Scavenger Hunt (Closed, Zoom Zoom) - Ep. 1.5

[Deleted]

Week 2, Day 7

Rook caught himself pacing for the nth time, and stopped himself dead. He leaned a hand on the nearest wall and slowly, forcibly, blew a soundless sigh of cool air through each of his vents.

The exercise, as ever it did, grounded him; however, it failed to soothe him and he found himself leaning his forehead against the wall, optics half-shuttered into something awfully close to a scowl. For pity's sake, this was supposed to be his off time. He ought to have been recharging. But his restless legs were speaking for his restless fingers, which were just a reflection of his restless mind. This buddy system thing was driving him glitched, and there were only so many times a body could (or should) be willing to try to skulk out. Rook had no intention of getting punishment detail just because of an excess of restive energy.

He found his fingers drumming on the wall, a precursor to the whole pacing thing, and pushed himself impatiently off, choosing to move on his own towards the center of the base, perhaps to find some work there, or someone to give him a chore or twenty. There had to be something he could do; anything, up to and including something unwise.

It wouldn't have been so much of a problem if he'd had something to do, but his oddbit supply was woefully depleted - another victim of the Buddy System. Sensible as it was, the Prime's order was cramping his style very thoroughly. The fact it was an order was writ large in the assassin's main processor, and while Rook would have worked his way around Red's security (as best he could) without a second thought... or perhaps a third one, he was not so much a rogue that he'd eschew the Prime's word without an exceptionally good reason.

He wandered into the base's main rec area and paused, as acquired instinct told him to, to measure the large open area, its contents, its inhabitants and its potential threats. As a conscious thought, he also looked about for any way to release some of that restless energy before it got him in trouble.

Not that he expected to be so lucky.

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom was trying, alright?

Day two after 'let's break Prime's ceiling' and he was not somewhere deep in the bowels of the base where no one could find him. He'd come in to grab some energon in the rec room and then instead of retreating to a hidey hole, he'd...lingered. Ugh.

The minibot had tucked himself into a corner of the rec room. He'd also picked a spot that slightly obscured him from view, several make-shift chairs, former crates actually, were in front of him and he'd settled on the floor, hunched up tight. So yes, he wasn't really going out to make himself noticeable or approachable and no one had come over to speak to him but, you know, one step at a time.

It was a miracle enough that he was sticking around in the rec room.

The minibot had noticed Rook's entrance, since he was keeping an optic on who was coming and leaving the room but had otherwise made no reaction to it. He'd slightly adjusted his head so he could observe the other spook better. Zoom-Zoom hadn't really seen much of the other mech around base but didn't think that was surprising, spooks tended to lay low if they could. The minibot figured Rook was here either for some energon or to socialize or whatever other things mecha used the rec room for and so his attention soon drifted off.

[Deleted]

There were optics on him.

Rook stopped moving mid-step; his foot came down slowly and his head dropped a notch. It took a moment to remember that he was in the veritable nerve center of Omega Base, in the safest place (so to speak) that the planet could provide.

It didn't make much difference to him. His frame stayed loose simply out of acquired habit, just in case an attack came his way. His helm turned slowly, trying to pinpoint the source of that prickling feel.

He cocked a brow as he saw the barely-there minibot behind his Crate Fortress. His optics skated over the makeshift chairs and the rather innocuous barrier they presented. "That bodes well," he said softly, not unkindly.

Zoom Zoom's luck had been... less than stellar, and the rumor mill had not missed out on the opportunity. It had to rankle on a spook, to be talked about, let alone that particular breed of talking. Which meant, the ever-mercenary part of his mind said, that Zoom Zoom might be just as desperate to get out as Rook himself was.

Rook tapped his fingers briefly against one hip, then pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Come on, Red, saddle up. You can be my buddy for the night and we can both be anywhere but here. Unless you'd rather tempt the natives to show up and get vocally restless?"

[Deleted]

Whoa-hold up-what..?

Rook was heading towards him.

Behind his visor, Zoom-Zoom's optics had narrowed at the other mech's approach. Why was Rook coming towards him, what need would the other spook have of him? Unless it was more mystery signals out in the middle of Primus knows where that needed more investigating…?

