1.5 AR - Knaves and Rogues. (Closed)

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Wheeljack's Lab, Week 2 - Day 2

It was the smell.

Rook had snapped out of the shallow thing he called recharge, and for a long moment he couldn't figure out why. None of his senses could detect anything untoward, the light scan he immediately ran over his vicinity revealed no threats.

He kept perfectly still in the dark, dim blue optics narrowed and darting about as he marked the shadows in the small closet he'd taken over as a room. Work table. Shelves full of scrap (the literal kind). Makeshift centrifuge. Pile of soon-to-be something. All was as he'd left it when exhaustion had finally taken him to task. Lately it was about the only way he got any recharge at all. His internal chronometer told him it wasn't even unduly late, as planetary night-time went.

He shuttered his optics. Something had woken him up. It tickled not his senses, but his memory, and just as suddenly as he'd snapped awake he recognized it. It was metal, metal heated sun-red and star-white. It was the smell of better days, happier, simpler. Who would even --

Oh, of course. The new resident Wrecker. And engineer. Chagrined, Rook had to admit he'd sort of stopped listening when he'd heard 'Wrecker'. Apparently, he shouldn't have.

The scent was probably being pulled out of Wheeljack's workshop and getting caught into the main base's vents, and now it had all of Rook's attention, simply because it had been so very long since anything even resembling it had crossed Rook's path. Spooks did not socialize, not really. But he hadn't always been a spook.

Without really knowing what he was doing Rook found himself out of his room and winding his way around cameras and sensors. He had to wonder if eventually Red Alert would stop putting the spooks on the security monitor roster; he had to know what it was doing to hallway security. But he hadn't, yet, and so Rook ghosted through the hallways until he found himself at a door he'd never been to, with half a dozen ideas sort of nebulously chasing one another through his processor.

He laid a hand against the door for a long moment, then knocked politely, pitching his voice to be heard. "Permission to come aboard, captain?"

[Deleted]

Wheeljack placed the last piece of shredded scrap metal into a bucket then loaded the heavy bucket in his new mini electric arc furnace (Wheeljack modded and 500 times improved from the pitiful thing Fowler had arranged for him). He stood in front of it as it charged, unbothered by the hot metal then shut the roof of the furnace. The smelting of the metal started up and Wheeljack wandered away, attention already set on his next task.

Dismantling. More dismantling. And more dismantling. This was his life now. The Wrecker's optics were half-shuttered as he surveyed his workspace. Sure, it was great to be able to actually exercise his skills this way but the Omega base tended to have greater need of his scavenging skills than his inventing capabilities. Aside from that gun he'd built for that weird minibot, the rockets for Red Alert, he hadn't done much in the way of building new things. Oh. And that massive mech cleaver he'd forged for Fortress Maximus.

It was quite fragging boring. Wheeljack's spark thrived on the unknown, he was an inventor, had been sparked to explore and push beyond the limits of Cybertronian science. Building new objects fulfilled a buried need he had on the spark level. Instead, he was stuck here, taking things apart. And not in the fun way, the way he'd learnt from the Wreckers. Pure, unfettered, chaotic destruction. This was careful I-may-need-this-part-down-the-line-so-I-can't-break-it-in-utter-frustration dismantling. Which had been fun the first couple of times, getting to use his skills and show the Omega base can't-fly-my-starship-straight Autobots how its done. But then the work started piling up and it was like they had a crash just about every other cycle. Wheeljack might thrive on hard work but he thrived on mentally challenging hard work.

This wasn't. At the rate he was going, he'd be able to do this in his recharge.

So as he stood, fuming over his workstation, bitterly complaining about the Omega base outpost, he heard a knock. Slowly, sulkily, lethally, he tilted towards the door. An optic twitched. Wheeljack's servo curled towards his blade before he decided fixing a hole in his door would just drive him further up the wall. The polite query mollified him somewhat, but Wheeljack was still in a foul mood. He'd known it wasn't Bulkhead, Wheeljack had heard no heavy footsteps heading his way. And whilst it wouldn't surprise him to find Miko lurking round base at this time at all, she'd have never been able to knock so loudly on the door, not even if she threw her entire body against it and pounded with all her might. They were the usual two suspects for visiting his lab.

Still. He curbed his temper. Wheeljack had been complaining so bitterly of being bored only moments before and here was a distraction. Hopefully, a worthwhile one. While he didn't recognise the voice, which was understandable as he hadn't exactly gone and socialised with the vast majority Omega base Autobots, he did know that it wasn't Optimus Prime or Red Alert.

