We are a literate, intermediate to advanced AU Transformers RPG Based off of the first season of TFP with dashes of other incarnations sprinkled here or there. Characters from any continuity are welcome however must be restyled to match the TFPrime universe.
Active, with ongoing plotlines, we are always willing to integrate new characters into storylines once incorporated into the setting.
Cleaver glanced down to the tiny organic cradled in the crook of her arm, ducking a suspended Field Arc that had seen better days to put the tanks of water she'd left for in a corner. They'd descended straight into the main living area - two oversized sofa furnished with the same material as the upper-surface of berths facing a giant flatscreen television. A collection of crates served as a kind of table in between, littered with small tools and components that had been the recent subjects of late-night tinkering. The walls were lined with storage lockers, suspended bits of equipment and scavenged parts, and the ceiling was no clearer. Propped at the end of the sofa was the infamous chart, tracking what the trap door had sent into flight, how far and whether the animal had survived the experience.
Through a thick blast door to the right was a corridor to the cockpit, and left led to the retrofitted repair bay, over-stuffed storage rooms and six berth areas of modest size. It was a sizeable craft - larger than what Moonstrike had flown into the planet's crust, but recently feeling a damn sight smaller.
"I've been here for 46 of your years, now. Been taking on lodgers lately who've got nowhere else to go. Times are hard." She set Cat down gently onto the arm of the sofa before transforming her blades into hands to sort through a specific cupboard. "I think I have some bottled water that you can consume. Are you low on credits?"
Last Edit: Feb 12, 2012 17:16:06 GMT -5 by Deleted
As she looked around the alien ship, perched on the arm of the sofa, she couldn't help but notice how familiar it felt. There were comfort things here-- couches, recreation, a common place of dwelling. It was more than just an alien space ship, it was a home. More and more, to her surprise or her fading sanity, she felt herself becoming comfortable.
"Credits… Money?" That gave her pause. Did she need any? Technically no. She was certain her Uncle had already wired far more than she needed to live comfortably, let alone survive. The only issue was that it would be digital, and she was reluctant to leave any sort of foot print until she could get her bearings. But what else was she going to do? At less than five bucks she could probably buy herself a small meal, sleep in her car, and hopefully get a job at a restaurant until she could support herself.
But that plan looked significantly better a week ago.
"N.. nah, I'm fine. I have plenty, just kind of low on cash right now. It's just sometimes buying things with cash rather than digital makes life a bit easier." She smiled slightly, attempting to gloss over her wreck of a bluff. She was having an off day. "I'll take you up on that bottled water, though. And anything with sugar, if you have it. Not sure how many humans you normally pick up, though."
She swallowed, pulling her knees up to her chest as she refocused on Cleaver. '46 years…' "What do you mean…? Times are hard and lodgers… There are others from your planet here?" She paused, squinting slightly. The thought of an alien race wasn't terribly hard to grasp, not when looking at the bigger picture. But still. "Why Earth, for so long?"
Cleaver paused in her rummage, frowning at the devastatingly simple question before shaking her helm. There was absolutely no need to disclose the war that had decimated their race to this young human. With any luck, Cat would have no further contact with their species, and thus didn't need to know a damned thing. "It's, complicated, but distils down to being able to survive easier here than in most other places. Resources."
Lifting out the container she'd been searching for, Cleaver poured the contents out onto the sofa and began sifting with her fingertips. Living in hiding on Earth did not, unfortunately, mean living in complete isolation from the natives. She needed stupid little things like fluids that could be altered into decent coolants, filters for the energon distiller and bits to keep Reflector occupied and out from under her pedes.
A decade after arriving, Cleaver had come to accept that she needed money, and that acquiring money required a human alias. Thus, after hacking and emptying a dormant Swiss account filled with 'Nazi' money, she'd created Clarice Eaver. Birth certificate, pilot's license, social security number, bank account. Every month under cover of night, she 'bridged into Charleston harbor where Clarice had a post box and sent her hologram in to collect mail. Subscriptions and an Amazon account were, apparently, as important to creating a rounded identity as a tax record.
For this reason, and amongst other things, there were now eight library cards, forty-seven membership documents to various organizations and parks (she was a lifetime supporter of Sea World, Disney, Cadbury World, etc), several hundred magazines and National Geographics, dozens of perfume samples, two new boxes of chocolates, a crate of Hildon water bottles and a hundred assorted DVDs on the sofa.
Extending tweezer-like extensions from her fingertips, Cleaver picked up the water bottles, the chocolates, and a silver lock-box and handed the lot to Cat. The box was unsealed, and contained bank and credit cards. "There you are. Take the silver bank card to withdraw physical credits - it has a $200 a day limit." She paused, suddenly realising that she didn't actually know how much a real human cost to run. Her attitude had been to keep spending money and pay lots of tax like a good citizen, a strategy that had been working so far. What the natives actually did with money was still something of a mystery. "Is that... sufficient to your needs?"
