[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]We Don't Taint Fragile Minds With Such Things [ Open ]

[Deleted]

Timeline: Week 2 | Day 4

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     'My gift is Science.'

     Shockwave's optic lit up as he lifted his helm to look around the room. His servo pressed against the slab of stone he had been propped against and stood upright as he tried to figure out what had happened. For a moment he thought he had heard someone, but there was no one there. Was his processor playing tricks on him? He hadn't recalled going offline, through he had been working hard enough and focusing on trying to get things situated in this new 'makeshift' lab of his that perhaps he had simply not realized his system's need for such a basic thing. Or perhaps the notifications that usually popped up to make certain he didn't ignore his frame's needs was another one of those things that had been damaged during the collision course of the Nemesis.

     It was indeed, probable. To think he had gone unscathed outside of a malfunctioning comm link was irrational. 

     He made his way to the other side of the room to the table he had set up for himself with the most simple of supplies. A flat slab of stone lay across two jutting pieces of rock, secured into the grooves that Shockwave had 'delicately' carved into them. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it gave him just enough space to perform necessary tasks. He looked at the tools laid out before him in his organized manner resulting from a form of OCD- easily accessible and able to be replaced when they were no longer needed. Some of the smaller supplies he needed were there, but not everything. He needed to collect other things before he could safely say he had all of his basic necessities. This was lacking.

     This was unacceptable.

     'We can give ourselves to the greater good...'

     Shockwave looked over his shoulder, then followed the gesture by turning the rest of his frame. He started to walk, making his way out the natural 'doorway' and began his hunt for other supplies that had been recovered from the site of their now downed ship. 

[Pyrotech]

Crammed. Crowded.

Supplies were limited. Space even more so. The outpost was overloaded; it had never been designed to hold even a quarter of the mechs that were stationed on the Nemesis.

Yet Pyrotech could honestly say this was the best he'd felt since being back in the back from Australia.

Since he had left Cybertron, it had always been the same. There were no tall spires needing to be designed, no elegant towers standing tall and bright against the sky. Those were not what the Decepticons needed now. What they required of him were bases that could be hidden spaces of operation, built out of the filth of the planet itself and the equally crude materials and items scavenged and stolen the humans.

He had built this space in the backcountry of Oregon out of the absolute minimums offered him and what was left of a barely competent crew. It was the same way he'd set to task in Alaska and Australia. Digging rocks and stones and dirt, stealing from the railways and scrapyards. Creating spaces in which he followed the plans they sent him to the letter.

Before this, the Decepticons had mostly never understood what he managed to actually do with how little he had to work with.

Now they did.

It wasn't just him in the dirt. It was all of them. From the lofty fliers to the lowly Vehicons. Now that the Nemesis rested on the bottom of the ocean...

Pyrotech shook his head, and pushed the desk chair he was sitting on back from the slab of polished stone he'd been working at. The cool blue light of his desk lamp shone down on the schematics in front of him; with the multitude of Vehicons here, for the first time in a long time he could set them to task and get things done rather rapidly.

Shifting his stylus between his fingers, the architect rolled the writing instrument back and forth before he tapped it thoughtfully against his chin. His doors flicked restlessly; he'd been sitting here for the better part of the day designing several more rooms. However, he'd become so hands on over the years -

If you wanted something right, you did it yourself.

Venting out a sigh, he set the stylus into the salvaged metal cylinder that held the rest of his scribing devices. Red and blue bits of glass shifted around and held it in place as he rose to his feet. With a stretch that rattled the ladder on his shoulder, the red mech strode out of his office. Turning, he touched an outer panel, and his office door hissed softly shut behind him.

One of the rare doors in this base. Doors were a luxury here, but one he certainly would not do without himself.

[Sparkplug]

There was more than one type of claustrophobia, Sparkplug decided.

On her journey to the mudball planet she currently called home, she'd been crammed into the cargo space of a relatively tiny freighter. Every corridor in the structure had been sized for the organics that ran it, far too small for even a small Cybertronian like her, and that had left her sitting in the only bay that would fit her, trying not to lose her processor from the oppressive tedium. Plunging through the atmosphere in a barely-functional drop pod had been a welcome novelty by comparison.