Lip plates pulled tight, Wheeljack sent a ping to unlock the door. "Come on in," he grunted. "Door's open."

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"Door's open.

Rook shifted slightly away from the door. For all they were such simple words, the invitation to come into the Wrecker'sengineer's domain did not sound inviting at all. He might be coming in at a bad time, interrupting something crucial. But then again, the door had been unlocked and he'd been sort-of invited in, and it did not strike the spook as if Wheeljack were the kind of mech to invite someone in just because of forced courtesy.

As a result of finding himself somewhat conflicted, including the fact that he didn't know what he was doing to begin with, Rook slipped into Wheeljack's space practically ghost-stepping - taking each step forward with subtle wariness, as if he expected to be ambushed from every shadow.

Wreckers were hard for him to understand at all. In many ways Rook found them the very antithesis of what he was, what he did: they charged ahead, and did so gleefully, no stealth, no games of shadow, no concern for odds or collateral damage or reports to be filed later or... well, anything. You'd never know if a spook disliked you, whereas a Wrecker was likely to let you know of his poor opinion physically as well as verbally. And possibly with many other means of communication short of interpretative dance.

But then again, Rook had always made sure to keep as much distance as he could between even the faintest hint of Wrecker activity and himself. He could own up to the fact that he might be entirely wrong in his opinion.

The partially dismantled wreck he was staring at did not reassure. It might be that Wheeljack didn't have anything to do with the wreck's state, but the Aero's paranoid mind couldn't help but make the visual connection.

The scent, though, the scent had hit him like a sledgehammer the moment he'd stepped in. He let the door close lightly behind him and stepped gingerly about, a slender, dark mech moving like another shadow, hands kept firmly at his sides though his fingers were twitching slightly. "Can't remember the last time I smelled a furnace going full-tilt. Titanium-vanadium separation?"

[Deleted]

A spook.

Wheeljack didn't really care much for them. Then again, Wheeljack in general didn't care much for anything that didn't come with the label 'Wrecker' on them. Spooks were useful. Important. They got the job done, they got info the Bots needed. Whatever. Can we go blow up the target that info just provided? That was the extent the Wrecker thought about them. Wheeljack had barely seen the mech venturing into his workshop, though whether that could be attributed to the fact you generally didn't notice spooks unless they wanted you to or whether it was simply because Wheeljack tried to keep his interactions with the rest of the Omega base personnel minimum was debatable. It probably was a mix of little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. He did at least have a name for the mech thanks to Bulkhead. Rook.

Unsure of what had drawn the spook all the way into his domain, Wheeljack turned away completely from his workspace to keep a close watch on him. The last and only Spec Ops agent he'd entertained was that twitchy minibot, Zoom-Zoom, who had come seen him over the installation of a new weapon. Honestly, Wheeljack had been half- expecting to see them more often, spooks love gadgets after all and he had the workspace, the materials and the skills to build them whatever they desired.

The question directed at him startled the Wrecker. He narrowed his optics as he studied the spook in front of him in a new light. Oh. Ohhhh. Interesting.

"Nah," he waved a dismissive servo at the furnace. "Just recycling some scrap metal." Wheeljack paused. "Take it you have some experience with metalwork?"

[Deleted]

Having Wheeljack's full attention on him automatically drew Rook to a halt; it took him a moment's conscious thought to keep on moving, to override instinct telling him that kind of focused observation was bad. This was not a job. This was... something, but not a job.

He paced closer a little slower, attention briefly on the furnace. Even from just looking at it, just from the heat of it, he could tell this was no mere human machine, no matter what the shell looked like.

The question drew him up to a stop again, and while his field remained close and closed, he spread his hands in a vaguely apologetic gesture. He wasn't even sure what he was apologizing for; not indulging his old trade? Missing it? Mostly he just felt the gesture was due, here in someone else's workshop.

"It was a long time ago. I, ah..." His arms dropped again, his attention on the workbenches. "Metallurgy and chemistry. Top of the class at the time. For whatever that might be worth now." He tried for a smile, not knowing it was coming out as skittish as he felt, and looked up instead at the wreck. "Did you.. Don't suppose the coolant lines are intact?"

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A fount of patience, Wheeljack was not. He especially did not enjoy trying to figure out other mecha out, trying to pick up on the subtle clues to understand what they truly meant. He was a big fan of open, straight forward communication. Conducted with fists, if necessary.

