Three Blind Mice - Closed (Mirage, Rook, ZZ, ???)

[Deleted]

(EDIT: End of Week 3, directly before Shut Up and Drive)

You know you've hit rock bottom when you can't figure out if you're being punished or just rotated into weird shifts. Or being rotated into weird shifts so your recharge cycle gets so slagged up your usual sneak-and-drive routine (such as it was) gets thrown all out of shape.

Rook couldn't sleep. He'd been pulling graveyard shifts, and while normally that didn't trouble him, when nothing happened for the whole long shift and he got bored out of his processor it was a whole different matter. It had left him sleeping when he was usually ghosting out of the base to go flying down some empty road or another; it left him awake in the middle of the graveyard shift even when he wasn't on the roster for it.

Primus dammit.

The base was mostly dark; Rook's dark gray armor was reflecting nothing but distorted neon gleams from the screens he was staring at. His pedes were up next to the keyboards, and he was leaning back as far as the chair would take him. Even as he looked, the screens told him the same thing as they'd been telling him for the past few hours: nothing. He threw his head back and groaned, every vent sighing almost soundlessly.

Rook appreciated the autonomy Earth-based 'Bots got, he really did. What he didn't like was the sorta kinda absolute utter kinda lack of a support tac/intel network. He was used to being told what to do and where to do it by someone else who'd chewed up lots of data and spit out a knowledgeable gist. He didn't do gists; he was honest enough to admit that he didn't know the first thing about data-gisting and all the (surely abundant) work that ended up with him, or any intel, shot at a target somewhere. He just didn't know what else to do in the middle of insomniac idleness other than try to randomly find something, anything to do out there in the whole wide world. Anything. Anything at all.

When one of the screens beeped at him, his head shot up so abruptly he damn near sent the chair falling backwards. "... What, seriously?"

One of his (entirely random) search filters had actually returned with something: heavy data and radio readings out in the middle of Nowhere, Utah. It could be human, obviously - but what little Rook knew of human usage it would have taken a visible population to reach the numbers his search was reading, and none was showing up.

It could be nothing. Or... it could be MECH. Or the 'Cons. Or or or or -- "Didn't think it through this far," Rook admitted to himself, staring somewhat owlishly at the screen as he typed in commands to refine his search. "... Huh."

Well, he could report it. Or he could check it over. It was probably nothing, even though he'd been trained, brainwashed and taught that it was always something until proven otherwise. Not to mention there were standing orders not to go places alone. He drummed his fingers on the console thoughtfully; he really hadn't thought he'd find anything...

He needed a second opinion.

Rook packed the coordinates and data density into a single data packet, and fired it off on a short-range comm. targeting an old intel-only frequency; even though the signal shouldn't be able to get out of the base, it never hurt to be careful. There were other spooks in base, after all. Appended to the comm. he added his own message. Impromptu snooping, anyone?

[Deleted]

By now, Mirage was accustomed to receiving comms at unusual hours, usually at the dead of night when all mecha who retired at respectable hours were fast asleep. Mirage, however, was not one of those mecha, generally speaking. For one reason or another, missions seemed to come, with regular frequency, at odd hours of the day. It was rare, really, for him to be called into a control center or a board room to be briefed and assigned a task at a decent hour, ie: any time when the sun was up.

He didn’t know whether it was simply some sort of great cosmic coincidence or conspiracy, or if everyone just seemed to prefer missions to be performed during scenic times, when the skies were dark and fitting for tasks of a shadowy nature. Not that it really mattered one way or the other, he supposed. Darkness did, after all, aid covert operations quite well, particularly when there were prying eyes about, on the look out for clandestine activities and those performing them.

When it came right down to it, there was really nothing to complain about, other than having one’s sleep schedule turned on its ear. He had found it difficult to adjust to at first, but after years of practice Mirage had little trouble sleeping only briefly, (most often in the early mornings) spending the rest of the day awake and on the ready, waiting for a matter that needed his tending to to arise.