This base, in contrast, didn't suffer any such constraints. Plenty of corridors tall enough for mecha considerably larger than she was, and the chambers were larger still. No, the problem with Pyrotech's personal bunker was how hideously crowded it was; she could barely take a step without being in someone's way, the stone echoed to voices and movement in a way that amplified the noise of the shifting crowd, and there were almost no doors in the entire place. The additional accommodation had been hacked out of the walls in haste, and there'd clearly been no time for any trivial amenities, like privacy.

At least Sparkplug had been able to do something about that. Welding some shards of scrap together into a rudimentary door panel wasn't too hard, and she'd drilled sockets in the stone for a crude bar hinge. Painfully crude, but it'd do.

If only the other mecha would stop stealing them.

"Hey!" Sparkplug said sharply, as she heard the scrape of metal on stone, and caught sight of the door to her little cell wobbling from the corner of her optic. "If I come on out there and find one more of you glitch-eating, rusty-mouthed, tin-plated spawn of scraplets trying to steal my door again, I'm going to weld your aft to the wall. You hear me? I mean it! I've got the welding torch right here!"

This particular door was her third, the other two having mysteriously disappeared, and she'd had to go out on patrol and find a burned-out old pickup truck to carve up to get the raw materials for it - the base and its immediate environs were almost entirely bereft of scrap after ten cycles of bored scavengers grabbing everything they could find. Unhooking the bar latch, she pulled the door inwards, and looked out. Plenty of vehicons moving around, but none that stuck out. With a quiet growl of annoyance, she pushed the door shut again. 

Even Sparkplug's famously sunny disposition was becoming a little strained.

With the door panel closed, it was dim inside. Light leaked around the edges, where she hadn't yet gotten around to smoothing the metal. Sparkplug sat down on the rough ledge of rock that served as her recharging slab, tense and irritable, and tried not to dwell on how tiny and cramped the little roughly-chiselled space was.

She failed. With an impatient sound, Sparkplug pushed herself to her peds again, and tugged the door panel open once more. Maybe a walk around the base would burn off some of her anxious irritability, even if it was through the midst of a crowd. Oddly enough, however, when she stepped out into the corridor, it was to find it was abruptly deserted.

Thank Primus, she thought to herself, pulling the panel closed behind her. Some space for her vents to take in the air. Overcome by relief, she failed to make the next logical conclusion: if the corridor was empty, it was because some mecha was coming that the vehicons did not want to meet.

[Deleted]

     There was a storage facility here, but where? The vehicons had been gathering what they could find from the wreckage and bringing it to the location. Though... where was it?

     Shockwave had chose a spot at the far end of the complex so he could have as much privacy as was allowed without having his secrets hidden behind a door. There were no regrets with that decision, though he did find that this facility did not have the best as far as layouts were concerned. He usually didn't have such issues with finding places, but then again, he was much more used to the organization he had within his lab. He'd only been to a handful of new locations, but most of his time was spent locked away within his inner sanctuary, held up in the comfortable nest he made for himself, away from prying eyes and annoyances. 

     There things had a place, a purpose, a home of their own. Here it was chaos. Illogical, mindless, senseless chaos.

     Now he seemed to...

     'Where?'

     Shockwave paused in the hallway at a 'T' intersection and looked to the right in an attempt to place himself. That direction lead to a dead end, so the only option was to take the left. He went in that direction, until he found himself at a four way. He decided to go straight, figuring that if this was not the right direction he could merely turn around and try a different path. It was time consuming and mildly irritating to do, though there was something within him that just would not ask for assistance with finding something.

     'My anger has gotten me into trouble in the past...'
     'My gift is Science.'

     There was a voice that distracted him, ringing in his audials and alerting him that the once deserted hallway was no longer being filled with merely the hefty thuds of his own steps. 

     'You remain my brightest hope.'
     "I'm going to weld your aft to the wall."
     'Hope...'
     "I've got the welding torch right here!"

