[ti]Ep 3[/ti]A Game of Clue - Location [Closed for now]

[Deleted]

"Who's there? Come out where I can see you!"

Well. This was about to go… badly, or absolutely appallingly. Cloudcompass couldn’t find it within his spark to hold even the faintest ember of hope, so he settled for ‘bad’ or ‘horrible’ and sincerely wondered if things could get any worse (they always could, but acknowledging that felt a bit defeatist and by Mae, he wasn’t going to let this circuit-fried blue Autobot menace be the end of him). He followed her out from their hiding place, resigned and only a little hesitant- a half-pace behind her.

“...We come in peace?”

… Even for he, one who’d had experience with meeting various other sentient species across the cosmos, that was a bit cliché. Refraining from letting any ounce of his internal cringing irritation show- not one armour plate flared, nor had his wings twitched- he took the placating measures a bit further. If Petrichor seemed strange to this local, he would be stranger- as unusual as his frame was even among fellow cybertronians. As such, he bent further at the ankle and knee, shortening the height he had on Petra and making himself seem smaller than he was- closer to the ground and the human’s height if only by a little. His legs creaked, and he could feel the stiffness of his lame pede protest the awkward posture- but if it helped the little organic cope long enough to have a coherent conversation, so be it.

The mech made no further hissing comment, instead opting to try and remain in the background- and ignoring whatever suspicious looks were sent his way. Instead he kept a level orange gaze on the one before them, schooling himself into a cool, stoic facade even as his processor raced. He waited with a baited spark, wondering what they would do. Petrichor wasn’t as glaringly obviously synonymous with her alt as he- and for a brief moment, he considered whether the little human might feel betrayed when, not if, they made the connection.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

If they expected fear, there was no terrified yelling. If they expected screaming, there was only silence. If they expected violence, nothing of the sort was happening. The birds in the cottonwoods had stilled a little, going silent as the two machines moved, but that was all. The human was....

Staring at them. Unblinking, unflinching, she didn't break her gaze away. Even as the woman on the other end was raising her voice, asking who was there and what was going on, Cassandra was quiet. Very, very slowly, the phone moved away from her ear a little. "Uh..." she began, only for the screen to go dark and the line to cut out.

There was further silence. There was more staring. Cassandra blinked, rose a fist, and scrubbed at her eyes with it. She blinked and stared again. Then, Cassandra realized that her phone had gone dead. "Shit!" she cried out, pressing a button on the side to try and get it to turn on. It was completely dead, and the woman ran a hand through her hair. She let out a shaky breath.

"Okay..." Cassandra said. "I'm hallucinating. My phone is dead, there's a dead body tied to a chair, and I'm hallucinating. I didn't sleep enough again, and this might be a crime scene. There are no such things as GoBots. There are no such things as GoBots...."

The woman walked away from where she stood, looking around an repeating her odd mantra. Her eyes were wide and her heart was racing a little in her chest. The full realization of how much coffee she'd drank and how little she'd rested in the last few days had begun to hit her. The powerful shield that was denial had abruptly tore free of her mind. Every little ache, every little weary muscle, every little urge to slump over began to hit her. Her bad hand began to tremble, and Cassandra rubbed at her face with it. She lightly slapped her cheeks with her phone still in hand, muttering something that wasn't audible to the robots.

[Petrichor]

Everything was silent for a few sparkbeats. Nothing stirred except the slight breeze rustling the dry grass and the leaves of the cottonwood trees.

No one moved.

They all just stood there staring at each other in various stages of disbelief and/or panic; panic being the main emotion for Petrichor. She watched with mounting dread, waiting to see how exactly the human would react to their presence besides just this stunned silence. For a second she wondered if they had caused some kind of human equivalent of a processor overload, but promptly sagged in relief when the woman cursed. The phone at her ear seemed to have run out of power, which meant no pictures of them could be sent to the authorities. At least for now. Petra wasn’t sure if she had documented her plates or not, but she was sure that she had taken photos of her and Cloudcompass and that was bad.

