enough air. There was a silence, when the spy just laid still, his optics closed. “As..,” his words came to a sudden halt as he frowned and cleared his throat. “As you are one of the few Autobot prisoners I have had the … ’privilege’ to meet-,” the use of the word ‘privilege’ was a bit questionable. “-you might help me to update my research on how the Decepticon prisoners are treated on that side.” Sniper was always chasing after information - even when he shouldn’t have been.
“Yes. I do wish to speak to a spy. It’s only been close to an hour and it lets me know that you’re still living,” said Serotype.
She fixed the line again and went back over to the table to pick up a long tubular black light. Whenever she worked with a virus that was transmitted by air, she at least had thought of the idea of infusing it with the ability to be seen under black light. She turned around at Sniper’s question fixing him briefly with a raised eyebrow.
“That depends upon how one acts while going in to custody and how one acts in general. If you are violent and aggressive going in, the treatement gets aggressive and if the case is too severe, they tend to use sedation or other means to knock a prisoner out. Sometimes, it’s a hacker who does it. Rumor has it that some of the more recent hackers and spies have been trained in Blaster’s methods making them somewhat of a terrifying adversary,” said Serotype.
She flicked on the black light and started scanning the room with it. Multiple areas lit up in a brilliant fuchsia hue. But it didn’t seem to extend beyond the doorways. This was a good sign to her so far.
“The most important thing any Decepticon can do under the circumstances is to remain calm at all times. They are not brutal with calm prisoners,” said Serotype, “those are simply my observations.”
Quickly for a moment, she passed the black light over Sniper. He lit up like a brilliant fuchsia Christmas tree. She could only surmise that she was covered in the same amount.
“What of you? You make is sound somewhat as if you may have been captured before? I suspect in your line of work, it is a very real threat,” said Serotype in a calm conversational tone.
Slowly, Sniper attempted to file all the information to his research archives, but what the femme told her, held only a little value. Such things had been researched before. Yet, he recorded the femme’s words as a direct audio, so he could dissect it when he wasn’t feeling like dying on the spot. A nauseous sigh departed from the spy’s throat again and he attempted to shift to a more comfortable position, but it was no use, once again.
“I see,” he replied before the femme had the chance to counter question him. His optics cracked open and their blurry focus slowly lingered to her. She appeared to be measuring something. “No..,” he replied with a flat tone, after a moment of of thought. “Not exactly.” Another moment of silence. Fuzzy memory files opened by accident, displaying a glimpse of comrades he had once known - the very ones who had also come to claim him back in the day. The memory file was dispelled quickly. “But the danger of … getting caught is grave one - especially in this line of work, as you said,” he conversed on the same flat note as before. Only his weariness took toll on his words. “And while you, Doctor, are lucky enough to gain access back to the Nemesis ... even after your capture, rest assured-,” there was a grimace. The cure was taking effect, but in didn’t make him more comfortable in the least. Optics opened again with a faint crimson flicker. “-most of the Decepticons are not that lucky.” cold facts, no emotion. “So it never hurts to know what lies beyond, should one somehow end up over there one day.” The red intensified some, and moved to the femme. “For this faction is the kind that let’s you in and out only once.” It couldn’t be said weather or not these words held any alterior meanings.
“Technically speaking, a prisoner has never really left the Decepticons. They’re just universally misplaced for a time. Although, not everyone has the ability to escape or survive,” said Serotype, “as for what awaits us, it depends upon the crime. Though, with everyone committing, what it deemed by the Autobots, warcrimes it is in its’ very nature to merit a severe punishment. I never got to see mine. The Tangent crashed on this planet before I got to see it. I was being transfered to maximum security,” Serotype explained.
She seemed thoughful for a moment as though reflecting on everything that took places so far. There was a question still nagging at her. One she was really just starting to think about. She wasn’t even entirely sure why. It just stuck with her.
“Why do you still call me “Doctor?” It implies that I heal the sick and the injured. I haven’t really healed our own in such a long time and most certainly haven’t healed our test subjects. If one must say anything, Doctor just doesn’t seem like a fitting title to me,” said Serotype.
There was a moment of silence as Sniper processed what the femme had just said. His faceplate was empty of anything but a hazy, feverish veil. His optics remained on her, still, but they seemed somewhat out of focus. When they gained focus, they turned away, falling shut again after gaining a full, blurry visual of the ceiling.
“Be that as it may-,” he begun slowly. “-Lord Megatron may not share the same compassionate line of thinking with you,” he continued, his vents drawing breath greedily. His tone was blank, somewhat cold, even. A frown broke his facade, which was like that as well, at first. His claws stirred, growing stiff for a moment. It seemed he was in some pain at the moment - it even pierced through his voice when he answered the femme’s question.
"If you don't heal the sick, what is it that you are doing now?" Sniper countered with a twitch around the corner of his mouth - indicating that he found the femme’s question somewhat amusing. "If you didn't, it would leave with very little time, I suppose," it was as close to a ‘thank you’ as the spy was ever going to allow himself. He shifted again, very uncomfortably. “Though I feel-,” his voice cracked a bit underneath the agonizing flash that surged through his system. “-I feel like I’m dying more than I feel like I’m healing at the moment.”
“I intend to prove my worth around here. I am well aware of my circumstances and what I must over come,” said Serotype.
The answer from Sniper seemed almost strange to her. She somewhat expect him to say it was just formality or perhaps it was his way of being polite or as polite as Decepticons come. This was different to her. She was about to say something in return when the green spy spoke up. She snapped back in to action as she put down her black light and walked right back to his table.
“That should not be happening. Tell me everything!” said Serotype quickly.
How could Sniper be taking a turn for the worse? She had administered the vaccine about an hour earlier! Unless... he was allergic to it. It happened in a rare percentile of the population. Though, she wasn’t expecting it due largely in part to its’ rarity. This was far from good. She started grabbing cables from some of the monitoring equipment and hooking it up to the green mech.
“Keep talking to me! Tell me the status of your health. Anything. Just as long as you keep talking!” said Serotype.
It soon became a matter of urgency to her. She had to try and stabilize Sniper again. He was far from being out of the woods yet.
Sniper let his optics open for a bit, his faceplate wearing a fain grimace. He wasn’t quite get what the femme was saying at first, but once her movement begun to wear tones of urgency, his processor alerted him to the seriousness of the on going situation. Something was going wrong. Sniper couldn’t really get his mind to wrap around it properly enough to figure out what it was. Upon hearing her ’Tell me everything.’ Sniper attempted to lift his head, but with very lean results.
“Wha-,” he begun with a subtle hint of confusion peeking through his weary voice. “I...I don’t know,” he said. “The cold pack is not helping … of that I’m sure,” he continued, longer breaks occurring between his words now. He skimmed through the warning messages. A strangled groan emerged from his vocalizer. His system roared, demanding cooler air. “Your germ is trying to fry my system.” His legs shifted in a very uncomfortable manner. One could even describe the movement as anxious. “If it melts my paint off , you owe me a new round of Verde Aries 2CT, Doctor,” he said, trying to crack a grin, but failing at it. “It was not an easy to color to come by.” He was heading the femme’s advice to keep talking - and attempting to keep himself from panicking. Instead of a grin, he let loose something that managed to sound like a sigh and a grunt at the same time.
For the first time in all of this, Serotype frowned. She flicked on the support systems to see what was going on. Everything was as she suspected. Sniper did, in fact, have an allergy to the vaccine.
“I’ll get you two rounds if you don’t panic about what I’m going to say next - you have an allergy to the vaccine. It only happens about in 2% of the population meaning that you’re a rare case,” said Serotype, “good news is that there is treatment available. There’s an additive I can use that should reverse the effects.”
She started looking around for the additive.