So as Rook stumbled and fumbled his way closer, Wheeljack's optics narrowed to displeased slits and he was openly frowning at the mech as he was forced to decipher what the other mech was at. Rook had been a chemist, a metalworker too. Top of his class. Okay, sure. But that had been a long time ago. Wheeljack followed the other mech's optics to his work benches. Was that wistfulness or was Wheeljack just imagining it? The Wrecker wasn't certain but he was starting to put the pieces together.

Wheeljack's shoulder fell as he vented in resignation. He knew the feeling. Deep space didn't leave a lot of opportunity to put his training and skill to work. He hadn't had a workshop this well set-up in vorns. So, with a grunt, he made a snap decision.

The Wrecker abandoned his workstation, taking with him a manoeuvring thruster and a few tools, some of which were stuck to his plating, due to his habit of forgetting he had them attached. He strode past Rook and climbed up to the top of the reinforced walkway, settling on the railing. "Why don't you check for yourself?"

Deliberately, Wheeljack focused his attention on the component he was working on. By retreating away, the workshop, his tools, all were at Rook's disposal should the mech desire them, Wheeljack's actions seemed to suggest.

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Was the Wrecker upset? Or just lacking in patience? Was he irritated that someone was bothering him, here in the sanctuary of his workshop, or just that that someone was of no use to him? Was he expecting different questions from Rook, maybe or -?

Or perhaps, Rook realized sheepishly, he ought to remember that he was dealing with a Wrecker, and take the mech as one: direct. And meaning exactly what he was saying.

If he'd allowed himself such things, the Aero would have smacked himself at letting himself become so rattled that he'd forgotten who he was talking to. Not that he believed Wheeljack, or any mech, or any living sentient, incapable of deceit; he was simply going on the fair assumption that it would not be the Wrecker's first choice of weapon.

And just like that, Wheeljack's attention was off him and the mech himself was off and... were those tools mag-attached? For a moment Rook merely stood still, too overloaded with unexpected cues to process. Mechs didn't normally like being close to a known spook; they certainly didn't like them alone with their stuff. They certainly didn't just... just invite them into the work they were doing - at least, not without watching them closely.

"I, ah..." A hundred questions ran through his mind. Was he allowed to touch the wreck? The tools? Was he repairing it? Gutting it? Forcibly he drew himself short. He was doing, would be doing, exactly what he'd been told to do.

Without optics on him, it was a lot easier to close the distance between him and the workbench. He ran his fingers lightly over the tools there: they felt alien, for all that once he'd known them so well. These were no make-shift things, either, cobbled together from scrap and hope (and cussing).

Well, unlike Wheeljack, he couldn't stick tools to himself (who did th-?! Oh, right.) and so he limited himself to a pair of slip-joint and crimping pliers. Gingerly he slid under the wreck, the pliers in one servo while he ran the fingers of the other over the hull, feeling the pitting and scarring on it. "Do you...?"

This time he allowed himself a sheepish sound. "... I'm sorry. One gets used to no one wanting you around. Am I salvaging the system, or just the coolant? Not hard to clean it if you've the setup for a vapor still." A little more uncertainly, he added. "What happened here?"

[Deleted]

Oh Primus, was this really a spook? Even the twitchy minibot had been more assertive than this guy and Zoom-Zoom had broken down in hysterics when Wheeljack had tried to examine -dissect- his weapon systems. Wheeljack briefly contemplated throwing something at the mech but decided he didn't want to be accused of ripping Ratchet's schtick.

Cursing himself for having a bleeding spark and that he couldn’t take back his actions and kick Rook to the curb now -one gets used to no one wanting you around, Primus, that was all kinds of pathetic- Wheeljack took his attention off the thruster. He glanced over to the wreck, the remnants of Tailgate's escape pod.

"Do what you want," he shrugged dismissively. "Don't have a still yet but I suppose I could always build one at some point later. That's a six million year old escape pod you're dealing with. Historically interesting, I guess but I've taken all the scans I want of it and spotted out more than fifty safety flaws in its design. Now I'm just salvaging what I can. Most of the parts aren't compatible with our tech anymore, so there's no point in fixing it, unless its to preserve a bit of history and that just a waste of good raw material of stuff I can't get easily on Earth."

Yes, Wheeljack was king of unhelpfully vague instructions. But fortunately for Rook, there really was nothing important or vital to be done with the pod. The spook could break damn every single system in it and all Wheeljack would do was smelt them down to their base elements and recycle.

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Rook wasn't entirely sure when he'd last interacted with someone on a social level or, in any case, as social as one could get when stripping a wreck. By default, he wasn't sure he was doing it right at all. Either that or Wheeljack was a perpetually curt mech, which was certainly his right. The spook had worked with far worse.