“Okay...I'm hallucinating. My phone is dead, there's a dead body tied to a chair, and I'm hallucinating. I didn't sleep enough again, and this might be a crime scene. There are no such things as GoBots. There are no such things as GoBots...." 

Petra wasn’t sure what ‘GoBots’ were, but felt small spark of hope at the ‘hallucinating’ bit. That was promising - not that she felt great about causing this woman mental distress, but it was ultimately what she had been hoping for in this all-fragged situation.

Okay. On the right track, just don’t mess it up anymore than it already is. Get the phone. How are you going to get the phone? She doesn’t think you’re real...maybe she’ll give it to you if you ask nicely? Like a good, giant figment of an overactive imagination? Oh Primus. This is not how I planned today to go…

The redhead did seem quite a bit more shaky now than before and her rate of respiration was elevated. Petra didn’t want to cause her any lasting physical or mental harm, so was cautious about how to proceed. Nathan, not to mention literally anyone else back at base, would kill her if she ended up harming an innocent civilian. That and she didn’t think she herself would be able to recharge at night if she allowed that to happen.

So maybe start with a simple question? One she wouldn’t feel threatened by and can easily answer...

Petrichor leaned down a bit to try and get a better look at the woman’s face without trying to appear like she was looming. Her voice betrayed how unsure she felt with all of this, despite trying to hide it from the white mech behind her.

“Are...Are you okay?”

Wow. Brilliant. Yep. Ask her how she’s feeling. I’m sure that’ll go over well. How the scrap do you think she’s feeling?! Of course she’s not okay! She just found one of her fellow species dead in a remote location with no communication and now you - a giant, robotic alien - are talking to her. This was a terrible idea.

She couldn’t take it back though.

[Deleted]

Oh Mae be damned.

It took a second to find, because Cloudcompass hadn’t used his holo since four planets ago- but when he did he tapped into the frequency and deployed his little hovering hard-light projector with succinct aptitude- as discreetly as he could. Petrichor wasn’t going to go anywhere with her line of questioning- he had little to no faith in it. Of course the human wasn’t okay. They believed themselves to be hallucinating, and really- it wasn’t ideal but CC was not above using that to every advantage they could. He carefully grabbed his datapad from his subspace, scowling at the creak of metal that accompanied the movement.

Considering his lack of any proper kind of interaction with the native species of Earth, Cloudcompass had to quickly make do with what he had in front of him. He archived his last holoform with a deft flick of his claws, then set to work creating a new one. He based the temporary holoform on the image of the human before him, cutting a few corners sure- but he was working as quickly as he could. The result was… Passible. It bore a resemblance to the human but with a few notable differences- different build, different features and outer accessories. Hopefully they wouldn’t catch on to his hash job of a custom holo.

The jet tucked his datapad back into subspace and then began the process of actually forming the thrice damned thing- keenly taking care to send the projector back behind the building so that the human didn’t see it just blinking into existence. The end result- Cloudcompass kept his frame perfectly still with the little awareness still centered around it, white-orange optics and biolights dimming, and took a moment to make sure his human holoform had, well- formed correctly. It took another few moments to calibrate the movement and get used to change in perception- he was much lower to the ground, and it made him a bit wary. The change in gait was bizarre as well- but he had the entire walk around the barn to make himself seem like a perfectly functional human individual- at least, as much as he needed to temporarily pass as such.

Cloudcompass desperately hoped Petrichor would just- roll with it. He didn’t have her comm frequency, or else he would’ve already told her what he was doing.

He approached from the dirt road, hands in his pockets- looking the part of a tired explorer who had just stayed out a bit too late and was now coming back to his vehicle to go home. The best lies had a bit of truth in them- after all. Cloudcompass made no attempt to mask the sound of his holo’s steps, for all intents and purposes wanting to act the surprised-you-weren’t-here-before card.
So- when he turned the last corner hiding him from Cassandra, his steps paused- and he did his best to look ‘taken aback’.