Sniper let loose a little sarcastic ‘Psah’ when the femme informed him of his unique attribute of being allergic to the vaccine. While he tried to keep his tone at bay, there was a certain amount of anxiety that peeked through the reaction. However, he was growing far too weary to get a visible reaction together. His optics cracked open and he glided his gaze to the femme, who was fussing about the lab. This wasn’t exactly what he had had it mind when he had entered the premises. Starscream would hear about this.
“...this really doesn’t seem to be my day, now does it?” he said, more to himself than anything, with an agonized grimace to accompany the words. He felt his spark cringe with the heat that kept steadily growing beneath it. His legs moved again, squirming a bit. It seemed the passing time was not making him any more comfortable at least.
“Any moment now, Doctor,” he hissed through his dental plates, even if his voice was nothing but a whisper. It seemed that his anxiety about the allergic reaction was growing.
She finally found the proper additive and mixed it in with another batch of vaccine. A quick glance at the monitors revealed that at least Sniper’s vitals were still hanging in there.
Serotype grabbed for the injection pistol and loaded it up with another vial. Her hands and body just acted on their own accord. She didn’t even warn Sniper as she picked up his arm and injected him again. He was very hot to the touch. Serotype would almost say it was slightly painful to pick up his arm. She needed to cool him down quickly and she needed an answer now! The only answer she had was the VTOLs in her feet.
Quickly she got up on to a near by counter and sat down. Angling one of her feet, she powered on her VTOLs blasting Sniper with jets of cool air. She could only keep this up for so long, but perhaps this was a better solution if only a temporary one.
Sniper frowned briefly whilst the injection needle pumped another dose of something into his system. His legs relaxed when she moved away from him, yet his system still drank the surrounding air in thirst. For a moment, Sniper sounded very painful, his breath consisting of very faint whines before he managed to stabilize his system enough to open his optics again. There had been quite some time he had been this worn and vulnerable - at least in such negative manner.
After a while, the wave of scorching heat passed his spark and left his system calmed down so that he was able to relax his faceplate and give out a long, pained sigh. He turned his head slowly, the weary red of his optics directing to the blur that was Serotype. His expression was blank - only tiresome tunes dances about his sleek features. He knit his brow after the Doctor’s shape grew clearer.
“What are you..?” he begun slowly, curiosity behind his weary voice.
When she was sure that Sniper was cooled down enough, she powered down her VTOLs and spun herself off the countertop placing her feet back on the floor. She felt tired as she rubbed her optics. She walked over to Sniper and touched at his helm.
“Better. Definitely better,” said Serotype, “I used the VTOLs in my pedes to cool you down a lot faster. The cold packs were not cutting it. This seemed to be a far more effective solution.”
She had to admit is was an unorthodox use of her alternate flight system. But it was certainly an effective one.
“Any better?” she asked while looking over at the monitors to check to see if there were any changes in Sniper’s readouts.
The ‘Definitely better’ that slipped to the laboratory’s silence was a welcome change - at least compared to how the events had unfolded thus far. Sniper lay still, his optics unfocused, listening to his system calm down some. The readings that kept popping from between the warnings his system spewed at him, were showing slow signs of decreasing. The crimson optics fell shut yet again and the spy let loose a heavy sigh.
“-better,” he simply answered, the subtle tones of his voice telling the same story. He wasn’t able to quite measure how strong he was feeling at the moment. His claws kept forming slow, limb hooks as his system breathed out the hot air. “-at least given the circumstances,” Sniper continued, his words delivered in the form of something that remotely resembled a chuckle. However, there was no joy on his face. Not in the least.
Serotype quietly nodded.
“Good,” she said.
It seemed for the time being that Sniper was stabilized and she hoped it stayed like that for a while. The next task she had to take care of was the state of her lab along with herself. She went over to a station and cleaned off her hands. Everything needed to cleaned and most certainly the areas near possible exits needed to be swabbed and tested. Just because the virus showed up under blacklight didn’t mean it wasn’t possible for it to escape. Signs seemed to point that it never had. But that didn’t mean that she could let her guard down either.
But there was a problem in that. She had to deal with what had sparked her panic attack earlier and that was the door. Seeing it triggered everything and she couldn’t risk it. If Sniper took another turn for the worst during one of Serotype’s episodes, the results could be catastrophic. She looked back at Sniper. Talking might help.
“What was your regional story? Irregardless of where one resided within Kaon’s regions, there was always one story that got told the most,” said Serotype, “It’s important.”
The spy's optics remained shut for a fair amount of time, his system pushing out ht air and exchanging it for the cooler kind. Sniper was weary, but he he could bring himself actually solve some errors that his system had spewed at him earlier on. There was no expression on his faceplate, when he said:
"I'm not from nowhere in particular," a puzzling line. "Nor am I much of a storyteller." A silence drifted with the echo of his words. But before Serotype could say or do anything, the spy crated open his optics:
"There was a mech," he begun slowly, drifting into a different state of mind. "He had no power, family nor friends - only a gift for thievery, which allowed him an access to the worlds he didn't belong to. He begun to steal from the rich and powerful, only to sell their own fortunes back to them. He made many enemies - and many friends."
"The thief and his newfound partners would plague the Cybertron's richest and most powerful with their thievery - stripping them of of valuable possession and pride. But being known for his talent, the thief got an offer. One of the richest mechs, who wanted to thief to make him the single most richest mech of all of Cybertron. In return, he would offer the thief a life with everything he would ever need or want - salvation, so to speak." Sniper spoke with a flat, dark tone. "The thief was tempted, of course, but his partners were not. They wanted to continue thieving and arranging the balance of the classes as they saw fit. While the thief had shared this vision with them, things … weren't the same any longer."
"The disagreement grew into an argument and departure. And leaving his partners behind, the thief took all their stolen possession to the rich mech, who had offered him everything he had ever dreamed of. His friends could carry on doing what they wanted - or so he had thought," Sniper's claws flicked on the table. His red gaze adjusted to them, as they hadn't been focused on anything particular while he spoken. "It turned out his friends came looking for him. And once they got caught by the rich mech and his minions, the thief was forced to make the decision weather or not he would save himself and everything he had worked for - or his friends," the screams. He still remembered then. Something in his optics froze for a moment upon this very thought. "And he chose himself."
Silence lingered and Sniper shut his optics again, tucking away any memory files he might have opened.
"Because he could," his tone was flat, yet something peculiar lingered behind the words.
Serotype kept her audios trained on Sniper’s words. She walked backwards towards the door with sterilized swabs in hand. She watched him as he told his story. Her mind examining and processing every word until she got to the door. Her back was against it.
Serotype went down in a crouch and pulled open one of the swab containers. At the last moment, she turned around and swabbed the area around. Then just as quickly, she put the swab back in to the container and got up. She didn’t stay around the door long. As soon as she got up, she found herself walking every bit as briskly back to Sniper’s side. Panic has seized the opportunity to curl around her spark for a moment like a cold draft had entered the room. She gave herself the chance to cycle her vents and calm down.
“Sounds like a fascinating story. I don’t think I’ve heard it before,” said Serotype.
Emotionless chuckle, which was more a sigh than anything, emerged from the spy’s vocalizer. He lay still, on his side, his optics closed now. Of course she hadn’t heard it. Only a few had - and most of them were dead. Sniper rested his flaws of the table, beside his face. Without noticing, he seemed to curl up a bit, searching for a comfortable position. The task seemed easier now, that his core temperature was steadily dropping.
Even if Sniper’s optics weren’t he could hear the femme’s steps drawing near. They stopped just some inches shy from the table he lay on. His optics didn’t open, but he figured it would be good to let Serotype know he was still operating.
“Not many have,” he answered on a flat note.
Serotype seemed thoughtful for a moment. Obviously, this story was special to the spy. It seemed like an obscure story. But certainly no less fascinating.
She returned to her lab and then what? Keep working? She could continue on her project in her current state but it didn’t guarantee her work would be clean and precise. With her line of work, absolute precision was a must. It was a risk that she didn’t wish to take. She took a seat and watched her Life Unit. She had since deactivated him for repairs and to flush the system. She was going to have to test cures. But it could wait even just for a moment.