Last Edit: Feb 12, 2012 18:35:50 GMT -5 by Deleted
Her eyes took on a hawk-like quality, watching Cleaver's reaction to her questions. A pause and a short explanation did little to answer any of her questions, perhaps as Cleaver meant it to be. For someone else, that might have been enough… but rather than take any hints to stay out of deep water, she wanted to teach herself how to swim.
Before she could pry, the container was overturned, which for the moment caused a hiccup of 'wtf' in her thought process. 46 years was a lot of time to accumulate vast amounts of stuff, but the use of anything this human-like to an extraterrestrial being was beyond her. 'Unless she really fell in love with the whales… Not that I'm complaining.' The sight and scent of chocolates sent her stomach into a fierce growl. She passed a hand over it, tossing a quick glance up to Cleaver to see if she'd heard. …for a moment she'd forgotten how tight her stomach had gotten.
That is until she held the water and boxes in her lap. Her mouth begin to water, sticking together so that she could hardly respond at first. "Shhhit, yes. Er, No! No, I mean-- well, yes! It is. I--" She paused to inhale and settle her thoughts. "It. Is. Plenty. I mean. But I can't, I can't take that." She closed the box, shaking her head to herself as she set it aside. Part of her (the sane part) screamed at her for her damned pride. Water bottle in hand, she rose, pacing the arm of the couch while she sipped, doing her level best not to chug it.
"The water and the chocolates," She began, "…that's fine. But the car, that's already too much, especially when I haven't given you anything in return. I'm grateful, I am… but it… it doesn't feel right taking so much from someone who's been here 46 years just for 'resources'. Without even going back to your home planet, it looks like." She paused, spreading out one of her arms as respectfully as she could to the buried ship. "I mean, come on, I know I've known you less than an hour, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you and maybe your planet probably went through some pretty serious shit, whatever that shit may be." Adding under her breath, "Which.. is totally fine if you don't want to tell me. …But I can't just take from you no questions asked. I can't-- I won't. It's not right." She stopped, turning to face Cleaver directly. "To you I might be just another human. But there's gotta be something I can do for you. Records wiped, files erased… something in return for this."
Inhaling she pressed her hands hard to her face, releasing the breath in an exhausted sigh. "Sorry, that all just kinda… came out. But still!" She cleared her throat, pursing her lips to keep herself from talking, and planted her hands on her hips to keep herself from fidgeting.
Cleaver took a moment to absorb that staccato speech, impressed by the human's bearings in standing her moral ground to a comparatively enormous alien life form. It was not, however, enough to sway her from believing that Cat needed the help more than she needed the hoarding. "Sit down and ingest your fluid," she instructed, sweeping the multitude of human things to one side to sit on the far end of the sofa.
When Cat had emptied one bottle of water and twisted off the seal on another, Cleaver rested her weight forward with her elbows on her knees, optics critical. "I do not wish for anything in return, and have limited need of human credits that, thus far, have not exceeded 20% of the total I posses, which is expanding with interest daily. If, however, you feel so obliged to provide goods or services in exchange for the assistance that I am freely offering you, and will accept my help no other way, then I can find use for you."
She tapped the tip of one blade against the crate-table, considering. Humans were small, squishy and weak. The latter two descriptors of the species could not be turned into something positive, but their size and dexterity certainly held potential. Small hands that could handle parts that Cleaver could only do so with her micro-tools. Now that Reflector was near-constantly occupied with Barricade, she'd been missing someone small to do the small-scale work.
"Would you be amenable to basic repair work in exchange for a salary?" she asked, sitting back again and giving Cat her full attention. "I salvage a lot of parts, and some of the components are too small for me to clean or repair for use without difficulty. If you wished, I could also teach you more broadly about Cybertronian systems and repair so that you may undertake more complex work."
She sat. Grudgingly, of course, but she sat... and without managing to mutter a 'yes ma'am' to the elder medic. Instead she resolved to sipping her water, almost forgetting she was discussing a trade with a giant alien robot. 'I think I've used that title more in the past half hour than I have in my entire life…'
"…then I can find use for you."
The chocolate she was munching went down like a stone. Now that Cleaver said it, she found herself frantically combing through her own memory for recollection on what the hell she said in the midst of her little speech. Those passionate sudden blurbs of thought that are about as dangerous to her well-being as earthquakes are to a city. Her gut twisted-- it was like the feeling of anxiousness and excitement before an athletic event; that first piece of code cracked; the wall hacked that opens the door to a whole new world of Your-Ass-Is-Not-Supposed-To-Be-Here.