     The crimson optic glowed like a target within the darkness that shrouded the hallway, seen much sooner than Shockwave's frame as the dim lights barely kissed the eerily clean, polished frame of the scientist. He paused, lingering in the shadows just enough to keep himself from being entirely seen, even though none would mistaken who it was. He merely tilted his helm downwards towards Sparkplug, regarding her silently.

[Pyrotech]

Once he moved quietly down the hall Pyrotech only saw a few Vehicons who lurked at the edge of the corridor full of hacked out, crude doorways. They eyed him and then disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared. It was a skill practiced by even the most dull and dumb of workers; disappear quickly and appear to be busy so that you didn't have to get assigned to actually work.

It irritated Pyrotech on a deep level. He'd dealt with the detritus of the Decepticons as far as workers went. So often they spent more time and effort shirking work that they worked harder than if they'd merely gone and done the task asked of them. However, they were not his troops or directly under his personal command. If they had been, he would have set them digging immediately.

Mostly because this outpost was never meant to hold this many troops. They needed to get quarters built, and they needed them done quickly. Before they had one more mech
dredged out of the ocean.

In the mood he was in, Pyrotech would have dryly suggested they toss them right back in until there was space.

Even though the architect prided himself on being prepared for something that utterly came out of left field this had admittedly thrown him. Yes, this disgusting little planet loved to toss everything it could at him. Snow, heat, rain, floods, plants, even the ever-present Earth wildlife that apparently had a death wish and fried themselves attempting to chew through every insulated wire in a remote base.

This particular moment though? The grand Decepticon flagship on the bottom of the ocean?The entirety of the ship based out of an outpost he'd cobbled together for other reasons? Starscream taking command?

Well, two out of three wouldn't have occurred to him. Starscream had simply been patiently biding his time.

As the architect rounded the curve of the corridor, a figure appeared at the end of the hall. The pale lights inset in the bands of red stone touched on their plating; this was certainly not one of the Vehicon grunts.

White and green, small-framed, but not thin. An oddly long, slender arm. Six wheels were obvious. There were curves that the red mech's gaze touched on, and his red optics narrowed slightly in thought, even as the sleek doors behind his shoulders lifted ever so slightly to match his contemplation before they settled.

A grounder? Interesting...

There weren't many of them. He and his crew had always been rare in that regard. More grounders than fliers, and he preferred it that way. Far easier to disguise yourself, and certainly easier to work your way into the heart of human cities to scavenge- and he'd done a lot of that since he'd been on Earth.

A second later, the shadows in front of the unknown mech shifted, revealing a shimmer of purple, and a single, glowing red optic.

Pyrotech only took one more step before he came to a halt.

There was no mistaking who was in front of both himself and the unknown mech.

"Commander Shockwave," he said politely in greeting, his quiet, urbane accent touching every word. "Good evening."

[Sparkplug]

It took a moment for what she was seeing to sink in.

Sparkplug was just beginning to idly wonder where all the vehicons had gone off to, when she noticed a red light glowing high up one wall from the corner of her optic. Some kind of attention-all-hands signal? Evacuation drill? Pausing, she looked up at it with mild interest.

The red light was in some sort of housing. In fact, there was some large, bulky structure there that she didn't remember. It was-

Shockwave.

A flash of total surprise lit Sparkplug's field like a signal flare, her fuel pump spooling up to full, fight-or-flight output with a whine that was almost audible outside her chest.

Shockwave, the terrible genius, master of space-time reconstruction. Physics, biology, metallurgy, computing – his relentless intellect had conquered one after another, often while kidnapping and dismantling any mecha that stood in his way. Or happened to be nearby and unlucky when there was an interesting theory to test. She'd read his every paper on weapons design and energy collimation, putting his insights to work in the design and construction of her own particle cannon.

He was staring at her.

Sparkplug's grasp of cursing, her very own specialist subject, momentarily deserted her.

Eeeek.

"Shockwave, sir!" she burst out, in a slightly higher pitch than usual. "It's an honour! A deeply terrifying honour." Wincing slightly at her unintentional honestly, Sparkplug rushed onwards, "Research Officer Sparkplug, sir, weapons development. I've read all your papers. Well, not all your papers, you sure do cover a lot of different fields, but all the ones pertaining to my work. Particularly compact particle acceleration."