Serotype sat there in thought. She just needed one moment to herself. One moment to clear her mind.
Long, carbon colored claws flicked lightly against the door frame. Their touch was followed by a glimpse of two narrow optics, which glistened with Sniper’s usual, cold and emotionless expression. Yet in his very composed EM field, there was a subtle trace of curiosity - which was accompanied by something ominous the spy carried with him during all times.
The virologist was in her lab again. She hadn’t been there this morning, when Sniper had first passed by, but as a spy, he had made it his business to find out when she would be back. He had no official business with her - the paths of a virologist and a spy would cross on a very rare occasion, and should such occasion present itself, spy would most likely be the only one to know of it. Much like in this case: Serotype might know of him, but Sniper knew more of her. And that was what had engaged his visit - the will to learn even more, if possible.
The spy’s silhouette slit into the door frame.
“I see you are back from you morning flight, doctor-,” he spoke with a calm, emotionless note, pausing for a moment: “-or whatever title you prefer.” No rudeness, no politeness.
Serotype looked up from her seat and stood up to meet the lime green mech. She had seen him around a few times but never really interacted with him. Of course, she really had to do something about these unexpected drop-ins. This was a lab; NOT a medbay where someone could just waltz in uninvited. But if this mech needed help, she might as well help him. She wasn’t one to turn someone away usually and for all she knew, this could have been an ally of Fairwinds.
“You may call me Doctor, but I usually go by the designation Serotype. What brings you to my lab?” said Serotype politely.
In the background, she was mentally going through databases to get a designation and directive for the bright green bot.
Sniper stood in the doorway, his lanky form framed by the purple tinted light that crept in from the corridors. The crimson red of his vicious optics was intensified by the back lighting, as his gaze drilled into the femme. She seemed surprisingly welcoming - for a Decepticon at least. Sniper made a note of this in his open research folder that had to do with Serotype.
And the said research folder was, in fact, the very reason why Sniper had decided to pay a visit to the laboratory. Despite the Seeker’s attempts to pester this particular femme for allegiance, information and whatnot, Sniper didn’t trust the effectiveness of his efforts. He took one step into the laboratory without moving his gaze from the Doctor.
“Information gathering, Doctor,” he said, his voice stable and calm - even if it carried some vicious undertones. He begun to scan the air to find Serotype’s private frequency. Soundwave was everywhere.
It didn’t take her long to find his designation and directive - designation: Sniper; directive: spy. There was only one of two mechs on the Nemesis who would be interested in sending in a spy to watch her - Megatron and Starscream. Although, Megatron already had two very proficient spies in Fairwinds and Soundwave. Starscream didn’t really appear to have anyone except... for the possibility it was the mech standing in front of her right now. She didn’t rule that one out.
Serotype could feel that *someone* was attempting to look for her frequency. It was like a gentle poke. It was clear that the mech across from her wanted something. She privately opened up the frequency to him keeping a tight band of security on it.
::What is it do you wish to ask me?:: asked Serotype.
If she was going to be speaking to a spy, it was perhaps a good idea to keep at least outloud while she was speaking over a private comm to avoid suspicion.
“Information? I seem to be getting that a lot these days. I assume you are asking about what exactly goes on in here, correct?” said Serotype.
Sniper’s optics narrowed slightly. He kept scanning the femme’s figure with an expressionless gaze. He had learned, even before the femme had been brought on the ship, that she had been injured upon the Tangent’s crash to the glacier. It seemed Knock Out had done a decent job in patching her up as she seemed quite well and attached - on physical level, at least. And upon this thought, his gaze sapped back to that of hers.
::There is no specific thing, per say. Not yet:: he transmitted on the same sulky note he had just spoken with. ::But maybe we’ll get to specific subjects once you’ll start to fill the blanks that the Autobot files on you have,:: this was followed by a little stir, a tug that occurred near the corner of his mouth - as though he was about to grin. However, no such expression became reality, as the spy begun to move deeper into the laboratory. Yet, he was being careful - he always was.
“Information is power, Doctor,” Sniper said eventually, his voice carrying more intense tones now. There was a glimpse of greed in the way the light of his optics would flicker. “The one who wields the most, sets the rules. And considering how this ship is ran, I am not surprised Decepticons come and seek it from you,” he continued, shifting his gaze towards bottles and instruments that were sitting on the tables. “For you might hold the kind that might be used to gain advantages in this war.”
The private frequency clicked with his purr:
::Don’t you, Doctor?::
Serotype was now able to confirm that Sniper was Starscream’s ally. The information was starting to match up.
::I am uncertain of what you are inferring but I do not have much in the ways of data on the Autobots. I was simply imprisoned by them,:: said Serotype.
Out loud, however, was another story.
“I do not disillusion myself here. I am a pawn in this grand game. Granted, what I do work on can be considered powerful if wielded properly. However, it can be wielded improperly as well, causing great disaster,” said Serotype.
The pattern of Sniper’s steps neared the femme. He passed her, his optics burning red and mysterious as they laid a gaze on her. After the said gaze had marked the Femme, it moved towards the Doctor’s desk, like the rest of the spy did. He placed lazy glances over the clean, well organized equipment. He did, however, feel a remote cringe in his spark chamber when the femme would speak of properly wielded information. Disasters caused by information. He knew of those, but preferred not to think about them. He pushed the encrypted memory files back to the darkest corner of his mind and let his shoulders relax again.
“How right you are, Doctor,” he said, calm and collected, quickly drifting away from the uncomfortable matter. “But while you might not be a player, you might be a valuable piece nonetheless,” he added on the same note, without removing his gaze from the Doctor’s equipment.
::So where does your allegiance lie in this game?:: A red optic would glide it’s stinging gaze over a green shoulder when this message hit the sealed frequency. ::For I have certain files from the Tangent’s system that leave me to wonder about such things.::
Serotype watched as Sniper walked passed her to her desk. She walked a few steps to see what he was going to do. Having him *that* close to her work made her feel uneasy.
“I am aware of my role here. To my commanding officers, I am a tool to winning this war,” said Serotype.
That was about when Sniper had added something more on her private frequency. It was like a cold arctic chill had entered the room and curled around her spark. He appeared to know her secrets. She kept her expression neutral as this relevation was made. Though, it could have been a really good bluff. She had no way of actually knowing unless she tested this. A dangerous experiment.
::My loyalty is to my Lord and the Decepticons. Anything you may have heard was simply strategy,:: said Serotype.
She raised an eyebrow at Sniper as he was looking things over. She didn’t like the idea of that spy being there.
“What are you doing?” asked Serotype.
It came across as more of a command than an actual question. This was in fact, *her* lab and it was here where she had the most control. It was one thing to have a commanding officer here. But this was a spy. Starscream’s spy. She was sure of it now. More importantly, she was sure that Sniper was the one who provided Starscream with this information in the first place. In other words, Sniper represented a risk to her and one that threatened her status on board this ship. He could, quite conceivably undo everything she managed to accomplish and bring it crashing down on her head.
The gears in Serotype’s mind were starting to turn. She had to put a stop to this spy. It became a much larger question of how.
“That you are,” Sniper countered coldly. ”But I do question to whose advantage you have been and are being played,” he continued - the long claws stirring by his side as he spoke of such matters. Are you watching Soundwave? You go and report this to your Lord and Master.
::Strategy:: he repeated on the same note as before, his transmission holding only a little emotion. One couldn’t say weather or not he was convinced by the femme’s explanation. Not until- ::While it is not uncommon for Decepticons to double cross each other, after what happened to you before your capture, I find it hard to believe it was simply a strategy.:: His optics studied the scientific gadgets lazily, filing away research data as quickly and as efficiently as possible, given the circumstance. Then their gaze flicked back towards the femme. Yet, his face did not turn.