He was doing just that when Rook’s message pinged over his comm.line. He had been killing time by cleaning his rifle, polishing it carefully with a cloth to keep it both properly maintained and looking pristine---just because it was a weapon, didn’t mean it had to look as unsightly as the acts it was used to commit.

Pausing, he gently set aside his rifle, picking it up off his knees and placing it on the desk next to him, before opening the data-packet Rook had sent him and looking over it carefully. It didn’t seem like much of anything, truth be told, but then, he had been waiting all day for SOMETHING to come up and beggars, as they say, could not be choosers. Besides, it would not be the first time something that seemed innocuous turned out to be a cause for concern after all.

They would never know for certain, however, until they investigated. Despite having lived on them more than long enough to grow accustomed, Mirage still found military bases to be stifling at best, so he was glad for the opportunity to rid himself from the outpost, even if it proved to be nothing more than a waste of their time. Whether they found anything worth investigating or not, he would be happy simply to leave the confines of the base and surround himself with scenery a bit more welcoming than the cold, grey walls that surrounded them.

::If you’ll have me, I would be more than happy to accompany you:: He replied decisively, the moment he had finished scouring over the data-packet.


((OOC: Either works for me!))

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom hadn't been recharging. Instead, he was perched at the edge of his berth, staring sightlessly at the ceiling as his processor buzzed with the datafeeds he was wirelessly connected to. Unicron sat on his knee, the little robot still hadn't been fixed and Zoom-Zoom had been hesitant to trust his own repair skills to such a delicate task. Sure, he never thought twice at whatever patchjob he could do to himself but Unicron…

No, he would not risk it.

The minibot's right wrist cable had been unwound but it was not plugged into the exposed dataport. There was, actually a way to get the dataport open without pulling apart plating but evidentally, Red Alert had not found it during his exploration. Zoom-Zoom had been trying to convince himself to hook himself up -Red Alert had seen the vid files and they weren't for him, they had never meant to be viewed by any other mech than someone from the 92nd Division and part of him couldn't bear to let Red be the last person who viewed them- but so far, he hadn't gathered the nerve. He'd gone through this ritual every recharge cycle, ever since he'd be released from the med-bay and Zoom-Zoom had still not looked at the memory files.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," he murmured to his empty room. Being by himself for so long, he'd gotten into the habit of speaking out loud to inanimate objects, walls, non-sentient fauna or sometimes nothing at all. Even though he was in a base full of Autobots, Zoom-Zoom suddenly felt terribly alone as he took in the full weight of his past.

Fortress Maximus had refused to tell him anything about whether his cohort was still alive. He probably didn't know anything but it was classified information, as the big mech had put it. And with Zoom-Zoom's current probationary status and limited access meant he couldn't go searching for an answer. That hadn't stopped him from familiarizing himself with the security network and he was reasonably certain now that he could break in, if he wanted to, to go looking. The signals flowed through his processor and he could almost see the lines of code that would give him what he wanted.

Except-

If he did that and the Bots found out, Zoom-Zoom was fragged. Shaky grounds, he reminded himself. His cohort would be fragged at him if he got himself kicked out of the Autobots trying to find them. And what if he did find out what happened to them-

What if they're dead?

What if they were alive?

What would you do?

Zoom-Zoom logged himself out and away from temptation with a distressed exvent. So long as he did nothing -knew nothing- he could justify staying here. His helm dropped down and his gaze fell upon the dataport.

I could really use some suggestions right about now. Or maybe just a familiar voice, distorted as it would be by all the editing we did to hide our identities.

But.

Don't want to remember.

If he really didn't though, he would have destroyed the datadrive long ago. Zoom-Zoom stared, poised in indecision. He could not tell how much time passed before his commlink pinged with a transmission from Rook. Hollowly, the minibot downloaded the message and its attachments, his optics returning to staring back up at the ceiling.

A few odd readings. Some co-ordinates. Wasn't much of anything but that didn't mean it wasn't something. Was he interested in investigating?

Zoom-Zoom glanced down at Unicron and the whole mix bag of emotional explosives the toy was packed with. He really didn't feel like dealing with any of it tonight.