"Six mill- Well. I guess it's... a testament to its construction that it's still in one piece." Though he was trying to sound somewhat complimentary, or at least polite, Rook couldn't help the dubious note in his voice. That was an awful long time for anything, even the most flawlessly built space-faring ship, to survive the vagaries of space travel.

Padded fingers ran over the buckling plates along the belly of the pod, seeking an entry point. "I -" He damned near got smacked when one of the plates merely let go, but he caught it before it could do more than swing on the last of its infrastructural hook-ups. "Alright, then, throwing things at me now", his tone was very soft, meant for the poor battered little vesel, even as he patted its hull lightly with one hand.

He leaned back so he could glance towards the walkway, even though he wasn't sure if Wheeljack was within visual range. "I have a still. Cobbled, but it's got the range to clean the coolant... Well, except for the six million year thing." He went back to prying the plate off, though he was still being as careful as he could; it just wasn't in him to do otherwise. "Can't think of a single fluid that'd survive that long worth the cleaning anymore... Except maybe the emergency batteries..."

[Deleted]

The Wrecker gave a soft snort of amusement as he listened to Rook battle with the escape pod. He'd continued with the disassembly of the thruster once Rook had orientated himself. Silently, he note that Rook had a crude still somewhere and tucked the information away in his processor.

"Fluids should still be good," Wheeljack answered. "Some sort of space bridge anomaly that knocked it outta existence for a good six million years before dropping it back in again. It'll be fresher than the stuff I've been extracting from the junk-buckets everyone's been crashing here."

A pause. Then: "Think everything should be safe, nothing strange came up on my scans, I've been working the last cycle or so and I'm not dead yet. But hey. 'm not exactly an expert of the effects of long term bridge exposure on materials. So, holler if you're about to keel over or somethin'."

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Rook's mind was cataloging the information that Wheeljack's idle conversation was giving him almost as fast as it was running through lists of substances.

Trapped for six-million years. Well, that could only mean their walking time-anomaly; for all that Rook didn't actually talk to that many mechs on base, it was hard to miss Tailgate sticking out like a sore thumb from the group of war-hardened creatures that they were.

With utmost care Rook slid a servo into the guts of the pod that he'd laid bare, feeling his way around until he found the beginnings of its strut infrastructure. No matter how carefully, how painstakingly you maintained something, the welds between struts always saw the most strain, and the first hints of damage. Since his optics couldn't go in where his servo was going, his fingers would have to tell him the story.

He didn't think he'd find anything. Any substance needs to... well, to exist to be worn down. It needs air or vacuum, it needs an excess of humidity or dryness, it needs continuous use, heat or cold. It needs something, and that was the one thing the no-space of a bridge would not have provided.

"My quantum mechanics are pretty much non-existent, but everything should be vault-fresh, just from my basic bridge understanding." Rook was looking for any one of the coolant pumps - the pod would have redundant systems, right? Right? He could operate it manually and get all the coolant in one handy to-go pack that way.

A secondary thought occurred to him as he was delicately removing connections and sliding bypasses aside; he was taking far more time in getting to the one system, but he was doing his best not to potentially damage anything in the process. Who knew what might be needed later down the road. He stopped squirming into the guts of the pod.

"You know... if the ship is that old, what are the odds the power bypasses are iridium? Because I'm willing to bet the purification systems carry palladium, and that would just be a kindness."

Eager to see if he was right, Rook found a solid bit of inner structure, grabbed hold and kind of... wriggled this way and that, trying to get himself closer to any of the systems he wanted to check out. The fact one of his pedes was barely on the floor did not seem to bother him overmuch.

"You can't scrap for those two anywhere on this planet to save your life..."

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Lazily, the Wrecker leant forward. "I'd say those odds are pretty good, given the scans I took off it. Enjoy because Primus knows, we won't be getting any from Fowler, I've tried."

Another thought occurred to him and Wheeljack snorted. "The humans still haven't even learnt how to recycle and extract palladium from nuclear waste. I asked Fowler about it once but even so, both he and Optimus were adamant at not giving me any. It's not like they're using it for anything useful."

Prime had disallowed it because he didn't want anything radioactive on base, Fowler because he was convinced the Wrecker would probably weaponize it.

…

The human probably wasn't wrong.

[Deleted]

"How --" Rook abandoned his footing, one hand grabbing onto the pod's inner structure and the other reaching up, over and around, padded fingers tracing cables to their housings, seeking out power lines and trying to pull them closer so he could look at the bypasses. Even if they were not iridium, he'd wager anything that they'd be one of the rarer metals.