“I am simply following my directive, Doctor,” he answered rather calmly, his voice cold and emotionless. His sight glided to a set of small glass vials that sat on the edge of the desk - all holding a liquid of different color. His claws flicked idly on the vials, hearing the glass clink against the sharp metal of his servos. He didn’t pick any of the vials up, not before determing if any of them were worth anything.
Serotype scowled slightly at what Sniper was saying both publicly and privately. He seemed absolutely DETERMINED to get her in to some sort of trouble. She wasn’t going to have any of that. She was determined to survive and she wasn’t going to let this spy take her down!
“If you are implying that since I hold a fair bit of power based upon my work that I would simply decide to hold Lord Megatron and his ship hostage for my own self service, you are gravely mistaken! I know what my place is here and I know well enough not to step beyond that! I will not nor will I ever stab him in the back! I believe I had made that perfectly clear prior to this!” said Serotype, “You are *no longer* authorized to be here!”
She grew annoyed with Sniper. In fact, she was tired of Starscream’s prying and this whole plot he had going on as well as him attempting to drag her in it. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that this whole thing was a dangerous game that if she failed, she was most certainly dead. The stresses of everything coupled with her own sense of burn out was eventually bearing down on her and she felt herself about to snap.
::And I very well *know* that you are operating for Commander Starscream. I shall give him some credit for sending one of his...minions to attempt to sway me. Mark me, Sniper, should you even dare to use such methods in an effort to undo me, I will not hesitate to take you with me!:: Serotype snapped, ::I am not nearly so foolish to get between the affairs of Starscream versus Lord Megatron as that would be an act of sheer suicidal stupidity!::
The key difference between Sniper and Serotype was, like she had just snapped, that while she wasn’t prepared to cross lines. As risky as it was, Sniper had already done that. his red optics widened to tense, red orbs as their gaze shifted towards the Doctor. Her cool was gone of a moment, causing the spy to connect certain dots in the pattern that had fallen under his suspicions. The reaction, even while very negative, was to Sniper’s liking - it could be percieved as a a flag waving go to his theories about the femme.
No amusement was, however, present in his EM field or on his sulky faceplate. And the remote one that was felt beneath his chest plating would vanish soon, as he was called a minion of Starscream’s. Sure, the two had many mutual … understandings that would place their affiliation underneath a shadow of suspicion. But even then, Sniper disliked the Seeker enough to hate being called his minion - or any kind of servant at that. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that while Sniper was pursuing ambitions of his own, he was also doing Starscream’s bidding. The spy bit his dental plates together in irritation.
“I am more concerned about possible information leaks than I am of Megatron’s well being, Doctor,” he snarled right back to the femme, covering his private transmission from possible eavesdroppers. ::You are flattering yourself if greatly you think you know anything about my affairs,:: he transmitted on a very cold note, sounding somewhat threatening. His optic was peeking from behind a green shoulder - burning with silent rage.
‘I will not hesitate to take you down with me’. A grimace tugged the corner of the spy’s mouth as he heard this. He turned around before the desk, facing the femme. ::If you are attempting to threaten me, I can assure you, I have taken down far more significant-,:: his transmission came to a sudden halt as he felt his crouched posture straightening as much as physically possible for him. Clink? Like glass against the floor tiles.
‘Taken down’ was such an unfortunate choice of words at the moment.
Serotype was about to say something more to Sniper and his insinuations but she froze entirely when a glass canister was brushed off her desk and had hit the floor; the breaking of the glass was all that it took for the next flurry of motion. The lab had been turned in to a biological hazard.
“GLITCHWIT!” She shouted at him.
She spun around and glanced at her monitors as a cloud of blue smoke hit the air.
“INITITATE EMERGANCY LOCKDOWN PROCEEDURES!” Serotype shouted.
The lab’s security was activated and all the doors leading in to the lab were sealed shut with the loud clicking of the locks and the hiss of sealed vents. Alarms briefly sounded warning others near by of the drama that was taking place. Serotype’s mind was already racing.
She was now sealed in with the mech who had been causing her trouble and she couldn’t help but to glare at him. She quickly pointed at an open diagnostic table.
“Diagnostic table. NOW,” and when Sniper wasn’t moving fast enough to her liking, “STAT!”
She couldn’t believe this was happening. She really just couldn’t believe it. Her lab was in quarantine and now one of Starscream’s spies was trapped inside with her.
This was something very unusual for Sniper - both being clumsy and unaware of his surrounding, and being trapped into such a tiny, foreign space. But he didn’t have time to worry about that, as he felt his spark chamber running cold the very minute he realized what had happened. Sure, he was not familiar with the Doctor’s experiments but being very well informed about her in general, Sniper knew she was good at her job. Something lethal was lingering in the air, and Sniper had just done the Autobots a favor and inhaled it. How could this-
His petrified gaze darted back to the femme, who seemed as though she had grown significant amount of height since he had last given her a look. Mainly, this was a result of the obvious fury that danced about her faceplate. Sniper felt his posture crouching even more so than usual, yet his expression - or the little there was - was only shocked, petrified, and even a tiny bit scared. Sniper’s mouth cracked open, as though he was about to say something - yet no words occurred to him before the femme’s ‘STAT’ sent a startle to his petrified protoform. He tried to give the femme an offended grimace, but apparently, he too could feel shame. It was written all over his face when he stumbled to the diagnostic table.
Wasn’t this mission going so very, very well.
Serotype could see it. It was a very familiar expression and feeling on Sniper’s faceplate and in his EM field. One she knew all too well five years earlier. It would be all too easy for her to make an exchange - his safety for her’s. But this was far too close to home for her. She couldn’t really do it to Sniper. Not without seeing herself in his place.
On her walk over to the diagnostics table, she picked up an empty container. She thrust it in to Sniper’s hands.
“If you feel the need to void your tanks, use that. It is preferable,” said Serotype.
She grabbed up some tools from a nearby table and looked back at him.
“I need you to tell me how exactly you are feeling. Since I’m not too sure what you dropped, we have to wait for the symptoms to manifest themselves before I can do anything,” said Serotype.
After he had uncomfortably settled his form on the table, Sniper’s gaze darted back to femme - and his narrow optics grew wide, lighting up with crimson hued panic. He was still good at keeping his emotions at bay - which might have also told something about the actual extent of his his fear. Sniper had no idea what was going on. So, imagine his confusion and the subsequent shock, when Serotype threw him an empty container. The long claws nearly dropped the thing at first
“I am supposed to do what?” he exhaled, his gaze freezing to the object he was holding. He had heard the femme quite loud and clear, but the moment was just … he couldn’t believe this was actually happening. For a moment, he just let it sink in, his long claws digging into the canister in shock. Before the Doctor gained another shocked gaze from him, that was. “...we have to WAIT?” Sniper was known for his composed and cool way of acting, so Serotype was getting to see a very unusual side of him - weather she cared to or not. His optics kept shifting their gaze from one point to another on the femme, as though he was looking for signs of bluff.
But with a sudden nausea cringing within his system, Sniper quickly saw that the femme couldn’t be further away from bluffing. His gaze became a bit disoriented at first, turning to linger on the canister his servos were holding. And then, he cleared his throat a couple of times. Something was … off. And soon, he could tell what it was, when all of his rations shot into the canister. All of them.
And the only thoughts that kept occurring to the spy were different ideas on how to strangle a Seeker.
She remained calm on the surface despite the whirl of emotions lurking below the surface. Sniper looked outright scared and he had good reason to be. Serotype could remember the same fear she had back when Wisp betrayed her. It was very much like seeing herself on that day. She gently placed her hand on Sniper’s shoulder and waited for him to be done.
“You need to lie down. You will feel better if you do that,” said Serotype.