::I'm game:: he replied. ::We driving or bridging?:: Bridging was faster but it would leave a log to exactly where they went and given the unauthorized nature of this venture, the minibot wasn't certain they'd risk it. They'd need to be back to wipe the logs before anyone went on shift, since no one would be staying behind to man the bridge. They could give all sorts of excuses as to where they were if they drove there, on the other servo.

Zoom-Zoom had acquired a padded box sometime during all his inventory checks and it was in this that he placed the still damaged toy before subspacing it. With a mission to focus on, already Zoom-Zoom's processor was moving on, forgetting his earlier indecision and misery as though it had never been there.

Or at least, until the next cycle.

[Deleted]

It was a night for surprises, apparently.

Rook had long grown used to living in the dark. You got to know there were others like you about, spooks and shadows. You heard rumors about them, but if they were good you never heard what they'd done - you only got gossip about the places they'd 'never' been to and the destruction they'd 'never' wrecked. They were like fish in Earth's vast abyssal depths, unseen, unknown until chance brought them across one another.

And yet, here were two more, sounding off, willing to go on a team effort of sort. Either they were as bored as him, or... well, bored or itching. Primus knew. What did matter is that three of them would make this nose-poking business sort of kind of possibly maybe perhaps semi-official.

Rook didn't want to log it, but he had to wonder how much of that was learned instinct kicking in, telling him to cover his tracks, to remain a ghost even among his own faction. In the end, as he sprung up from the chair, he left the one screen on standby while he turned off the rest. If the worst happened, there'd be that much for others to find.

He moved with purpose through the dark, knowing the way to his little corner of the base, knowing which floor plates sang and which didn't. He wanted to pick up three or four things before he headed anywhere, just in case. ::I'll take all the company I can get. Makes it look more official if we have to explain anything after.:: Which was as close as he was going to get to hinting at potential trouble. Best not to borrow what you didn't want to get.

He believed he could follow Zoom Zoom's line of thought, and it was, like his own, that automatic kick for covering one's step. Thing was, this was a time when that autonomy thing worked in their favor, even if his every instinct did not like leaving a trail behind; he could put in for a mission out there, somewhere and put some faith that while he might be questioned, he would not be outright berated: he'd had a hunch and followed it. ::We can bridge close, ride the rest of the way. We either ride back or call home for a bridge, but either way it won't matter on the return trip.::

Someone would know they were gone soon enough, either through the drive or the bridge. Someone would figure out that when there were three spooks out on the road, it was perhaps best not to ask a lot of questions until such thing as radio silence and booby traps might not be a concern. There may be... issues when they came back, but Rook did not think they'd be too serious.

Besides, it was likely nothing.

He moved quietly in the dark of his room, little more than a closed-off dead end with a door in front of it, picking up this and that. Because even if it was nothing, you should always expect the worst and prepare accordingly. ::Meet you there soon as you're all good to go.::

[Deleted]

Oh, how fun. It seemed Zoom Zoom was going to be coming along as well. He hadn’t pegged the mech as the social type (then again, most mecha in their line of work tended not to be very chatty) so to hear him volunteer to come along on this little group-excursion came as something of a surprise. Whether or not the surprise would be a pleasant one was yet to be foreseen. Call it a hunch, but he had the feeling the mech might not be terribly pleased to see him after he coerced convinced him to join him in that earlier sparring match of theirs.

Well, there was really only one way to find out about that.

Retrieving his rifle from his desk, Mirage made quick work of giving it one final glance over to assure himself of its functionality, before unlatching it and dividing it into its two segments, so it could be more easily carried. After mounting the folded segments onto the holster between his shoulders, Mirage dry-washed the grease from his hands with the cleaning-cloth he retrieved from his desk, before depositing the soiled rag in the wastebin where it belonged. Just because he was being called away on a little impromptu mission, didn’t mean he couldn’t take a few moments to tidy up before he left.

On his way towards the door, he did a mental review of his subspace’s inventory: Smoke bombs, check. Trackers, check. Flash-bangs, check. Ammo cartridges, check. Throwing knives, check. Multipurpose cables, check. Stasis-cuffs---well, okay he probably wouldn’t need those, but check none the less.