Once he was sure he was not going to fall through the hull and wreck something valuable, he spoke again, voice muffled. "How precise is your furnace? Even if it's a palladium alloy, it's not hard to separate it."

He said nothing to the mention of radioactive materials. There was a lot he could do with spent uranium, or even just irradiated flakes, but he was also fairly certain neither Fowler, nor the Prime, or Red Alert, or Ratchet would tolerate the stuff on-site, even if he'd been willing to ask for it. He was also pretty certain his uses had nothing on what a Wrecker might do with the stuff.

He'd also come to an unexpected crux that he wasn't sure how to face, and it had reminded him sharply that he was a guest in someone else's workshop, that he had not been a metallurgist, or a chemist, for a very long time unless it came to creating his tools of the trade. He was well aware that he was being tempted into unknown territory by the workshop, by the promise of going back to fields he'd loved and more - by the company of a like mind. He, Rook the spook, might be as different from the Wrecker as night and day, but they were still scientists.

But Wheeljack was still a Wrecker. And... not a spook. Rook didn't know the first thing about Wrecker dynamics. He didn't know if Wheeljack knew life was about debts.

He ran his fingers lightly over the innards of the pod, bracing a pede against a strut. "I've not asked Agent Fowler for anything." He was trying not to sound furtive, and he was not sure if he was succeeding. "I have not... asked anyone."

With infinite care he began to unscrew the bypasses. It'd give him a chance to look at the wiring and appraise it. He vented low, feeling again as if an explanation was owed. "I don't think anyone knows about the still. Or what I, ah, do in my room. Or when I go out to..." His voice dropped a bit into embarrassed territory. "To scavenge. I'd really... I may... prefer if it stayed that way."

It was a dangerous thing, to offer such an open-ended debt to a stranger. But oh, the scents and sounds, the talk and the tools, it was a powerful temptation. Time would just have to tell how badly he'd fragged himself.

[Deleted]

Wheeljack turned a fond look on his electric arc furnace. Or what had been an electric arc furnace until he'd gotten his servos on it. It was an ugly looking thing right now, he'd cannibalized it and modified what he could to bring it up to the lowest Cybertronian standards. Agent Fowler had a fit at that, uncertain how he was going to explain that to his superiors and how it was going to look on the books. Not that Wheeljack had cared really. It served his purposes so far and that was all that mattered to him.

Power usage was a pain though. Wheeljack had hooked up an energon convertor and run the furnace off it when he was working with extremely high temperatures for smelting non native Earth metals, rather than the main power supply. The electricity usage would shoot through the roof otherwise, a little red flag for anyone searching for the Omega base.

"Precise enough to get the job done," Wheeljack assured Rook confidently with an amused snort.

He settled back on working with the thruster, pulling a screwdriver off his plating to unscrew one of its panels. The Wrecker listened carefully as the spook slowly gave another halting explanation. Primus but Rook certainly did take his time getting to the point and his timidity and all-round mope was almost offensive to the Wrecker. Gaaah, he just wanted to punch the spook and demand him to get some titanium inserted into his sturts. Which probably wouldn't do Rook's attitude any wonders but it would get rid of the sheer frustration Wheeljack was feeling, just listening to the guy.

So the mech was keeping his metallurgy a secret? And wanted it to stay that way? Wheeljack's optics narrowed before-oh. Wait. Was that it?

He snorted. "Sure. Whatever. Case you didn't notice, there's 'bout a grand total of three people I bother giving the time of the day on base here. 's far as I'm officially aware, it's staying that way."

[Deleted]

Rook, all unseen, was practically upside down inside the pod as he chased down after bypasses. It was just as well the systems were dark, or who knew what kind of errors he'd be provoking.

Wheeljack either didn't understand, or he was keeping on a bland facade. The Aero rather thought it was the first by the very same logic he'd used so far: while surely able of deceit, for the Wrecker it was a weapon of last resort, not a way of life. It was a two-edged cut, that; on the one hand it meant very little to Wheeljack to keep Rook's idle secret, but on the other he might entirely expect the spook to return the... courtesy.

Rook did not do 'courtesy'. Lucky for the Wrecker, the spook was honest enough to remember debts owed, even if he alone was keeping tally.

"Should... I mean, I can help sort through the internal alloys, then, if you need the assist." He found an opening near a flat surface - he wasn't sure if it was the floor or something else, but it was outside, it was flat and it was wide, and he set out a double handful of bypasses before moving on. "I... Am I... Is it rude to ask you why?"