Reaching across her chest with her right hand, she tapped her fingers on her unnaturally lengthy left arm, and added slightly awkwardly, "Particle cannon. My design." It was merely a coincidence that it happened to be her left arm, as his was. Hopefully he wouldn't take it as a deliberate mimicking of his structure, that would be weird and embarrassing for everyone. Except for him, because embarrassment was an emotion and he didn't really have any relation to things like that.

Utterly focused on the mech in front of her, she didn't hear Pyrotech's approach – only when he greeted Shockwave did she belatedly register they were no longer alone. Twisting to one side, she beheld the slim, red-plated mech, and after an instant's scrambling, recognised him from description as the architect of the base they were standing in.

"Er, hi. Sir. Sparkplug. Research officer. Weapons designer. Nice to meet you," she said quickly. She didn't quite dare to look back up at Shockwave yet. Was she interrupting business between the two of them? Or had either of them come looking for her specifically? Considering her fabrication abilities, it was plausible that Pyrotech might want her to help out with some of the more fine-grained improvements to the base, and it wasn't like she was doing anything important with her time. Shockwave, on the other hand – he definitely didn't know who she was. Right?

With uncharacteristic meekness, she stepped back slightly and kept her mouth shut. If either of them wanted something, she was there, and if not – it was better not to intrude too heavily.

[Deleted]

     Shockwave merely stood there, letting the femme go on with her chatter. He only picked up the important notes, which were limited to her designation and field of study. The rest of what she was saying was lost to him, not because she was talking too fast and putting in far too much for him to take in, but rather because it was just that unimportant. She lifted her left arm to show off the weapon she had designed on her own, and was instantly reminded of Knock Out and Starscream. Their way of shoving their plans or creations in the faces of others as if wanting some sort of praise to stroke their egos was an annoyance to Shockwave, and it was no less annoying having it done to him again by this femme- even if not within the same capacity. Not that it would show on his face or body language.

     Though he did thank a higher power when Pyrotech arrived on the scene, which allowed him to turn his attention to the red mech as he made his way to them. Shockwave knew this architect through his work, including the facility they were currently all being temporarily housed in while their next course of action was being planned out. 

     Which, considering Starscream was at the helm, would probably be chaotic and a mess of a failure to most likely leave them in a worse situation than they were in currently. As was Starscream's way.

     "Pyrotech," he regarded the other mech with a slight nod of his helm. The movement of the femme to blend into the background did not go unnoticed and he glanced to her briefly before again turning to the mech. "The accommodations that you have provided us during this time of uncertainty have been duly appreciated. Your reputation has preceded you, as was expected." Shockwave may have been the terror of the Decepticons, but he was not above giving someone their dues for their diligence. Frankly, with what little supplies Pyrotech was more than likely allowed, the fact he was able to come up with this structure was something Shockwave could appreciate. He had been there before.

     "I do believe proper introductions and praise are in order...by all within the faction. As is owed to you." Shockwave turned his helm towards Sparkplug again, regarding her fully now with an air of expectation. If she was going to be here and present herself properly before a mech who had opened his facility to them, he would expect that she would have enough sense to assign a mech of what Shockwave felt was useful caliber, a decent introduction and her own thanks. The firmness of how he spoke 'all', should have clicked enough, but if he needed to actually be more vocal about what he expected of someone who prided herself on having read through his manuscripts, he would.

[Pyrotech]

Of all the mechs who could have thanked him, this one meant the most to Pyrotech. Shockwave would not go out of his way to throw flowerly praise for the sake of saying words. That would be a waste of his time, a waste of his energy. The commander was not the sort who was interested in courting allies. He was not the sort to chatter aimlessly about the way the arch held up the great hall - he was simply noting a fact.

Pyrotect utterly appreciated it. He'd heard enough idle yammering to last him a lifetime.

All of those years of being sent into some of the roughest places on Earth. Given the most useless of teams and struggling to make things work, to use a crew that had no skills and even less sense. Digging his way through permafrost and stone, pulling and building and surviving an Alaskan winter with little help from the Nemesis.