Locking his door on the way out, Mirage made his way down the winding corridors until he finally made his way to the ground-bridge, where he took the liberty of inputting coordinates a short ways away from the location Rook had shared with himself and Zoom Zoom. Directly bridging to the exact spot where the signals were located would just be foolish - it would steal from them both the element of surprise, and the ability to scout the area beforehand so they knew exactly what it was they were getting themselves into.

Besides, a little driving wouldn’t kill them. If anything, it would give them a chance to spin their wheels and enjoy a late-night drive. Assuming, of course, that was something either of the other mechs enjoyed. Mirage quite enjoyed leisurely strolls himself, but he was well aware that not everyone shared his fondness for traveling for the sake of traveling.

Once satisfied with the distance he had chosen between Rook’s coordinates and the place where they would bridge-out to, Mirage removed his hands from the console before him and waited patiently for the others to arrive. He didn’t bother activating the bridge just yet, not when their party had yet to assemble. That would just be a waste of precious energy they could not afford to spare.

[Deleted]

Leaving a trail it was, huh. The minibot accepted this decision without comment as he slunk from his room, automatically slipping through camera blind spots. All those shifts on monitory duty had to come in handy at some point and Zoom-Zoom had spent most of that time studying the network's weakpoints. At some point, he'd bring it up with Red but for now he'd just exploit that knowledge for all that it was worth.

The minibot knew his subspace inventory off by spark and it was sadly lacking in the bag o' Spec Op tricks department. He had his weapons, some ammo packs, a repair kit and nothing else because anything more would bring Red Alert down upon his helm like an angry vengeance god. Another base, maybe, Zoom-Zoom would have attempted to push the limits of his probation and smuggle away some unauthorized toys but the security director had not earned his position by being slack. Mech had optics on the back of your own head or so the saying went in the grunt ranks.

(Though knowing Red's fondness for cameras in the most obscure locations, it wouldn't be surprising to learn if Red actually did stick them onto unsuspecting bots)

So whilst a pair of energon daggers, a baton and sheer skullduggery had been enough to keep Mirage at bay during their spar, the minibot was keenly aware that his subspace was in need of restocking. After becoming familiar with the base inventory, there had been some supplies he'd been eying up but had ultimately left alone. Red had a frightfully close optic on just about everything on base. There was no point pushing his luck unless he was certain that he could successfully carry out the heist.

::Anyone got some spare equipment they don't mind me 'borrowing?' I ran out of tricks eight planets back and Red's been on my case in making sure my stash stays that way:: Zoom-Zoom would give anything to have a solid supply of EMP grenades again. Or flash-bangs or smoke bombs. Scratch that, any sort of explosives. Demolitions had been Vibes' only passion, the one consistent thing that could bring life back into Zoom-Zoom's emotionally fragged cohort leader. And whilst Zoom-Zoom tended to stick to the non-lethal side of grenades and what not, thanks to Vibes' tutelage, he did know how to make things go boom in a big and deadly way. Not having any explosives on him simply didn't feel right at all.

Earth however was a different game to what he was used to. The rules, Ratchet and Electrocap had pointed out to him, were nothing like what he'd known back on Cyberton. Couldn't let the natives see 'em nor could they let the little organics get hurt. Whilst Zoom-Zoom personally did not care for the creatures, his ordnance would need to be adjusted to whatever standards would be considered acceptable. Or at least, his official one would be, if they ever got round to letting him off probation.

He'd have to trust that the more experienced base spooks knew what was appropriate and would supply him accordingly, if they did indeed have anything to spare.

[Deleted]

In his spark, Rook would always love what he'd once been. Being a chemist and a metallurgist had never been glamorous, but not a day passed by that he did not miss the once-upon-a-time when he could have spent weeks putting theoretical molecules together just to see what would come up.