The worst thing that she could think of doing right now was to do something that would cause the spy to go in to an all out panic. Therefore, she avoided telling him about the possibility he may be infected with Mark III. As she very well knew, that was the worst of the worst case scenarios and she has seen what happens when the infected go in to a panic. There were times where she had watched Autobot POWs attempt to tear their spark out just to have the pain and fear over with. Serotype wasn’t going to allow that to happen to Sniper. Which seemed like an odd thought considering that moments earlier, she was angry enough to start considering drawing one of her blades. Now, even she was worried.
“You will recover. You need not be concerned. You are in safe hands,” said Serotype calmly.
This was important - keeping the patient calm or as calm as she could keep him while they waited.
Sniper’s vocalizer gave out s broken moan - both out of nausea and surprise of how quickly the femme’s virus was beginning to do its job in his system. His torso twitched uncontrollably , as though his body was about to reject some more of his former meals. But apparently, there was none - only some spasms before he stirred beneath the femme’s touch. He placed the laid away the canister with shaky servos. His optics, which were a couple of shocked crimson voids at the time, would swift their sight towards her. She had calmed down quite quickly and significantly - and it also gave the spy an inkling of the seriousness of the situation.
“What...what in the name of Primus are you brewing in this laboratory?” he replied, nausea piercing his voice as he laid his back on the table slowly. His voice carried a bit of spite, but it was very easy to tell it was mostly because he was so darn ashamed. And as he bit his dental plates together and let his gaze drift to the ceiling, the feeling was present on his faceplate as well.
Yet this expression was fractured by a grunt that made him grimace briefly. Sniper wasn’t comfortable - not in the least. He shifted uncomfortably every now and then before he begun to feel a certain kind of heaviness in his lanky limbs. The sensation showed on his disoriented faceplate as a subtle frown.
“Typically what I brew in here is death itself. If one does not die by the shot of a high powered rifle, it will be by one of my creations,” said Serotype.
She let go of Sniper’s shoulder as he laid down on the table. She didn’t directly have access to rations, but she did however, have access to energon transfusions which, as she suspected, might be a way to bypass the nausea. She went over to the nearest corner of the room to get some lines ready. Every so often, she would look up at Sniper ensuring that he wasn’t going to attempt anything drastic. Suicide was a very real threat.
“As I had said earlier, you have to tell me everything that you are feeling right now as they happen. It will help in narrowing down what exactly was dropped on the floor,” said Serotype.
She gave for a verbal pause thing about how she was going to phrase the next question as she knew that given how delicate the situation was, this was far from a delicate question. But it was every bit as important. With the lines in her hands, she was thoughtful for that moment. It was only until she walked back that she spoke up again. Try as she might, she just couldn’t be all that delicate. For that moment, she had to be at least a little blunt.
“I need to ask you a question. It is a matter of importance to me and your well being. Did you taste any mech fluid when you purged?” asked Serotype.
The answer to this question was in fact very important to her. It meant the difference between a most certain undesired fate and a far more pleasant future. She gently picked up Sniper’s arm and started preparing it for the line.
“So it seems,” Sniper grunted, trying not to compliment the femme. Spite still lingered about his voice, yet it was only a shadow of its former self. It seemed that Serotype was good enough to take the snark out of the spy - which made her kind of an expert of her field as it was not an easy thing to achieve.
Sniper blinked as the ceiling begun to grow blurry to his optics. That, combined with the wavering nausea and the growing heaviness of his limbs, didn’t seem all that promising. He felt his spark cringing within his chest - it was dimming quite rapidly, which caused worry to rise in the back of the spy’s mind. Yet, the femme’s following question sprung him back to life momentarily. Sniper raised his head slightly, his optics wide with both shock and embarrassment.
“Did I taste m--NO!” he exhaled, a petrified expression invading his faceplate before he realized the amount of expression he was showing. His head would slowly fall back to place, his optics growing narrower, his expression wearing down with a heavy breath. “I...didn’t,” Sniper replaced his words with calmer ones. He blinked slowly now, his vents drawing breath to cool down the engine that was heating up while trying to expel possible viruses. His optics went disoriented, staring past the femme. “I just..,” he said, pausing while his protoform grew more desperate for cool air. “...I feel kind of...heavy,” his optics widened yet again, but their gaze continued to be disoriented and hazy.
There was almost an audible sigh of releaf from Serotype. It wasn’t Mark III. The signs seemed to point more towards weaponized Cyfluenza if anything. This meant that if at the very least, his chances at survival were higher.
She connected the line to Sniper’s arm.
“That should help to keep some energy in your system. You will need it to help fight off the infection,” said Serotype, “but perhaps in better news, I think I am certain that I know what it is that you have. It’s one of my older projects - weaponized Cyfluenza. It is essentially like its’ wild counterpart only mine is far more faster acting. The most important thing here is rest. You need to keep your energy levels up.”
She withheld the fact that he only had approximately a day and a half to live if left untreated. That would have made everything so much worse. She went over to her desk with care to look for the cure. Every so often, she looked over her shoulders to check if Sniper was still fine or at least fine in the relative sense of the word. Once she located the proper cure, she loaded it up in to the injection pistol.
Serotype walked over to Sniper and picked up his other arm.
“I have the cure. However, it takes a few hours for the cure to take effect since it appears that you weren’t vaccinated before hand. I estimate three hours to take effect plus I would like to keep you here for an hour and a half for observation,” said Serotype.
She injected Sniper with her cure. Focusing on the patient was a good thing. Not only for him but for herself as well. It at least for the moment allowed her to forget that they were under quarantine. The last time she was in a locked down lab, it was far from a pleasant experience.
“So in that period of time, you will feel rather uncomfortable and at times you will feel as though you were dumped in to the smelter itself. But, you will feel better. That at the very least, I can tell you,” said Serotype.
No persistence when the femme connected the line to Sniper - only a subtle tension that turned the long claws into loose sickles.
“Weaponised Cyinfluenza,” the spy repeated, his voice growing very dim. “How very comforting,” he continued with a grunt, his voice lacking every tone aside from the pained one, even if it was attempting a sarcasm of sorts. His condition was growing worse by the minute. The lab kept blurring in his optics - and soon only movement and noise revealed Serotype’s presence in the lab.
Everything Serotype said, Sniper was able to register, but a bit slower than he would have cared to. So, once the injection came, it was a bit of surprise - yet his limbs had grown all to heavy and tired to actually form anything that would have passed as a startle. Only a twitchy grimace would pass his faceplate when the cure hit his system. However, nothing felt different. His expression fell back to a weary one. There was no change until the femme informed him of the upcoming hours and what they had in store for the spy. They lured a lifeless, dark chuckle from his vocalizer - it was more a cough than it was a chuckle, almost. “Well...this...won’t this be delightful,” he breathed, more to himself than anything.
Then he closed his optics for a moment, his system concentrating in trying to give him some sort of a relief by cycling out hot, contaminated air. There was a silence, before Sniper said: “Why would … Why would you do this, Doctor?” his voice was finally empty again. Then there was a weak click in the femme’s private frequency. ::It would be so much easier to just...,:: let me die. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, for it puzzled him far too much. Sniper was from a world were mistakes had high prices - and he himself had discovered just how high they could go. So he grew silent, almost completely so. There was just some uncomfortable shifting.
Serotype was completely off guard when she was asked the question. She was about to pick up her datapad when Sniper spoke. She looked over her shoulder a moment before turning around fully. She tried thinking of the best way to answer that question. She wasn’t even prepared for it. Instead, all she had was a hastily hashed out answer.
She seemed frozen for a few moments before a reply escaped her vocalizer.
“Lord Megatron has forbidden my experimentation on his crew,” said Serotype.
It was a stupid answer and most certainly a lie. She didn’t feel comfortable in admitting the actual reason why she was saving him. It was like reaching back in time and saving herself. but she did allow for a hint as to why in her private frequency after a long pause. She had forgotten she had still left open to the lime green spy.
::Everyone deserves a second chance at some point,:: said Serotype.
She turned back and picked up her datapad and went to write a quick report to send off to Megatron about what was going on.
