EP - 1. Taken Without Permission (ZZ + EC Closed)

[Deleted]

(OOC: set some time after Terms and Conditions. The joyriding thread between EC and ZZ at last.)

Zoom-Zoom was bored.

He'd been skulking about on base, always somewhere Red Alert could keep an optic on him. There only so many times a mech could count inventory after all and Red had finally -finally- run out of odd jobs to keep Zoom-Zoom occupied. Which meant that he had a break for once but Zoom-Zoom wasn't certain what he could actually do by himself. He'd explored most of the base whilst running errands for Red Alert so now he was aimlessly roaming the hallways and probably giving the security mech a processor ache. He wasn't allowed off-base without supervision and Zoom-Zoom wasn't about to humiliate himself to ask a Bot out to keep an optic on him.

The minibot almost tried hacking the data network then he remembered how stringent Red had been when laying down the law on that. Granted, the mech had been dead serious when he listed all the things that Zoom-Zoom couldn't do whilst on probation but the computer systems had him looking particularly stern.

Zoom-Zoom exvented. He wandered up the passageway towards the control room, then wandered back down again. Counting inventory had not cured his restlessness, if anything, it had exacerbated it. Unconsciously, he'd activated his old database programs to help him allot items into neat little categories in a way that was a vast improvement over the current inventory system. If there was one thing that could quickly drive Zoom-Zoom crazy (-ier than he already was), it was reminders of his first vorns of existence stuck in a spark-crushing job as a data analyst. Even now he was flashbacking to orns spent plugged into vast databases, sifting through exabytes of information and trying to make sense of it all, analyzing it all to find trends and patterns.

Zoom-Zoom might have been built to process such large volumes of data but he'd never had the spark for it. Being tapped into so many datastreams was the closest thing to the Pits that Zoom-Zoom could imagine. It wasn't possible to dig through so much information at once and still retain some semblance of self. For the minibot, his original occupation basically involved the closest thing to a processor wipe as you could get. Except it was every orn, walking into Iacon Freight and getting his processor so overloaded with information that his mind was simply crushed beneath it all. It took a special sort of mech to love that work and Zoom-Zoom hadn't been it.

In the end, getting fired had been a relief. Hacking into the company's databases to mess around with their shipping manifestos had been the only outlet he had to retain some form of sanity. He had not been sad to see the end of that job, even if it had put him out straight onto the streets.

Zoom-Zoom twitched as he stalked up and down the corridors of the Autobot base, trapped in his memories of life back on Cybertron. He was so deeply engrossed in thought that he completely lost track of his surroundings and he had not realized that he was now pacing round in an endless circle. The minibot's processor wasn't exactly stable, the many long vorns by himself had led to some deterioration despite his best efforts and it was only now that he was experiencing the effects. Round and round his pedes carried him, looping like the way his processor was.

Eventually, Zoom-Zoom got a grip on himself and came to a stop. He shuttered his optics once then stared vacantly up at the ceiling as he tried to figure out his actions for the past several klicks.

As his awareness returned, he also realised with a start that he hadn’t been alone all this time.

[Deleted]

Electrocap just stood there.

And stared.

It wasn’t because someone could justify selling a ram’s skull on the internet for $78. Or even that its item condition was listed as ‘Used' (which was an awkward turn of phrase, even for a race that routinely traded in the carcass products). No: the main issue here was how anyone, in Primus’ name, could think they were going to get any takers for the hollowed-out chassis of a sheep’s head if they went and charged $37.50 for shipping? “No thanks,” she murmured, flicking to the next listing. “I’ve got those things in my backyard.”

It was a slow day for the minicon. A monitor shift here, a cupboard scrub there, and then the rest of the day had surprisingly been her own. No Ratchet brandishing a batch of tools that needed to be stripped and cleaned to its bolts, no Red Alert assigning her to ‘repair’ cameras that had all surreptitiously agreed to deviate from the 2.5 degrees deviation allowed from their line of sight. In fact, her dance card had been left rather…bare, as of late. Not that she was complaining. Electrocap assumed it was due to the slow trickle of new personnel – those who’d braved the desperation of the Exodus, the most isolated, treacherous depths of space and what became, more often than not, a spectacular fiery crash-landing on an alien world just to re-join the front line of their bitterly drawn-out war – that found them gleefully assigned to duties such as floor scrubbing and stock inventory that she’d otherwise been stuck doing.

So with the kids off-base and most of the other bots scheduled on other duties, Electrocap was content to plumb the weird and wonderful depths of eBay in a comfortable nook of the base, on her specially sized datapad (re: this planet’s most jailbroken human tablet, courtesy of Rafael).

But when the red minibot strolled in, the dulled tik-tik-tik of cybernetic claws on the datapad’s screen stopped.

She looked up.

And unless a second fire-engine red minibot had arrived on base without her knowledge, this mech’s…reputation certainly preceded him.

However, those same rumours didn’t say anything about bouts of extreme disorientation in thoroughly mapped underground bases. So, whaddya know. You can’t always trust the rumour mill as the most up-to-date source of information.

“Hey, you.” The minicon waved. Sometimes the bigger mechs needed help locating the source of the tiny disembodied voice, and his one looked like he needed all the help he could get. “You okay up there?”

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom stared down at the minicon in blank incomprehension for a few astrosecond. His processor was still recovering from that memory loop so-

"Neeergh," he grunted intelligently as his processor got its act together. Zoom-Zoom shuttered one optic then peered down at her with the other. "I'm-" outta my slagging mind, glitching, fragged six ways to the Pit and back, in need of a medic- "fine," he settled on with a small frown.

A few more astroseconds went passed before it occurred to him that he was expected to make more conversation. Sluggishly, he went through the files on the current base personnel. This had to be Electrocap, the only minicon stationed here.

Zoom-Zoom forcibly turned his attention to other bot and- wait. "You're short," he observed blankly. Then, realisation shot through him, chasing the last of the cloudiness from his mind. "Hey there half pint," he said with a broad slag eating smirk.

Primus had seen fit to bless the base with a minicon. Finally, a bot that was shorter than him. This orn was looking better already.