The dark gray Aero had become a ghostly presence on the empty, rutted roads leading to any salvage or scrap yard within less than a night's drive from the base. He did not make weapons out of his findings - at least, not weapons that one could readily identify as such. He cleaned up chemicals. He repurposed metals. A body could carry enough palladium away from any such trip to... well, to fill a shot glass, but it was the doing that kept Rook sane. Ish. But even on the rare day when he got a half-decent excuse to leave the base - or the rare night when he managed to escape the walls before they closed in on him, he had to be always on the alert for at least two enemies and a whole lot of potential eyewitnessess.

::Anyone got some spare equipment they don't mind me 'borrowing?' I ran out of tricks eight planets back and Red's been on my case in making sure my stash stays that way::

::I'll bring some oddbits.:: About to leave, Rook instead picked up the hollowed out shell of some electronic piece of entertainment or another; in it he dropped a coil of exceedingly thin fiberoptic wire, a heat-sharpened, slightly hooked knife with a wrapped polymer handle, three metal bottles no bigger than the minibot's biggest finger, a small makeshift welding torch incapable of welding anything tougher than copper and its kissing cousins, and a small compressed cylinder full of highly pressurized freon. On an additional note of generosity he threw his replacement blaster on top of the box. Such a generous soul, him.

He was well aware that Zoom Zoom might not have any use for the oddbits, but other than anything sharp and pointy Rook could and did find, he rarely carried anything else into a deployment. If the offering was unwanted, he'd take no offense to it.

He moved with ease and without hurry through the hallways, absentmindedly moving in the dark and avoiding sensors and cameras whenever he could do so without extraneous effort - the downside, he imagined, of having to give even the local spooks a turn at monitor duty.

He nodded politely to Mirage as he slipped into the room; the makeshift box he set by the nearest flat surface. Beneath his apparent calm and the ever-present reserve of his field, he was still wondering if this was a good idea. Mostly, to be honest, he was running on the thought that as bad as he got when locked up in the base, the others might welcome a semi-official, reputable chance to be away from the walls for a bit. "Gave us some breathing room?" His tone made the question an obvious attempt at conversation, not an actual inquiry.

[Deleted]

Mirage did not have to wait long for Rook to arrive, however even if he had, it was likely he would have still been holding himself in the same fixed position. Back straight, shoulders squared, hands folded neatly at the small of his back. It was a deeply ingrained habit, an impulse almost. He had been drilled on the merits of good posture from the day of his onlining, and even now, thousands of years after having no one to reinforce the behavior, he simply couldn’t shake himself of it. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to, honestly. There was nothing wrong with having good posture, after all, though maintaining it could grow tiresome at times, particularly when in the company of others for extended periods.

That was one of the side-benefits to reconnaissance work. It usually entailed an awful lot of crouching and crawling and climbing, so lapses in proper posture were necessary and therefore excusable - even in company.

Speaking of company, the moment Rook entered the room Mirage turned his head to watch his approach, bowing his head briefly and offering a faint, perfunctory smile in greeting.

“Enough to mask our arrival, yes.” He replied with a nod.

Small talk for the sake of small talk. He was well practiced with that, what with all the dinner parties, celebrations, and evening events he once attended with mecha who liked to hear themselves talk. Networking amongst Cybertron’s upper-crust had been a paradoxical task, simple in certain ways, difficult in others, entertaining one instance, tedious the next. At the very least, it gave him the social skills necessary to make chatting with mecha he did not know particularly well an easy task.

“Do you suppose Zoom Zoom--” Oh, but he always felt a bit silly, saying that name aloud. “--will need anything else?” He asked, gesturing to the box the other mech had brought and set aside.

This was Mirage’s very polite, carefully veiled way of asking whether Rook thought Zoom Zoom would require extra assistance to bring him up to par with them. While the minibot had proved himself to be at least a capable fighter, Mirage had yet to see how skilled he was in the field, and given he hadn’t even heard of the special operations division the mech was from…

He didn’t wish to think so negatively of the other mech. Just because he did not have a reputation, and his division did not have any notable accomplishments on record, did not mean he was unskilled. Time would tell how skilled the minibot truly was, he simply had to wait and watch.