An empty chuckle occurred - though it was more of a grunt than it was an actual chuckle. The spy let his head tilt to the side, his optics but a set of weary crimson slits. They weren’t focusing on anything particular as everything looked like a heated lump of blur to him at that time - only the femme’s movement, he could tell. There was the weakest of smirks on his faceplate. Yet this time, it wasn’t self-righteous, but a dark, somewhat ironic one.
::Even that-,:: the transmission was cut short as he shifted uncomfortably, letting loose a little grunt that fractured his weak expression. ::-that glitch who betrayed you?:: And by this, Sniper was gesturing towards the assistant who had been mentioned in the files he had stolen from Soundwave. There was a silence that fell in the trail of his private transmission. And with that, Sniper’s faceplate emptied of anything but a slightly pained shadow that lingered on it. His optics fell shut before they cracked open again. Thoughts weren’t occurring too clearly anymore. ::But rest assured, I ran out of second chances a long time ago,:: well, wasn’t this different? Sniper had almost countered the femme’s kindness with something that resembled sadness in a very remote way.
::Not with me, you have,:: Serotype replied.
She looked back at her report that she was writing. She paused a few moments to rub her face. She was, on some level, still tired. Today hadn’t been a particularly good day.
She finished up the last few sentences and sent it off along with a duplicate for Shockwave to look at. It was perhaps a good idea to notify her neighbour even if this was very embarrassing. She put her datapad down for a moment. A moment was all it took for her to look back at the door to her lab.
It was locked. Seal shut. She was sealed in. She just kept staring as a certain chill started to curl around her spark. The room started to seem smaller than before as she focused her vision on that door. Like the walls were closing in. That door. That door was locked. She can’t get out. She can’t escape. Her vents were starting to cycle furiously. She could almost hear fists pounding against the door. Her fists. As she stood there starting at the door. It drew her in. Lured her. She couldn’t look away.
She couldn’t stop looking.
Let me out, Wisp! Please! Let me out......! DON’T LEAVE ME......!
Her memories swirled about her mind like ghosts. She stood there in frozen horror. The walls had closed in. She had lost focus to the room surrounding her. It was just a meaningless blurr. It was just her and the door.
Her and the door.
Locked.
There was a joyless chuckle, or possibly something that fell between a chuckle and a grunt, of the identical nature as before. Sniper’s optics would fall shut again, as though he was battling stasis. It would have been more than likely, if wouldn’t have been feeling lying dying at tat very moment.
::You … you show an awful lot of compassion, Doctor. For a Decepticon at least,:: he transmitted. Yet this time the there was no mockery in the way he spoke - only a sort of bitterness. One might only wonder where that came from. ::It will be your downfall,:: Sniper continued and turned slowly on his side. It seemed he was in search of making himself more comfortable. Yet the results remained lean. While he remained like this, he would be able to see the blur that was Serotype should have been to he open his eyes.
Then there was peculiar silence - Sniper wasn’t sure how long it lasted. And when his optics were to open again, everything was still. Serotype was standing in the very same spot for a disturbingly long period of time, he could tell. Hot air vented out of his whining system, when he held his head up from the table. He had some hazy sense of confusion on his face.
“Doctor?” he tried to call out. Yet, no response. Sniper grunted and hissed as he lifted the weight of his torso on his elbow. Moving brought nausea back with it. His throat gave out a gulp. “...Doctor?” The silence frightened him as his only possible lifeline had grown silent and immobile. Hopefully she hadn’t gotten a share of her own plague. Sniper lifted his feet and let them sweep to the floor, the rest of his body adjusting to a very crocked and weary posture, while his long arm still kept it from collapsing back down.
Sniper’s system kept alarming him of how bad an idea he was executing. He let the warning flash all they wanted and, baring his dental plates, peeled his body off the table. The power had drained out of his system very quickly, it seemed. Silence continued still - it had done so for a disturbingly long time.
“Answer me w-,” the remotely irritated tones of his weary voice were cut short as he came rumbling down from his feet. There was no fainting - his limbs and his head just weren’t co-operating, causing him to fall with a variety of different noises. Well, wasn’t this dignified?
Serotype was still staring at the door. The fear was starting to build. Her vents cycled furiously still. Sniper’s voice was drowned out by the low hum of her internal mechanisms. The door still drew her in. The terrified chill wrapped around her spark and stayed.
The fear stayed.
Until there was the loud sound of someone collapsing to the floor.
Serotype almost jumped. It was enough to break her hyperfocus with the door. She spun around on her pedes to see Sniper had collapsed on the floor.
“Sniper!” she gasped.
Once again, that mental switch was flipped as she moved towards the fallen mech. She glided across the floor and crouched down beside him. She offered her shoulder and her arm to help him up.
“Why did you get up? You are in no shape for that!” said Serotype.
She was still in her senses, Sniper could determined as his further humiliation had snapped the femme out of her daydream. She begun moving again, and soon, her shadow hovered over the spy’s collapsed form. He was in the process of organizing his disoriented limbs when the femme then, surprisingly, offered him her sounder. The weary set of narrow, red optics would dart their gaze upwards, meeting that of Serotype’s. There was confusion in the the way he would look at her. Her lines were blurry to him, like everything around him was, but that wasn’t the reason of his wonder.
His optics shuffled their gaze between the offered help and the femme’s optics - as though Sniper was trying to find signs of possible bluff, or a threat. He had not encountered this kind of behavior since … well, in a very long time. And never, had such behavior emerged from anyone who wore the Decepticon insignia. This trail of thought was visible on him before both his face and his EM field emptied. Weary and somewhat pained notes still remained as even Sniper wasn’t skilled enough to dispel them.
“You-,” he said, a bit cranky, as usual. “You were spacing out,” he continued and took the offered help with a bit visible reservations about it. However, they were quickly shaken, when there was in fact, only help - no bluff or cheat. Peculiar. He lifted himself up from the floor with the femme’s help and glanced at her, optics narrow and somewhat mysterious. “For a moment there I thought you had gotten a taste of your own medicine,” it was not even an idiom at this point.
Serotype helped Sniper back to his feet and back over to the table. He was quite warm to the touch.
“I am still fine. If anything, I’ve been vaccinated against just about everything in this lab therefore I have the built up immunity. I do not have much to worry about in terms of physical health,” said Serotype.
But what about mental health? She was scared of a locked door and that was absolutely pathetic. But given the last time she was in a quarantined room, this was understandable. But why now? She had control here. She could open the door whenever she wanted. She wasn’t sick and dying. But the mech she helped back to the table was most certainly still in trouble.
But still, Sniper was able to break her horrified concentration with the door weither he intended to or not. But she was grateful for the distraction. It got her focusing back on what was important which was dealing with a patient and a crisis. That was going to help her.
Once Sniper was safely back on the table, she went over to a cabnet and pulled out a chilled cold pack that she used to keep certain samples cold. She brought it over to the lime green spy and handed it to him.
“Try that,” said Serotype.
She also went to fix his line. He had tore it when he had fallen to the floor.
“Keep talking. It will help take your mind off things,” said Serotype.
And subsequently, her mind off of things too.
Sniper groaned slightly as the room spun around him. He got up from the floor with Serotype’s help. Thankfully enough, he was soon on the table again, his limbs attempting to relax him into a comfortable enough position. His gaze lingered to the femme as she connected him back to the line that kept him energized. He gave out sigh, which was colored by both nausea and his signature crankiness - though, anyone would be cranky in his position. His optics almost fell shut after he had stayed still for a few minutes, but Serotype required his attention.
There was a cold pack that she handed to the spy. Sniper’s long claws wrapped around the thing and his optics observed it for a brief while, before their weary gaze shifted back to the femme. ‘Keep talking?’ Sniper’s mouth twitched to a very weak smirk, which held a somewhat sarcastic note, even if it was more weary and grim than anything.
