Flashback: May I Take Your Order?

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Pre-war: Outskirts of Deadend, Polyhex

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Sunspot knew he was drunk, he had one optic and he was seeing double. Is this what two optics are like he pondered into his cube.

“This cube is empty” he announced to himself, and the others present, but mostly to himself. “This is...this is...acceptable, doesn’t matter, I’m good.” Sunspot put the empty cube down and leaned back into his chair. He refreshed his optic a few times, finally settling for one and a half vision being better than double. The night had been long and it had been good.

Underwire was the secretary of a company recently “acquired” by Sunspot’s boss, Mindwipe. She and some of her pals, minibots all, were supposedly being shown a good time by Sunspot. Keep friends close sort of thing. Of the triplets, Sunspot had been chosen for this task, him being the least intimidating of the three. Smokesniper was too nihilistic to show anyone a good time and Skystalker was not guaranteed to play nice, even under orders. To Sunspot’s way of thinking, a good bar with live music in a part of town Mindwipe had deals with was just about perfect for a good time. Even the shanix he was throwing into drinks would actually come back in part.

So far everybody was approximately the right amount of drunk, enough to be totally liberated, but not enough to hurl or worse. Sunspot may have imbibed more than the mini’s, trying to be impressive. Everyone was a happy drunk, pure coincidence but a fortunate one. Sunspot was also a hungry drunk, and while the bar had good liquor and music, not so much good food.

“Who’s got the munchies?”

There was an instant show of hands, and the one foot from the funny guy*, and the voices of assent. Those who still had unfinished cubes, finished. Sunspot stood up from the table and bowed to his guests. “Femmes and Mechs, allow me to escort you in the direction of consumables”. He led the way to the door, pushing his way through where necessary. High grade and flying was never a good idea, and all but one of the Mini’s was a grounder, transport was necessary.

“TAXI!” Sunspot called.

“So what does everyone want?” He queried.

The Mini’s chattered and it quickly became apparent no democratic decision would be arrived at. Sunspot took charge.

“Executive decision, we’ll do a Mech D’s run”. There was a general murmur that while Mechas was not exactly nourishing, it did fit the mood.

*There is always one.

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There was a definite "lightness" to the borders of the Dead End; tightly-packed, badly-kept buildings faded into the cold, polished towers of Polyhex that resembled satellite transmitters. The design was deliberate, a symbol of the city-state's advanced tech research, but Buffalo Dump found them kind of ugly — they were more like solar mills to him. Tall, stationary and somehow keeping the city's lights on.

Ugh. He couldn't think tonight. Couldn't admire the scenery with all the talking, he couldn't, and people bumping around in the back of his hopper. It was still pretty early for everyone getting out of the bars, but already some people had had too much and needed to go home. A doormech B-Dump was acquaintances with had thrown two of his current passengers into the hatch, telling the garbage worker to get them home ASAP. From how quickly they had passed out, B-Dump was starting to wonder if they'd be able to get up get to their door.

"Passengers!" came a young voice, a small fist tapping on the side of B-Dump's cab. A sky-blue minibot — blocky and with doorwings that lifted and flapped like a lilleth's — was half-hauled up on the edge of B-Dump's hopper. He watched the roadsides with the eyes of a cryo-condor, and was quick to pick out Sunspot's yellow paint job as his yell resounded over the crowds. Buffalo Dump grunted an affirmative to his helper, pulling up with a hiss beside the jetformer and his group.

"Free pickup," the garbage mech rumbled, his voice somewhat of a mumble. He was tired after a particularly long day, the daily route littered with trash after a festival event gone wrong. Buffalo Dump hated, hated the pre-rainy festival season sometimes — yeah, the weather was going to be slag in a few months, but that didn't give people the right to pass out everywhere and jump off buildings. He didn't like having to peel fellow Cybertronians off the road and put them in his hopper. "We'll take you anywhere you'd like, no charge."