[Deleted]

Not having to fetch anything meant that it wasn't long before Zoom-Zoom reached the control room. He slipped in just in time to catch the tail-end of Mirage's inquiry. His optics first swept the room, noting the location of the other two mechs first, the box that hadn't been there when he'd been on monitor duty only breems before aaand. Nothing else was out of place. One of the others had to have brought it. Probably Rooks since he'd offered.

Zoom-Zoom bee-lined over, examining each of the odd bits and pieces carefully before he subspaced them. Everything had a use in the servos of a Spec Ops agent and Zoom-Zoom had lived on the streets long before he'd even been one. Making do with scraps was just what he did.

"Managed to get here with just about nothing, didn't I?" he answered Mirage absently, eying up the canister of freon. It was cold to the touch and would probably be a rather nasty surprise to a bot if he threw at them.

Because Zoom-Zoom was a horrible, horrible little minibot, he weighed it in his servos, getting a feel and idea for just how much momentum he'd need. Then he blatantly eyed up Mirage and made it more than obvious that he was calculating how hard he'd need to throw to smash it against a convenient target say for instance...Mirage's face.

Then he passed it on, into his subspace.

It was slightly nerve-wracking to be in the same room as the other spook simply because Zoom-Zoom could almost feel the weight of that target he had painted on his back, so he was portraying an air of nonchalance. Every instinct was urging him to flee because, right now he was in Mirage's sights and who knew what that mech was planning.

In fact-

Zoom-Zoom dropped the spare pistol he was examining, his frame stiffening as a horrible thought occurred to him. Wide optics swept back to Rook, he really hadn't seen the other spook around base but Rook and Mirage had known each other for much longer than the minibot had been around.

"Wait, is this for real or is this just to get me back for that match the other cycle?" he demanded, suspiciously examining Mirage.

It occurred to him an astrosecond later, that if this was a trap, then he probably should have kept his vocalizer off and not tipped off the other spooks that he was on to them.

Frag.

[Deleted]

Rook's mind automatically fell back to watching and filing away mannerisms, gestures, turns of speech from the other two spooks. Not because he thought he would need to know such things, but simply because he might.

Mirage's question drew his attention back to the box. Before he could answer the 'Bot in question slipped into the room and provided his own reply. The tension Zoom Zoom brought into the room was about a subtle as the minibot himself, and the appraising look he'd given Mirage raised all sorts of interesting questions, theories and possibilities in Rook's mind.

He said, however, nothing.

"Wait, is this for real or is this just to get me back for that match the other cycle?"

One polite optic ridge went up as Rook looked from red to blue, and he smiled faintly, his tone perfectly neutral. That he didn't know what-all ZZ was even talking about didn't stop him from giving the most truthful of answers. "Neither of you's paid me to get involved."

Rook ran light padded fingertips over his armor, taking stock once again of what he was carrying. "The site's real, the data's real, and the invitation is exactly that." His tone was cool and distracted, but eventually his full attention came back to them. "The offer was... Well. The walls tend to make me itch under the armor some nights. No obligation to come, though, for anyone."

He glanced at Mirage, though he knew there'd be nothing there for him to glean answers. "I think he'll do just fine. Didn't know Red had a spook on embargo, though. Maybe something ought to be done about that."

The Aero began a gesture that might have dropped him to one knee, though he never finished it, smoothly shifting into his alt-mode instead. His weather report for the area said fog. It should be a nice, quiet night ride; whether it stayed that way remained an unknown. "Fire it up and let's see what we shall see, I say."

[Deleted]

Well, speak of the devil. Zoom Zoom had excellent dramatic timing.

Mirage spared the mech a glance as he arrived at last, watching him briefly as he examined the contents of the box Rook had set aside for him. The minibot rummaged through the assortment of odds and ends, taking a bit of this and that, before lifting up a canister of Freon which he weighed in his hands, before casting a look up at Mirage, as if he were deliberating something.

Knowing exactly what that something was, Mirage simply raised his eyebrows a half centimeter or two, quietly defying the minibot to even try to make good on his ponderings.