“Talk?” he repeated weakly. “You want to talk to a spy?” he managed to sound somewhat amused, perhaps. “Sure...let’s talk.” With this, Sniper placed the cold pack on his chest, a few inches from his core, which was heating up, making his whole system whine in the lack of cool enough air. There was a silence, when the spy just laid still, his optics closed. “As..,” his words came to a sudden halt as he frowned and cleared his throat. “As you are one of the few Autobot prisoners I have had the … ’privilege’ to meet-,” the use of the word ‘privilege’ was a bit questionable. “-you might help me to update my research on how the Decepticon prisoners are treated on that side.” Sniper was always chasing after information - even when he shouldn’t have been.
“Yes. I do wish to speak to a spy. It’s only been close to an hour and it lets me know that you’re still living,” said Serotype.
She fixed the line again and went back over to the table to pick up a long tubular black light. Whenever she worked with a virus that was transmitted by air, she at least had thought of the idea of infusing it with the ability to be seen under black light. She turned around at Sniper’s question fixing him briefly with a raised eyebrow.
“That depends upon how one acts while going in to custody and how one acts in general. If you are violent and aggressive going in, the treatement gets aggressive and if the case is too severe, they tend to use sedation or other means to knock a prisoner out. Sometimes, it’s a hacker who does it. Rumor has it that some of the more recent hackers and spies have been trained in Blaster’s methods making them somewhat of a terrifying adversary,” said Serotype.
She flicked on the black light and started scanning the room with it. Multiple areas lit up in a brilliant fuchsia hue. But it didn’t seem to extend beyond the doorways. This was a good sign to her so far.
“The most important thing any Decepticon can do under the circumstances is to remain calm at all times. They are not brutal with calm prisoners,” said Serotype, “those are simply my observations.”
Quickly for a moment, she passed the black light over Sniper. He lit up like a brilliant fuchsia Christmas tree. She could only surmise that she was covered in the same amount.
“What of you? You make is sound somewhat as if you may have been captured before? I suspect in your line of work, it is a very real threat,” said Serotype in a calm conversational tone.
Slowly, Sniper attempted to file all the information to his research archives, but what the femme told her, held only a little value. Such things had been researched before. Yet, he recorded the femme’s words as a direct audio, so he could dissect it when he wasn’t feeling like dying on the spot. A nauseous sigh departed from the spy’s throat again and he attempted to shift to a more comfortable position, but it was no use, once again.
“I see,” he replied before the femme had the chance to counter question him. His optics cracked open and their blurry focus slowly lingered to her. She appeared to be measuring something. “No..,” he replied with a flat tone, after a moment of of thought. “Not exactly.” Another moment of silence. Fuzzy memory files opened by accident, displaying a glimpse of comrades he had once known - the very ones who had also come to claim him back in the day. The memory file was dispelled quickly. “But the danger of … getting caught is grave one - especially in this line of work, as you said,” he conversed on the same flat note as before. Only his weariness took toll on his words. “And while you, Doctor, are lucky enough to gain access back to the Nemesis ... even after your capture, rest assured-,” there was a grimace. The cure was taking effect, but in didn’t make him more comfortable in the least. Optics opened again with a faint crimson flicker. “-most of the Decepticons are not that lucky.” cold facts, no emotion. “So it never hurts to know what lies beyond, should one somehow end up over there one day.” The red intensified some, and moved to the femme. “For this faction is the kind that let’s you in and out only once.” It couldn’t be said weather or not these words held any alterior meanings.
“Technically speaking, a prisoner has never really left the Decepticons. They’re just universally misplaced for a time. Although, not everyone has the ability to escape or survive,” said Serotype, “as for what awaits us, it depends upon the crime. Though, with everyone committing, what it deemed by the Autobots, warcrimes it is in its’ very nature to merit a severe punishment. I never got to see mine. The Tangent crashed on this planet before I got to see it. I was being transfered to maximum security,” Serotype explained.
She seemed thoughful for a moment as though reflecting on everything that took places so far. There was a question still nagging at her. One she was really just starting to think about. She wasn’t even entirely sure why. It just stuck with her.
“Why do you still call me “Doctor?” It implies that I heal the sick and the injured. I haven’t really healed our own in such a long time and most certainly haven’t healed our test subjects. If one must say anything, Doctor just doesn’t seem like a fitting title to me,” said Serotype.
There was a moment of silence as Sniper processed what the femme had just said. His faceplate was empty of anything but a hazy, feverish veil. His optics remained on her, still, but they seemed somewhat out of focus. When they gained focus, they turned away, falling shut again after gaining a full, blurry visual of the ceiling.
“Be that as it may-,” he begun slowly. “-Lord Megatron may not share the same compassionate line of thinking with you,” he continued, his vents drawing breath greedily. His tone was blank, somewhat cold, even. A frown broke his facade, which was like that as well, at first. His claws stirred, growing stiff for a moment. It seemed he was in some pain at the moment - it even pierced through his voice when he answered the femme’s question.
"If you don't heal the sick, what is it that you are doing now?" Sniper countered with a twitch around the corner of his mouth - indicating that he found the femme’s question somewhat amusing. "If you didn't, it would leave with very little time, I suppose," it was as close to a ‘thank you’ as the spy was ever going to allow himself. He shifted again, very uncomfortably. “Though I feel-,” his voice cracked a bit underneath the agonizing flash that surged through his system. “-I feel like I’m dying more than I feel like I’m healing at the moment.”
“I intend to prove my worth around here. I am well aware of my circumstances and what I must over come,” said Serotype.
The answer from Sniper seemed almost strange to her. She somewhat expect him to say it was just formality or perhaps it was his way of being polite or as polite as Decepticons come. This was different to her. She was about to say something in return when the green spy spoke up. She snapped back in to action as she put down her black light and walked right back to his table.
“That should not be happening. Tell me everything!” said Serotype quickly.
How could Sniper be taking a turn for the worse? She had administered the vaccine about an hour earlier! Unless... he was allergic to it. It happened in a rare percentile of the population. Though, she wasn’t expecting it due largely in part to its’ rarity. This was far from good. She started grabbing cables from some of the monitoring equipment and hooking it up to the green mech.
“Keep talking to me! Tell me the status of your health. Anything. Just as long as you keep talking!” said Serotype.
It soon became a matter of urgency to her. She had to try and stabilize Sniper again. He was far from being out of the woods yet.
Sniper let his optics open for a bit, his faceplate wearing a fain grimace. He wasn’t quite get what the femme was saying at first, but once her movement begun to wear tones of urgency, his processor alerted him to the seriousness of the on going situation. Something was going wrong. Sniper couldn’t really get his mind to wrap around it properly enough to figure out what it was. Upon hearing her ’Tell me everything.’ Sniper attempted to lift his head, but with very lean results.
“Wha-,” he begun with a subtle hint of confusion peeking through his weary voice. “I...I don’t know,” he said. “The cold pack is not helping … of that I’m sure,” he continued, longer breaks occurring between his words now. He skimmed through the warning messages. A strangled groan emerged from his vocalizer. His system roared, demanding cooler air. “Your germ is trying to fry my system.” His legs shifted in a very uncomfortable manner. One could even describe the movement as anxious. “If it melts my paint off , you owe me a new round of Verde Aries 2CT, Doctor,” he said, trying to crack a grin, but failing at it. “It was not an easy to color to come by.” He was heading the femme’s advice to keep talking - and attempting to keep himself from panicking. Instead of a grin, he let loose something that managed to sound like a sigh and a grunt at the same time.
For the first time in all of this, Serotype frowned. She flicked on the support systems to see what was going on. Everything was as she suspected. Sniper did, in fact, have an allergy to the vaccine.
“I’ll get you two rounds if you don’t panic about what I’m going to say next - you have an allergy to the vaccine. It only happens about in 2% of the population meaning that you’re a rare case,” said Serotype, “good news is that there is treatment available. There’s an additive I can use that should reverse the effects.”