"We've got a couple in the back already, but the skid's free," said the minibot, giving a friendly smile and pointing with his thumb at said skid. In the days before his time on Earth, Buffalo Dump was far less colourful — black and dull grey was painted over a blocky, hunchbacked-looking alt. The hood was roughly pentagonal in shape, looking from afar like the shape of a cybuffalo's head. Attached to the rear bumper was an industrial skid with railings, repurposed so that larger 'bots could crawl on and not fall off. All they had to do was crawl over said railing.

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And crawl one of them did. Underwire of all the three minibots with Sunspot tripped over her own two peds. Sunspot offered to help her back up but she declined with a wave of her tiny hands.

“It’s okay, I got this, gravity will never keep me down” Underwired blurted as she crawled into the skid. It was an odd thing to say thought Sunspot. She had been saying similarly weird stuff half the night and Sunspot had made note. If Underwire secretly wanted to be a flier, then being sponsored for a frame change just might be her price for backdoor accounting. With her sky blue chassis and distinctly odd curves of essentially a wheel former, Sunspot could not help but judge that maybe Underwire was in the wrong frame.

Haywire, the light green minibot and Misfile the purple one managed to clamber into Buffalo Dump’s altmodes’ bed. Friendly sorts, especially to their own, they started the task of sorting out the other two passengers. Loyalty was another trait Sunspot’s Boss could use and so Sunspot made another note. The Company was always open to the possibility of recruitment for specialist task. Having a readily accessible list of people who might be of use one way or another was beneficial.

Sunspot careful of the Minis, made his way onto the back of the Taxi. While he was much bigger than any of the minibots, he was merely average by cybertronian standards, plus his flier design gave him reasonable agility. He would move onto the skid with Underwire once they were away. “Can you take us to these coordinates” Susnpot rattled off a location in basic – a quick and efficient series of beeps. “But before we get there, can we do a drive by of Mech Dominus? The others and myself are in some need of feel good food, and if you want anything for yourselves, I got that covered”.

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The dump truck rumbled in affirmation. "Sure thing, boss," his baritone voice resonated. "There's one not two breems from — "

"Did...di' some'un say Mech's..." slurred a half-passed out passenger, rousing from his graded stupor with a quick off-on of his optics. "I...I want some Mech D's!"

"I want some — HIC! I want some too!" joined in another passenger, peeling his face off the side of the truck bed from where he'd planted it. "I love their iced-up Energon!"

"We're going to Mecha's?!" yelled someone from the skid. "BEST! TAXI! EVER!"

The truck wiggled slightly as his passengers came alive, literally bouncing up and down at the thought of fast food. Considering some of the...less-than-legal substances he could smell coming from their intakes, the fact they were hungry didn't surprise him. What did was the sudden volume as most of his load chanted, "MECH-A'S! MECH-A'S! MECH-A'S!"

"All right, all right!" B-Dump boomed back, firing up his engine. "One Mech Dominus run, comin' up! Please stop jumpin' in my hopper, that hurts!"

"You heard the mech, calm your afts down!" barked the sky-blue minibot, aiming a kick at a taller 'bot's head and managing to clip it. He'd scrambled back up to the rim of the hopper, perched like a hawk and apparently not afraid of falling. Considering the slow speed all waste-workers were limited to, one might understand why he didn't worry. "Any more and I'll throw you out into traffic! Lead the way, B-Dump!"

There was another cheer from the passengers. People on the side of the road stared.

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Yes, jumping up and down on the back of the big mech was not a good idea. Those minibots were a bad influence after all. It must be their numbers, some exponential effect or something Sunspot didn’t understand. He stopped just in time to notice Underwire going pale in the em field.

“Oh slag”

Nimbly, he dodged tiny bodies, made it back to the skip and aimed Underwire’s head over the side just as she emptied. This only gave the crowd one more thing to be embarrassed about. None of the Minibots were sober enough to be embarrassed about anything.

While holding Underwire’s poor head, Sunspot considered what he would order for the littler people, Happy Meals probably, no, definitely. What toys did they currently offer? He’d probably get a BB2 rodeo tech deck like he always did. Once the mini femme was done, Sunspot got her into a sitting position.