That base was still there, buried and hidden. The one in Australia he wasn't sure about, and frankly, he did not care. He didn't go back to failure. There was no point. That place could sag and rot and hopefully some nosy neutral would be poking around it at the time the roof fell in. Preferably with tons of stone sliding in the hole after.

He shook himself quickly out of those thoughts and returned to the present.

"Thank you," he said quietly, and dipped his helm respectfully towards Shockwave. "I am glad that my assignment has proven useful. It at least will provide some haven for those misplaced until we can right the Nemesis."

For someone who spent long hours underground, hard at work, the architect was surprisingly clean. Very little dust or dirt speckled his glossy frame; even the ladder that folded behind his shoulder was silver and sleek.

Then he turned slightly and focused on Sparkplug once again, noting that she had ducked aside and grown silent. A silent feeling of approval touched his observation; there was no brash shove, no interjection between him and Shockwave.

"Forgive my interruption - Miss Sparkplug, correct?" he murmured. The mech ducked his helm a bit towards her as well, lifting his dark hand in polite apology.

"I did not mean to intrude on your conversation here, but your name is familiar. Commander Starscream did mention you the other day. He told me your skills would be useful. Under the circumstances, I would take all the help anyone had to offer."

He paused and shook his head. "Unfortunately, with everything going on, I haven't had time to sit down and go through all the personnel files now piled on my slab."

A tired but amiable smile crossed his features as he looked at Sparkplug. Soft crimson optics glowed from the shadows of his helm. "Meeting you is a pleasure as well."

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug blinked, taken slightly aback by Shockwave's clear instruction to introduce herself again, but with more detail and considerably more gratitude. It wasn't that it was unreasonable, merely unexpected – but hardly something she'd object to. They did all owe Pyrotech, who'd been in exactly the right circumstances to provide a back-up base of operations.

Her attention turned to the architect, as his turned to her. Miss Sparkplug – now there was a bit of formal manners that she hadn't run into in a long time. In fact, as his soft-spoken words went on, she found herself concluding that he was rather charming. The contrast against Shockwave's monocular glowering mass couldn't have been more stark.

"You didn't intrude at all, sir," she replied politely, with perhaps a shade more formality than she'd usually exhibit. "It was just a chance meeting in the corridor; it's nice to meet you at last. We do all owe you a debt for setting up this place and giving shelter to our forces here."

Lord Starscream had mentioned her? That was nice of him. He really was a considerate leader, she thought. "Yes, I'm Sparkplug. Usually I'd be doing weapons research and prototyping, but given the treaty, I've got my hands free until Lord Starscream chooses to put salvage operations into effect. I have an extensive collection of on-board tools; I'd be happy to work on any improvements or reconstruction needed here."

A building project might be exactly the thing to dispel the sense of boredom hanging about the place, and it really was the least she could do under the circumstances.

[Deleted]

     Pyrotech had received his thanks from Shockwave, and the push from him had gotten a proper one from Sparkplug. He observed the interaction between them, taking in everything from body language to tones. While the two conversed, Shockwave returned to the musings of his task he had begun before being derailed by the interaction. He was so used to being safely recluse in his lab that this put him in a position that would have been more than just slightly uncomfortable. 

     Back then, this would have been an ideal situation for him. To be in the middle of a conversation like this, from listening to the amazing intellect of a mech he rarely saw to the colorful words and slang used by this femme he knew little about would have been an opportunity of a lifetime, an enjoyable chance to cut back and relax. Now? It was merely a bothersome waste of time. Enjoyment was something he didn't feel anymore. He had all of forgotten what that even was.

     On the matter of things that were forgotten- the Nemesis did briefly cross his processor. He didn't know if the Nemesis was even capable of being salvaged, though he had come to realize that it seemed that nothing were impossible. The Nemesis had gone down, the Autobots seemed to have one up on them, and Starscream had taken command of the Decepticons in place of Megatron's sudden disappearance.

     He had a feeling Megatron wouldn't be gone for long. It always seemed that when things were at the bottom of the basin, something happened that rose them to the surface again. They weren't down and out, even with the last of them standing. That was for certain.

     So, he stood there, silent and watching the pair still- thinking of other things, though keeping his audials keenly trained on the conversation.