But if it was something of that nature, Zoom-Zoom was pretty sure that Rook wouldn't have gone out of his way to track the minibot down when a simple comm call would be suffice. It would also be far more inconspicuous than a pair of spooks out in the open.

The minibot wasn't sure what to expect but Rook's offer surprised him. Behind his visor, Zoom-Zoom's optics widened. To get out- leave the Omega base-

Zoom-Zoom had kept close to the base since the disastrous outing that had ended with Megatron and a set of busted limbs. Then the buddy system had come into place and so stuck at the Omega base it was. There was no one the minibot had felt comfortable reaching out to when the walls became too much for him. Hence why he usually headed down and deeper into the silo.

But Rook had gone ahead and asked him. Zoom-Zoom hadn't had to reach out at all.

He could be out there, away from the base and its many optics and the countless rules and regulations that were doing his head in.

But-

"That depends," Zoom-Zoom replied dryly, giving Rook a suspicious squint. "Mirage isn't behind this request, is he?"

[Deleted]

"Mirage isn't behind this request, is he?"

A low, amused sound escaped Rook quietly, and he shook his head, giving Zoom Zoom the briefest of straight looks before his optics skittered onwards as if distracted. "Red, you're going to have to figure out that Mirage can't get to everyone. And that if he could, it ought to behoove you to start collecting your own proxies and debts."

He waved a hand lightly, as if dismissing the issue altogether. "But that choice's on you. I meant what I said; you're sick of walls, I'm sick of walls, and we can't get out alone. Now I've a trip or six in mind."

The assassin turned around and began to walk calmly towards the exit ramp. "If you want to tag along, that makes us both in the clear in more ways than one. But believe you me, Red, I'm getting itchy enough that I am going out, one way or another."

He looked over one shoulder and pointed towards the distant promise of roads, dying light and freedom. "Coming?"

[Deleted]

"Suspicion," Zoom-Zoom retorted, "Is healthy. Living in terror is good for the spark or something. Especially when it comes to people in our line of work."

He arched an unseen optic ridge, watching as Rook headed towards the exit. The other mech really wanted out, huh. Zoom-Zoom slowly pulled himself up and slunk out of his crate fort. The minibot shot the rec room a bemused look.

"On the contrary, I love walls," he said blandly. "Walls are great. It's the people they come with I'm really not fond of."

Coming?

Zoom-Zoom rubbed his chin contemplatively. He set off after Rook. "I'm coming but I reserve the right to go home at the slightest sign of any danger. Any trouble? Boom, I'm out."

[Deleted]

"--I reserve the right to go home at the slightest sign of danger."

Rook had had his share of such answers in his life, either given to him or by him. Mostly he was given a few snickers; occasionally he was lectured on duty above safety.

He kept his optics on the goal ahead of them while he comm'd the system and logged their outing, and gave Zoom Zoom's words measured thought.

"Fair enough", he answered at last. "Unless we somehow run into a bout of massive bad luck, it should be safe. Sneaky, but safe."

Warmer, drier air began to wisp over Rook's armor, and he folded down into his alt-mode. Outside the sky was painted in the same red paintjob as the desert, and just the feeling of settling down on his tires eased the assassin's mind immensely.

"I'm going shopping." His tone became wry. "But I won't even ask you to carry my bags. Fair?"

[Deleted]

"'m finding that this planet easily has the capacity to generate massive amounts of Megatron shaped bad-luck out of nowhere," Zoom-Zoom grumbled as he trailed behind the other spook. "'s what I thought last time, oh it'll be safe. I can be sneaky. Next thing I know, I'm playing hide n seek in the dark with the slagmaker himself."

Once outside, Zoom-Zoom didn't waste any time folding down into his alt-mode. He perked slightly when Rook mentioned what this trip would be about. "Seems fair," he replied. "What's on the list tonight?"

[Deleted]

"Don't I hear that." Mindful of the new distance between them, Rook spoke both aloud and over comms, both to continue the conversation and to keep its casual tone. Roadside gravel crunched briefly under his tires until they found the cracked blacktop of the road.