Some humans might have interpreted this feeling as regret, and listened to the voice that said 'turn back now'. …Catherine had adapted a selective-feeling (much like her selective-hearing) just for these instances.
Hands around her water bottle, she found herself leaning foreword on the edge of the couch, smile growing with every passing word until all at once she blurted, "YES! Uh, yes. I mean, I've only ever tinkered with the stuff that actually makes my gear run, but.. I'm a fast learner. I can do it." A quick once over of the common room before she looked back to Cleaver. She doubted there was anything friendly to human-living here, and even so, she didn't want to invade someone's home. "I can find a place close to here, if that'd be easier. I'm sure there are some trailers or something kinda cheap. You won't have to… 'bridge' to Jasper all the time."
'I guess it doesn't matter what state I dig in, as long as it's remote. …Nice and barren out here anyway.'
Cleaver rolled her shoulder as much as to work a kinked line as to semi-shrug, settled quite comfortably now and not looking forward to getting up again to fix Cat's truck. She quietly noted that she had no preference for where the human located herself - either in her own abode elsewhere or in one of the more sutiable areas of this ship. "If you'd prefer. Though if you did want to live here, it's not as though you'd take up much space. You'd just be... cut off. Perfectly safe and cared for, but more isolated than if you lived in an urban area."
Isolation had never been an issue with her, considering most of her waking hours were spent hooked up to some type of electronic device. But she had the option to walk away. Cleaver's words were still fresh in her mind-- she might die attempting to come into the base; so how could she get out on her own power? Part of her still longed to sleep in her car in some abandoned parking lot. That was something she could control on her own terms, her own time.
"Doesn't have to be set in stone right now, anyway. It's not like I have anywhere to be. …If it's the same to you, I can hang until you have enough time to fix the car, do whatever you need done in the mean time." It made her inwardly cringe-- but she needed a place to stay for the night, and this base had chocolate, water, and a face getting more familiar by the minute.
Not to mention… "…That 'wound' you had, from earlier. Are you gonna be alright?"
Cleaver smiled, that last question and the genuine concern in it solidifying, without a doubt, that Cat not only could stay, but was welcomed to stay. "Yes, thank you. Just a snagged coolant line. It'll be fine for a little longer, and if you want it can be your first lesson. First though, I want to give you something you'll need."
The femme pushed up from the sofa and moved to an oversized filing cabinet on the other side of the room, rifling through until she finally produced a handheld device with a green, gridded screen. She held it up for Cat to see, pointing to the controls. "This is an energon reader - if there's another one of my kind within a mile radius, this will tell you. So you can stay away. There're more Cybertronians than there ought to be on your world, and most of them are fighting the rest. Staying out of it is the safest and smartest thing you can do."
She turned the instrument slightly, indicating a bulb of a transmitter at its base. "Access to this ship. Like a remote key. You can come and go as you please. Got some ideas for your own entrance into your own living space, if you'd like?"
Seeing her smile, Catherine couldn't help herself but mirror the emotion. It looks like some things, no matter how many worlds apart, were universal.
As Cleaver stood, so did she, following to at least the edge of the couch to observe. The device wasn't unlike some of the things already out on the market, or some of the things being used exclusively by some government divisions. At least, it appeared that way. She imagined that it read 'energon' signatures the same way some tools read heat signatures. …Unfortunately, her selective hearing activated about the time she said stay away. What the hell did that mean?
More Cybertronians. So that's what they were called… and there were more of them here, on Earth. Fighting each other… had there been a war? There were more Cybertronians here on Earth, and that device could locate them…
She blinked when her brain registered a break in conversation, looking up at Cleaver's face plates for some hint of what was just asked. 'I'm going to stay away. I'm going to stay away. I'm going to stay away. I'm going to stay away.' Maybe the femme would be less likely to see through her if she repeated that while she recal-- Ah! Entrance. Living space. Right.
"Yeah, sounds good! I'd appreciate it… loads." '…Does she know I'm not going to stay-- NO! I'm going to stay away! Shit I hope she can't hear my thoughts.' Turning, she began to peer over the edge… how to get down. "But now that you mention living space… About the coolant line, learning about your medicine… Is there anything I'd be able to actually do? Don't get me wrong, I wanna learn, especially if you're willing to teach." She shrugs, offering a small smile. "Just hard to imagine operating in your world without any fun-size tools. Then again, I guess even if some of our stuff is primitive it can still serve the same purpose."
"True, a wrench is still a wrench no matter what planet you come from, and you'll find that a scrubbing brush and cleaning fluids are familiar tediums as well. However." Cleaver sent a charge through her hand, triggering a transformation in the scanner that saw it rapidly shrunken to a human scale. She held it out to Cat between thumb and forefinger. "Many of my tools can become 'fun-size'."