Then, all at once the minibot went still, before looking up and asking if the mission they had been called there for had been nothing more than an elaborate ruse meant to lure him into a trap. Mirage did not know whether to feel complimented or insulted that Zoom Zoom thought he would devise such a ploy to exact retribution on him, so he settled for a mixture of both and simply smiled at the mech in a way that was, admittedly, not entirely friendly.

“Oh, believe me, Zoom Zoom, if I were out for revenge, you would be the first to know.”

That delightfully cryptic response was accompanied by a deceptively benign smile, and the words that followed were spoken in a tone that was friendlier than it had any right to be.

“--As well as the last.”

With that said, he left Zoom Zoom to interpret his words however he liked, before turning his attention back to Rook as the mech said his piece, then transformed into his vehicle mode in a single smooth motion.

“You’ll be taking point, I assume?” He asked, before following the mech’s lead and transforming himself, his intricately overlapped plates fanning out and folding in as he reformed himself into his alt.

This was, after all, all Rook’s idea. It would only be fair for the mech to be the one to take the lead and direct their little impromptu investigation.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom didn't take Rook at his word, because only an idiot would take a spook at their word. He did however relegate the Aero a slightly lower threat in his combat tree. Not because he thought the other mech was any less dangerous than Mirage but because they shared no prior history so Rook really shouldn't be slagged off at him and he seemed earnest enough too. Zoom-Zoom could understand the need to get out and explored, the Omega base was too stiffling at times. The minibot accepted that there did indeed appear to be an investigation in the works but whether or not Mirage had involved Rooks in some sort of retribution scheme was still up in the air.

It really, really didn't help with Tall and Charming smiled oh so pleasantly at him while delivering death threats at him. The minibot bristled but didn't respond, it was clear the conversation was over when both mecha slipped into their alt modes. Zoom-Zoom shrugged before doing the same, still stewing over Mirage and his general existence.

Compared to the other two mecha, the minibot's Mazda 2 alt-mode was plain and nothing special. Zoom-Zoom was unbothered by this, since, you know, the whole spook business was all about not standing out.

"Whenever you're ready," he grumbled. Part of him was wondering why he was bothering going along with this, the other half was quick to remind Zoom-Zoom that he didn't have much else he could be doing.

[Deleted]

Hmm. Rook would have to see about calling in favors or getting some extra (slaggit) monitor shifts so he could look at the logs and see what he could piece together. Whatever had gone down between them needed knowing, beyond guessing at.

He'd left a low-priority log of their comings and goings; the other two spooks had been included in it in what might seem to a casual reader like an afterthought; in what small way he could, Rook meant to cover their afts if things went south.

With Mirage having programmed in the coordinates for the ground-bridge, it was a small matter to use his holo for the few moments it took to put a timer on it and throw it open, the light of it painting them all contrasting shades of green.

“You’ll be taking point, I assume?”

Rook's quietly humming engine bumped into a lower note. Once. No, he had not taken into consideration that by calling the trip in, technically he was point, he was that used to working solo. His tone was, if anything, deeply resigned when he answered.

"... I guess I am."

He drove sedately into the no-place spiral of the ground-bridge, idly thinking that of them all Zoom-Zoom was really the only one actually hiding in plain sight. Rook himself had grown accustomed to using his alt-mode as a distraction, rather than a cover, though he could not even guess as to the why in the senior spook's mind. Preemptively he hit his hi-beams, trying not let old instincts rile him up about having someone at his back.

He came out of the ground-bridge into, for all intents and purposes, fog soup. He barely resisted the urge to roll to a stop and into bipedal mode, where height would give him some visibility - there were mechs behind him, after all. Instead he accelerated minutely and switched to running short-range, frontal sweeps with his sensors.

::Watch the landing, it's a little foggy out here,:: he sent out in the frequency he'd originally used. Above, the sky was equally covered in a solid sea of thick, dull gray clouds.

Utah was not exactly known for its overpopulation, and Rook's find was as far from any human site as one could get. The spooks had the road to themselves, but they would not be able to follow it forever; eventually only an overgrown dirt double-rut remained, leading to a dry river bed. Two long metal structures could be detected on approach on the bed itself, single-wide trailers that, on closer visual inspection appeared to have rolled downslope: they were battered, muddy and piled up high with flood debris on their exposed side. One door hung askew and the other was missing altogether, but beyond those gross details it was hard to make anything out in the blanket of fog that filled the gully.