Despite his earlier tension, he did not immediately accelerate; for one, he would have left his escort behind (rude) and for another, Rook hadn't been looking to race, just to get out.

"What's on the list tonight?"

Even as he sedately made his way onwards, slowly picking up the pace to just under the speed limit, Rook went over his own local map and pinpointed on it the places he meant to hit. It was a somewhat flattened, twisty loop that started at a junkyard a little over an hour away from the base turn-off, and would end at a metal-recovery facility. There was the immediate instinct to hoard, to keep his secrets, the carefully assembled list of sites capable of supporting his scavenging, but Rook counted that particular slice of information worth the getting out of base without an issue.

He volleyed the data to Zoom Zoom, though it did not show the sum total of places - only those they'd be hitting on this one trip. "Anything and everything I can get my hands on. If you find it, and can use it, hey, it's yours as well. Mostly smelting scrap - rare metals, maybe the heavier stuff. Reagents and acids, inert gases. I wouldn't be opposed to finding a few old TVs or something painted garish and old, eith..."

Rook trailed off as he drove, and his tone when he spoke again was, perhaps, a little sheepish; he'd been so used to running to the same mental lists, but alone, that he'd forgotten the current company was not a scientist. "... Did I make any sense just now?"

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom casually trundled after the other Autobot as they hit the tarmac. He had no desire to go barrelling down the road at high speeds like some of the other, more sportier Autobots. Doing just under the limit was perfectly fine with him, it was his preference really. When out from the safety of the Omega base, Zoom-Zoom naturally gravitated to behaviour that would keep a low profile.

He accepted the datafile Rook has sent him and went over its contents. He doubted that this was the total of Rook's scavenging locations. Like any good spook the mech would surely have more and would hand out the bare minimum of information necessary, if he could avoid it. If so, the minbiot didn't begrudge him his secrets. Zoom-Zoom would not give away all the hiding locations he knew about in the Omega base if someone straight up asked him.

The minibot listened to Rook ramble as he went over their route. His interest perked when Rook mentioned that he was looking for scrap metal and reagents. For a moment, his memory wavered and threatened to intrude -Topshot gleefully recounting a list of items to pick up for Vibes whenever they made a scavenging run. Last on the list was always a request for cesium, not from Vibes though the cohort leader certainly had an unhealthy fondness for the stuff but from Topshot, a running joke because the only way they ever got that was through command. Topshot thought it was the height of hilarity to keep sneaking it back onto the list - but Zoom-Zoom forced his past back into the deepest, darkest corners of his processor. The voice was different, even if the words were familiar and that helped him keep his focus. He wavered to the side on the road as his attention lapsed in distraction, before he regained control of himself and corrected his path.

"... Did I make any sense just now?"

"...yes," Zoom-Zoom answered after long moment, his voice a little flat and distracted. His cohort leader had been a chemist turned demolitionist and Vibes had seen fit to tutor the rest of the group in the science behind the explosives and chemical weapons that Vibes liked to create and use. While Zoom-Zoom ordinarily didn't care for the theory of why something worked, other than it just did, he did sit-up and pay attention when the lesson in question related to blowing something up. That was something he could fully get behind.

"You're looking for chemicals," he added. "Materials though what for, I couldn't even begin to guess."

No, wait. Zoom-Zoom's memory skipped backwards over his time on Earth. Safer thoughts, nothing there that could trip him up.

"What am I saying, you gave me some of your tricks. Earth materials and hand made, right?" He hummed absently as he went over the items Rook had given him. Yeah, that stuff probably came from scavenging runs just like this one.

[Deleted]

He'd tapped a wire.

Rook had not missed the change in tone, or the minibot's barely-there swerve. He wasn't sure which part of his ramble, or if the ramble itself, had tripped that wire, but either or had done the trick. And from what little Rook had seen of the minibot spook, that trip-wire had been buried deep to begin with.

A thought for another time.

"Got it in one." Rook's ton stayed mild, amused, and seemingly unaware of Zoom-Zoom's misstep. It was not an act he expected would fool the minibot, but it was offered as a courtesy.

"Honestly, I don't know what use to most of what I find. I have a few tricks set to the rulebook so far, and you've taken benefit from a couple, but more often than not it's impulse-shopping. That, and humans are so... wasteful."