“I’ll make sure you get a drink to wash down the dregs once we get to Mecha’s.”

“Thank you.”

“Done worry, I’m here to look out for you, my prime directive tonight.”

Sunspot turned his attention back to his very generous drivers. “Up in the front, I’m sorry I didn’t catch your names, I’m Sunspot, Blue Sky hurler here is Underwire, green is Haywire and purple is Misfile, say Hi guys and gals.”


Most people wouldn’t peg Sunspot for mob as he acted so nice and friendly, but then most people had no reason to have guns pointed in their face, or prehensile pedes crushing their neck intakes.

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The sky blue minibot was staring at Sunspot with an impressed look. He'd seen 'bots run and help their bar buddies when the tanks got a-pitchin', but damn. The flier moved so fast, the minibot realized he'd forgotten that they could.

When the living lightning bolt addressed those chaperoning him and his crew, the minibot grinned. Moving hand over hand along the edge of the truck, then hauling himself up on the edge of the back, he called back, "Name's Scatterfoot, friend! This big lug here is B-Dump! Don't mind if he's not much of a talker, he has to — oop!"

A sudden turn had the minibot nearly fall from his place and back into the hopper. Her managed to grab the edge, small frame clanging against one of the side walls as he pulled back up. With a sheepish chuckle, he said, "Heh...has to watch the road. We're coming out of the Dead End and into Polyhex proper, so there's always the problem of dodging those late-night clubbers and their folk!"

"Yeah, and it'd help if you were a bit more careful where you perched, Scatter!" the truck rumbled as he made another turn. "You're sitting on my latch!"

"I am?" the minibot called back. He glanced down at where he hung, raising an optical ridge. "Huh, guess I am."

He promptly shuffled over to the edge of the hopper's left side. He clung there as if he were magnetized, either because his arms were or because of a strong grip. His bulky upper frame lent credence to the latter.

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Sunspot was looking forward and saw the turn before B-Dump made it. He leaned to the side almost casually, keeping only one hand loosely upon a rail. He wasn’t quite caring enough to offer anyone help, how would he choose with so many bodies rolling around. A slight smile in his field was all the display Sunspot gave to indicate the stereotypical flier arrogance he barely had.

“Heh, the drunken stumblers always a pain in the aft” Sunspot replied with a laugh. It was one of the few areas where he envied grounders. You know that side to side shuffle two people make when trying to get past each other, try doing that with flying and stall speeds. You so much as clip the other flier, your both in trouble with gravity.

“Gotta ask, what with the free service? Just generous locals doing their duty to their fellow Cybertronians or community service…?” Sunspot shrugged in question. It was an impressive gesture on the small flier since his wings attached at his shoulder, not his back like most.

“Hi Scatterfoot” Chimed in Underwire. “Going to the festival tomorrow?” Since purging her Tank, the minibot was seemingly feeling better. As to the mentioned festival, even Sunspot had no idea.

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"Just community service, sir," said Scatterfoot, his friendly grin cocking upwards as his field radiated with pride. "We feel that the issue of intoxicated and inebriated individuals is too big of a problem in the Dead End — too many try to drive home drunk, or they pass out in the street. It's not a safe place for anyone to be flat on their face, and the drunk tanks are nasty to be thrown into after a particularly rowdy night. B-Dump and I hope that providing the option of a ride home prevents others from making the mistake of — "

He was interrupted by Underwire, and Scatterfoot turned her head to face the little femme. "You bet!" he said, rubbing his hands gleefully. "Ain't no party like a Polyhex party. The Festival of the Sun might have the Vosian skydancer teams, but we've got the craft grade competition. Free samples of local HG everywhere, practically falling from the sky like little raindrops."

The Minibot made a pitter-patter motion with his fingers, holding his hand up and slowly bringing it down with the gesture.

"I plan to take a day off and get nobly overcharged. You should buy a ticket and get in with us, all of you!"