Somewhere in the cottony silence of the blanket of fog there was the quietest hum of ventilation chutes thrown open. Equally faint, and perhaps a trick of the air's high humidity, was the scent of deep earth and raw stone laid freshly bare to the night air.

Rook had not stopped moving, but he had slowed down to a crawl to try and keep the fog from turning in eddies and whorls with his motion. At the moment the low profile of his alt-mode benefited him by keeping him out of sight. His scanners could only tell him so much, and visibility was still useless.

::Thoughts?::

[Deleted]

Rook was not wrong in thinking that out of the three of them, Zoom Zoom’s altmode was the least conspicuous. Between a $650,000+ sports car, and what amounted to a street-legal formula one race car, the simple Hatchback was the least likely to draw unwanted attention to itself. Not that Mirage really had to worry about drawing unwanted attention to himself in the first place; with his cloaking device, he could make himself appear however he wished or disappear from sight completely. There really was no need for him to scan a less unusual, eye-catching alt so long as he had his electro-disruptor.

As they drove through the bridge, appearing at the other end of the swirling void of light, he was quick to note how muggy the air around them felt. The fog was thick, stiflingly so, and it made for a rather chilling atmosphere. Idly, Mirage mused that this would be a prime location for something dreadful to happen. The scenery was set, the lighting and special effects had been expertly arranged, the hapless protagonists were in their places, and now all they needed to do was follow their stage directions until the antagonists were cued in - their arrival presented as a jump-scare, of course.

At least, that’s how things would go if this had actually been a play, and not simply a musing of an actor who found himself reminiscing over a hobby long lost.

Following behind Rook, keeping enough distance between himself and the other mech to keep from distracting him with his high-beams, Mirage couldn’t help but continue amusing himself with his thoughts as he kept his sensors trained on their surroundings. He made notes as they drove, commenting to himself where a sinister looking tree ought to be placed, or when haunting music ought to be played, and how.

It just went to show how utterly unperturbed he was by the environment, that he found it amusing, instead of seeing it as a reason to be unnerved or on alert.

Gradually, the road beneath them began to give way, concrete fading into dirt and stone as they left the path frequently traveled by humans and instead headed towards a dried out riverbed off in the distance, far from where the concrete streets ended.

Following Rook’s example, Mirage slowed himself to a crawl to match the other mech’s speed, before replying to his inquiry.

::This is exactly the point in the story where an audience would implore us to return home and not venture further:: He commented idly, the dirt and gravel beneath his tires crunching softly as he rolled forward.

::Which, of course, means we are obligated to investigate::

[Deleted]

It was dark and foggy on the other side of the ground bridge. Which was always a plus in Zoom-Zoom's opinion. Sure, it was hard to see but conversely, they were also harder to spot and trained to capitalize on that advantage. Trundling sedately behind the other two spooks on the road, Zoom-Zoom was silent. They were on a mission now and even if the minibot felt like talking to the others -he didn't- pointless chatter would only distract them. He kept watch on their surroundings but it wasn't anything interesting, just dirt as far as the optic could see with the occasional patches of vegetation.

The dull countryside could not go past fast enough but eventually the road dwindled and they departed from it. The minibot cut his speed immediately, this was the first time he'd actually gone off-road in this alt-mode before and he was still learning that tyres handled extremely differently from his thrusters. A river bed soon appeared up ahead, some structures embedded inside, encased in the mud. The minibot decelerated further as both Rook and Mirage slowed down ahead of him.

::That usual?:: Zoom-Zoom asked, pondering over the trailers and ignoring Mirage's theatrics. ::Still learning about this planet, do the humans usually abandon their stuff out in remote locations?::

Between the many, many chores heaped on him by Red Alert, the minibot had little opportunity to actual learn much about the natives. Not that he wanted to, organics held no particular interest with him. That didn't mean he wasn't trying, a good spook after all needed to know his environment. Ignorance would only get you killed.