The first ride didn't take them far. It was a straight shot on a cracked road that saw next to no use, to a salvage yard where the wrecks of the surrounding towns came to rust away. Rook had looked (briefly) into the place's records and found that almost no one paid the exorbitant fees needed to recover the carcasses towed into the place; by default, no money went into anything resembling security, or maintenance. Or a fence. Or lights. Or even a dog.

"So I just prowl, and gather, and see what I make of it." Rook killed his headlights and bled speed until his engine was barely making a sound, gravel crunching very quietly under his tires. "Earth's actually good for that - time for thinking. Why, did you have any requests?"

[Deleted]

Zoom-Zoom had forced his processor onwards hurriedly. He was fine, he was fine, he wasn't thinking about the things he wasn't thinking about. It would only drag him downwards and into an endless spiral of things he wasn't going to think about. Because he wasn't. Nuhuh.

It had been so much easier to do this when he was on his own and not in the company of his own kind. He could cope with his loses then and in the ways that he wanted to (denialdenialdenialdenial). People had this irritating habit of, of, of... being people and they'd talk to Zoom-Zoom, sometimes asking him probing questions into his life or behave in a particular way that would inevitably spark a memory of things he still wasn't thinking about.

It was just utterly aggravating.

But this wasn't Rook's fault. Zoom-Zoom spent several moments on fuming at himself and didn't pay much attention to the other mech. Thus it escaped his notice that Rook was attempting to allow him some dignity.

He tuned in when the other spook started talking about the tools of the trade. Zoom-Zoom hadn't expected Rook to find a lot useful from the trash the humans threw out and wasn't unduly surprised. You could easily find all kinds of useful things from garbage, Zoom-Zoom would be the first to tell anyone, but that usefulness tended to be species specific. He'd know, it was how he'd survived back on Cybertron past.

It wasn't long before they reached their first destination. The minibot hadn't come this way before, his enthusiasm for venturing out and exploring the home turf had been severely curtailed after that disastrous outing that had placed him in Megatron's path. His interest stirred briefly at the sight of the wrecks but it was more idle curiosity at something new than genuine concern.

"Me?" one could almost hear the shrug in the minibot's voice. "I have a lot of requests. Plenty of them, really. Are they realistic and within the conceivable scope of this evening? Nope, nada."

He followed Rook's lead and turned off his headlights and decelerated as they pulled in. "I mean, I could go for a side helping of galactic peace and guaranteed personal longevity but something tells me, this place is all out on that."

[Deleted]

The salvage yard's fence had long ago given up its battle; the short poles of it still stood, wherever the desert wind had not dug away until their concrete foundations could be attacked, but both the slate and the chain-link were long gone to dust. Most of the yard stood on an artificial gravel plateau, and while at some point an effort had been made to line up the wrecks in something resembling order, eventually the place had become a meandering maze of narrow 'streets' shaped by wrecks piled two and three high.

"Life never comes with guarantees anyways." Rook rolled sedately through such alleys, slow, cautious but not worried. A tall pole nearby should have lit him bright as a beacon, but the spotlights on it had died so long ago it was entirely possible the Cybertronians hadn't even been on Earth at the time. He was seeking out the newer arrivals. "And there's plenty of ways to get an astrosecond here, an astrosecond there; get enough of those, you suddenly have another vorn."

It was a lesson deeply ingrained in Rook, for all intents and purposes writ so forcefully into his psyche that it might as well be part of his baseline code: always hold on, always hold out for change. Guards get sloppy, buildings get attacked, interrogators get tired. Something always changes; something always brings new opportunity vectors around, eventually.

"And as long as you don't want something radioactive, hey, might as well shoot for the moon. Ah, here we are." Rook rolled to a stop, the brief sounds of his passage sending a possum skittering away in a waddling hurry. Under dim starlight, the new line of wreckage shone rather than rusted, and the assassin unfolded himself neatly to a crouch. "Not that I can't get isotopes, but that's an actual favor, you know?" His smile flashed in the dim light of his optics. "Sounds like Mirage and you already know all about favors, too."