She started looking around for the additive.
Sniper let loose a little sarcastic ‘Psah’ when the femme informed him of his unique attribute of being allergic to the vaccine. While he tried to keep his tone at bay, there was a certain amount of anxiety that peeked through the reaction. However, he was growing far too weary to get a visible reaction together. His optics cracked open and he glided his gaze to the femme, who was fussing about the lab. This wasn’t exactly what he had had it mind when he had entered the premises. Starscream would hear about this.
“...this really doesn’t seem to be my day, now does it?” he said, more to himself than anything, with an agonized grimace to accompany the words. He felt his spark cringe with the heat that kept steadily growing beneath it. His legs moved again, squirming a bit. It seemed the passing time was not making him any more comfortable at least.
“Any moment now, Doctor,” he hissed through his dental plates, even if his voice was nothing but a whisper. It seemed that his anxiety about the allergic reaction was growing.
She finally found the proper additive and mixed it in with another batch of vaccine. A quick glance at the monitors revealed that at least Sniper’s vitals were still hanging in there.
Serotype grabbed for the injection pistol and loaded it up with another vial. Her hands and body just acted on their own accord. She didn’t even warn Sniper as she picked up his arm and injected him again. He was very hot to the touch. Serotype would almost say it was slightly painful to pick up his arm. She needed to cool him down quickly and she needed an answer now! The only answer she had was the VTOLs in her feet.
Quickly she got up on to a near by counter and sat down. Angling one of her feet, she powered on her VTOLs blasting Sniper with jets of cool air. She could only keep this up for so long, but perhaps this was a better solution if only a temporary one.
Sniper frowned briefly whilst the injection needle pumped another dose of something into his system. His legs relaxed when she moved away from him, yet his system still drank the surrounding air in thirst. For a moment, Sniper sounded very painful, his breath consisting of very faint whines before he managed to stabilize his system enough to open his optics again. There had been quite some time he had been this worn and vulnerable - at least in such negative manner.
After a while, the wave of scorching heat passed his spark and left his system calmed down so that he was able to relax his faceplate and give out a long, pained sigh. He turned his head slowly, the weary red of his optics directing to the blur that was Serotype. His expression was blank - only tiresome tunes dances about his sleek features. He knit his brow after the Doctor’s shape grew clearer.
“What are you..?” he begun slowly, curiosity behind his weary voice.
When she was sure that Sniper was cooled down enough, she powered down her VTOLs and spun herself off the countertop placing her feet back on the floor. She felt tired as she rubbed her optics. She walked over to Sniper and touched at his helm.
“Better. Definitely better,” said Serotype, “I used the VTOLs in my pedes to cool you down a lot faster. The cold packs were not cutting it. This seemed to be a far more effective solution.”
She had to admit is was an unorthodox use of her alternate flight system. But it was certainly an effective one.
“Any better?” she asked while looking over at the monitors to check to see if there were any changes in Sniper’s readouts.
The ‘Definitely better’ that slipped to the laboratory’s silence was a welcome change - at least compared to how the events had unfolded thus far. Sniper lay still, his optics unfocused, listening to his system calm down some. The readings that kept popping from between the warnings his system spewed at him, were showing slow signs of decreasing. The crimson optics fell shut yet again and the spy let loose a heavy sigh.
“-better,” he simply answered, the subtle tones of his voice telling the same story. He wasn’t able to quite measure how strong he was feeling at the moment. His claws kept forming slow, limb hooks as his system breathed out the hot air. “-at least given the circumstances,” Sniper continued, his words delivered in the form of something that remotely resembled a chuckle. However, there was no joy on his face. Not in the least.
Serotype quietly nodded.
“Good,” she said.
It seemed for the time being that Sniper was stabilized and she hoped it stayed like that for a while. The next task she had to take care of was the state of her lab along with herself. She went over to a station and cleaned off her hands. Everything needed to cleaned and most certainly the areas near possible exits needed to be swabbed and tested. Just because the virus showed up under blacklight didn’t mean it wasn’t possible for it to escape. Signs seemed to point that it never had. But that didn’t mean that she could let her guard down either.
But there was a problem in that. She had to deal with what had sparked her panic attack earlier and that was the door. Seeing it triggered everything and she couldn’t risk it. If Sniper took another turn for the worst during one of Serotype’s episodes, the results could be catastrophic. She looked back at Sniper. Talking might help.
“What was your regional story? Irregardless of where one resided within Kaon’s regions, there was always one story that got told the most,” said Serotype, “It’s important.”
The spy's optics remained shut for a fair amount of time, his system pushing out ht air and exchanging it for the cooler kind. Sniper was weary, but he he could bring himself actually solve some errors that his system had spewed at him earlier on. There was no expression on his faceplate, when he said:
"I'm not from nowhere in particular," a puzzling line. "Nor am I much of a storyteller." A silence drifted with the echo of his words. But before Serotype could say or do anything, the spy crated open his optics:
"There was a mech," he begun slowly, drifting into a different state of mind. "He had no power, family nor friends - only a gift for thievery, which allowed him an access to the worlds he didn't belong to. He begun to steal from the rich and powerful, only to sell their own fortunes back to them. He made many enemies - and many friends."
"The thief and his newfound partners would plague the Cybertron's richest and most powerful with their thievery - stripping them of of valuable possession and pride. But being known for his talent, the thief got an offer. One of the richest mechs, who wanted to thief to make him the single most richest mech of all of Cybertron. In return, he would offer the thief a life with everything he would ever need or want - salvation, so to speak." Sniper spoke with a flat, dark tone. "The thief was tempted, of course, but his partners were not. They wanted to continue thieving and arranging the balance of the classes as they saw fit. While the thief had shared this vision with them, things … weren't the same any longer."
"The disagreement grew into an argument and departure. And leaving his partners behind, the thief took all their stolen possession to the rich mech, who had offered him everything he had ever dreamed of. His friends could carry on doing what they wanted - or so he had thought," Sniper's claws flicked on the table. His red gaze adjusted to them, as they hadn't been focused on anything particular while he spoken. "It turned out his friends came looking for him. And once they got caught by the rich mech and his minions, the thief was forced to make the decision weather or not he would save himself and everything he had worked for - or his friends," the screams. He still remembered then. Something in his optics froze for a moment upon this very thought. "And he chose himself."
Silence lingered and Sniper shut his optics again, tucking away any memory files he might have opened.
"Because he could," his tone was flat, yet something peculiar lingered behind the words.
Serotype kept her audios trained on Sniper’s words. She walked backwards towards the door with sterilized swabs in hand. She watched him as he told his story. Her mind examining and processing every word until she got to the door. Her back was against it.
Serotype went down in a crouch and pulled open one of the swab containers. At the last moment, she turned around and swabbed the area around. Then just as quickly, she put the swab back in to the container and got up. She didn’t stay around the door long. As soon as she got up, she found herself walking every bit as briskly back to Sniper’s side. Panic has seized the opportunity to curl around her spark for a moment like a cold draft had entered the room. She gave herself the chance to cycle her vents and calm down.
“Sounds like a fascinating story. I don’t think I’ve heard it before,” said Serotype.
Emotionless chuckle, which was more a sigh than anything, emerged from the spy’s vocalizer. He lay still, on his side, his optics closed now. Of course she hadn’t heard it. Only a few had - and most of them were dead. Sniper rested his flaws of the table, beside his face. Without noticing, he seemed to curl up a bit, searching for a comfortable position. The task seemed easier now, that his core temperature was steadily dropping.
Even if Sniper’s optics weren’t he could hear the femme’s steps drawing near. They stopped just some inches shy from the table he lay on. His optics didn’t open, but he figured it would be good to let Serotype know he was still operating.
“Not many have,” he answered on a flat note.
Serotype seemed thoughtful for a moment. Obviously, this story was special to the spy. It seemed like an obscure story. But certainly no less fascinating.