“Oh! Uh- Did not think anyone else would- be out here?” His words were accented and stilted, but that could be played off for exactly what it was: unfamiliarity with the English language.
It became clear however, that the human was not anything close to okay.
Repeating the same thing? Muttering? Slapping herself?

Yeah- in no species was that a good sign.

“Lady, are you okay?”

He was allowed to ask it, because he was currently in holo, doing something about their situation. Pointedly, he blatantly ignored Petrichor and his own frame- acting like absolutely nothing and no one was there as he took a few steps closer. He remained a generously polite distance away however, simply watching and waiting.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

The woman looked up. She stared at Cloudcompass's illusion with a near-gawk, her lips parting a little. There was a question on her tongue, in her eyes, in her posture; she pointed at Cloudcompass with a croak. Who are you? Why are you here? How long have you been standing there? All of it she tried to convey and failed, her hand hanging in the air. She'd either been struck dumb by the sudden company, or was lost for words on what to say next.

She ended the few moments of awkward silence by clearing her throat, standing straight up. Leveling a glare at the stranger - a stranger that looked like her, that could be her near-paternal twin - she crossed her arms. "How long have you been waiting to announce yourself?" she asked. "Because I yelled several times when I got here, stranger. Enough that someone should've heard."

Deciding to ignore the baby blue robot's questioning, she stepped forward. She didn't break eye contact, posed in a manner that suggested readiness. It was half a warning, and, perhaps, half a goad for the doppleganger to try something. "There are cops on their way. I'd suggest running, but there's a corpse in the house. I give them about ten, fifteen minutes before they pull in and start looking for suspects. You, my friend, are very suspect in this circumstance."

It might've not been smart to mention the cops. The house was remote enough that it might take even longer for them to get out there. The desert was full of remote properties with few souls for miles around. Many out there had to live with little assistance or a chance for help. If the stranger in front of her tried something, or someone else popped out of nowhere....

[Petrichor]

Petrichor floundered. This was not going well. AT ALL.

A flash of movement from the opposite side of the barn and she almost lost it. Another human! Wait, no, it was energy-based? …a holo? Glancing to the side towards Cloudcompass confirmed that yes, it was indeed a holo - a hard light projector to be exact - one belonging to her ‘neutral friend’ most likely since his frame seemed to be kind of…staring into space.

Oh thank the Allspark! He can take over conversing. Wait, no…he just made himself a suspect…but it’s his holo. He can just cut it after we get some distance and make a new one.

Petra squinted at the holo and noticed how similar its features were to the actual human present.

Make a better, more convincing one. Later. Not that I can really judge.

With the woman’s back turned, Petrichor slowly edged her way behind the barn once more until she was out of potential eyesight. She released a silent exvent and took a moment to reassess the situation. She needed to get her and Cloudcompass out of the immediate area, ideally far enough away for them to continue their previous chat without being interrupted or at the very least be able to transform and part ways. But…the phone…even though the battery was dead, the pictures would still be saved on it. She bit her thumb as she worried over what to do, optics glancing around until they landed on the zoned out mech next to her. Maybe…

Leaning over, she whispered to him.

“Cloudcompass, if you can hear me, try to get her phone. Or destroy it. I don’t know, but definitely keep distracting her. I'm gonna try and move us away.”

For good measure - just in case he couldn’t hear things while utilizing his holo - she leaned out behind the barn enough for his holo to see her, curling her servo into a fist with pinky and thumb extended and held to her audials like a human would with a cellular device. She then over emphatically pointed to her ‘cellphone’ and mimed breaking it in half.

A loud rustling coming from the tall dry grasses and trees across the dirt road made her cease her motioning and quickly duck back behind the barn again. Last thing she needed was another person to back up the woman’s claims of ‘Gobots.’