She left Cat to examine the scanner for a moment whilst she moved into the medbay to fetch a wheel. Standard Eradicon part - good for thirty thousand miles and near impossible for a human to puncture. Cleaned and ready to use, she put the part under her arm and returned to Cat. "As for making yourself useful, you can tell me about yourself and your skillset whilst I change your wheel. How does that sound?"
Cat turned over the device in her palms, familiarizing herself with the controls and what each did, absently replying. "Awesome. Fun-size tools for fun-size helper." She pointed the device at Cleaver, listening to the dull ping it produced and the light on the grid when receiving an energon reading.
She stayed silent a moment, save for the ping and her deep inhale, when Cleaver asked her skills. 'How do tell a advanced alien robot that I'm a hacker? That'd be like telling a fish I can swim.' Or so she assumed. But then again, it might have been something that needed to be learned. 'Oooor… telling a fish I can swim.' Running through all the possible reactions in her mind (from laughter, to offense, to creepy blank stares), she finally arrived upon the best course of action: Screw it.
"I'm a hacker, basically." Legal, illegal… all in perspective. "My uncle kind of introduced me to everything computers when I was little and I've been around them ever since. I used to work for the US until about a week ago, more or less. One of their 'ethical' hacking divisions." She sighed, releasing that bit of annoyance on the exhale, and turned off the device to place it in her lap. "So that ended. And now, here I am." A smile eased its way back when she shrugged, eyes focusing on Cleaver and her work. "…I'm guessing you won't need any help in that area, but like I said, I'm a quick learner. Just show me what you want done and I'll do it."
Content that Cat was happy enough to keep talking whilst she worked, Cleaver gently lifted the human once again and took her up and out of the ship. Outside the truck was exactly where she'd left it, and the femme turned the vehicle so that when she knelt Cat would be in her shadow from the sun. Setting Cat a little way off, Cleaver transformed her hand into a spread of microtools and soon had the wrecked wheel off.
All the while, Cat's words had been percolating in her processor. The skills she spoke of were largely what she'd relied on Reflector for, but with the little cassette rather occupied with Barricade at the moment, there was gap that needed filling...
"Hacking would a useful function whilst you're here," she began, picking up the Eradicon wheel and final-checking the connections. "Particularly with regards to how much your government knows about my kind. If there's been any contact. Any... experimentation."
The heat of the day was much more bearable in Cleaver's shadow, now hydrated and with some sugar in her system. She remained standing off to the side as Cleaver spoke, one hand reaching down to fiddle with a pendent on the end of a delicate chain.
"That's something I've been working on. What got me fired, actually." It would make sense. The government had secrets, plenty that would get a grunt-worker fired if they started digging. But she wondered how many would be as fragile and detrimental as an Earth invasion. "I found something a little while ago that was secret enough to put me under surveillance. I was blocked and booted before I could get a chance to find out exactly what it was. Haven't had a chance to set up camp yet, but, as soon as I do and as soon as I sneak out from under the magnifying glass, I'm going to dig."
She hesitated, eyes narrowing. "It's possible what I found had ties to you and yours on Earth. I'll find out soon enough. When I do you'll be the first to know." Despite her ignorance about the race, their reasons, even if she could be walking into a trap, she couldn't help but feel a pang of anger. Metal or no, this race didn't appear to be any different.. emotionally at least.. from humans. And experimentation on anything living made her temper boil.
"I'll probably need to use your systems for a while until I can get mine back up under the radar."
Tightening the Eradicon wheel into place and scanning the connection, Cleaver nodded absently. Getting Cat a terminal to make herself useful (as she so insisted on doing) was not an immediate priority. Leaving the truck where it was for now, the medic offered her hands to Cat again to carry her back into the cool interior of the ship.
"Since you've decided you're staying, you ought to know that I have a few other guests living here at present." She didn't want to alarm the human, brave as she was, so putting the right spin on Barricade was going to be tricky...
Cleaver elected to begin with the easiest. "Reflector you'll probably see scuttling about first. Little bot, very shy, breaks into three pieces but he's supposed to do that, so don't come running to me. He's been with me a long time and is a good spark - ah, soul." Back inside the living area, she nodded demonstrably down the corridor. "Moonshot is another Neutral, like myself. He's... An aft, frankly. A nice one, and well meaning, but he'll put his pede in it. So don't get offended."
Setting Cat back onto the arm of the sofa, Cleaver returned to her previous seat with a sigh. Now the tricky one... "Lastly there's Barricade. He's a patient right now, and supposedly confined to the med-berth, but short of lying on top of him all breems that's not working out. He's got... amnesia I suppose you'd call it, and is understandbly disturbed by it. Cranky glitch as well, and sour enough that I doubt that he'd have a sparkling disposition even with all his faculties. Keep out of his way if you see him. He won't harm you, because he knows I'll harm him, but just be careful. Okay?"