Ep. 2 - Strange Attractors - (Closed)
Jun 24, 2015 23:29:06 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2015 23:29:06 GMT -5
Set on Day 2, Week 2, shortly after Binding Ties!
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They had given him a scope to scan the ruins with.
Yep. A scope.
REALLY?
It made him want to drop his face into his palm. It really did. Who had cleared that piece of valuable kit to be removed from the armoury, and then deliberately tagged his number to it? Were they not thinking? Had they just forgotten? Ugh.
Primus.
The robot scowled and returned the useless scoped - scoped! - rifle to his back. Magnetic clips fastened it snugly between his shoulders and the wings of his alternate mode. He jostled it once to check the clips, because no matter how much he disdained the thing he did not want to be the one who lost it in the ruins. Only when he was certain that it was secure did he carefully shuffle backwards from the ledge of the bombed-out skyrise, his hands nervously extended for balance. Bits of crushed cerulean glass crunched under his feet.
So. No-joy on the scope, obviously. If something was alive out there, then he had not seen it. Luckily his controller had given him a set of coordinates to follow when the teleportation had been pinpointed. And once he got closer to that site, well-
If anything was there, he would detect it.
Maybe.
If it was moving.
If it was moving in a non-aggressive way that didn't end in piece of rebar being swung into his head shortly before his face was stomped in.
The robot sighed gloomily, and counted his steps in the privacy of his head.
Eight running strides carried him back to the edge of the building, where he awkwardly leapt into flight. His thrusters cast a glowing blue light trail behind him as he lofted over the ruins of Translucentica Heights, over the ashen grey remains of what had once been a district of privilege and opulence. He allowed himself to feel a little smug as he imagined how bleak and devastated it must now look. Suck it, Towerlings. You had all died as horribly as the rest of us. How about that.
He only clipped two other buildings and a shattered overpass on the inbound route to the teleportation site, which for him was kind of an improvement.
----
The climb from the skeletal holoboard to the tower had been precarious. Metal had creaked and groaned beneath every handhold, every shift of his weight and every sway of his body. When he had made the jump to the gaping hole in the tower the scaffolding had shuddered and collapsed upon itself with a one final screech as the last of the bolts fastening it to the side of the building had given way. With roaring speed the wreckage had plummeted down into the rubble, where it had smashed into the glass remains of a skyway before disappearing within a cloud of dust.
It had taken a long time for the distant crash that announced it had finally hit the street far below.
Judging by the sound, he was a long way up. Thirty stories, maybe.
But Wheeljack was alive.
And he was on Cybertron. What was left of it.
He stood in what had once been a rather nice suite. It was empty now, stripped by looters or worse. The windows were broken, iron glass shards like teeth in empty frames, and the floor was coated in a thick blanket of grey dust and ash. Jagged cracks ran up the walls and across the ceiling, from which spilt loops of torn electrical and fibre optic wiring. The only light that illuminated the space was what little starlight fell in through the massive hole in the wall.
The door to the corridor outside the suite was partly ajar. Looked like someone had once broken the locks and forced their way inside. Looters, probably. Or worse.
There was always a worse.
A cool wind blew through the shattered windows, and through the gaping hole. All was eerily quiet. For now.
--------
They had given him a scope to scan the ruins with.
Yep. A scope.
REALLY?
It made him want to drop his face into his palm. It really did. Who had cleared that piece of valuable kit to be removed from the armoury, and then deliberately tagged his number to it? Were they not thinking? Had they just forgotten? Ugh.
Primus.
The robot scowled and returned the useless scoped - scoped! - rifle to his back. Magnetic clips fastened it snugly between his shoulders and the wings of his alternate mode. He jostled it once to check the clips, because no matter how much he disdained the thing he did not want to be the one who lost it in the ruins. Only when he was certain that it was secure did he carefully shuffle backwards from the ledge of the bombed-out skyrise, his hands nervously extended for balance. Bits of crushed cerulean glass crunched under his feet.
So. No-joy on the scope, obviously. If something was alive out there, then he had not seen it. Luckily his controller had given him a set of coordinates to follow when the teleportation had been pinpointed. And once he got closer to that site, well-
If anything was there, he would detect it.
Maybe.
If it was moving.
If it was moving in a non-aggressive way that didn't end in piece of rebar being swung into his head shortly before his face was stomped in.
The robot sighed gloomily, and counted his steps in the privacy of his head.
Eight running strides carried him back to the edge of the building, where he awkwardly leapt into flight. His thrusters cast a glowing blue light trail behind him as he lofted over the ruins of Translucentica Heights, over the ashen grey remains of what had once been a district of privilege and opulence. He allowed himself to feel a little smug as he imagined how bleak and devastated it must now look. Suck it, Towerlings. You had all died as horribly as the rest of us. How about that.
He only clipped two other buildings and a shattered overpass on the inbound route to the teleportation site, which for him was kind of an improvement.
----
The climb from the skeletal holoboard to the tower had been precarious. Metal had creaked and groaned beneath every handhold, every shift of his weight and every sway of his body. When he had made the jump to the gaping hole in the tower the scaffolding had shuddered and collapsed upon itself with a one final screech as the last of the bolts fastening it to the side of the building had given way. With roaring speed the wreckage had plummeted down into the rubble, where it had smashed into the glass remains of a skyway before disappearing within a cloud of dust.
It had taken a long time for the distant crash that announced it had finally hit the street far below.
Judging by the sound, he was a long way up. Thirty stories, maybe.
But Wheeljack was alive.
And he was on Cybertron. What was left of it.
He stood in what had once been a rather nice suite. It was empty now, stripped by looters or worse. The windows were broken, iron glass shards like teeth in empty frames, and the floor was coated in a thick blanket of grey dust and ash. Jagged cracks ran up the walls and across the ceiling, from which spilt loops of torn electrical and fibre optic wiring. The only light that illuminated the space was what little starlight fell in through the massive hole in the wall.
The door to the corridor outside the suite was partly ajar. Looked like someone had once broken the locks and forced their way inside. Looters, probably. Or worse.
There was always a worse.
A cool wind blew through the shattered windows, and through the gaping hole. All was eerily quiet. For now.