[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]"The Catharsis of Efficiency" [Nokta/Windshield]

[Nokta]

Episode 3.5 | Week 1 | Day 7

HELHEIM GLACIER REGION, GREENLAND, NORTH AMERICA - 10:00PM LOCAL TIME

THE WRECK OF THE AD INFINITUM

It had been nearly fourteen rotations of this planet’s day and night cycle since he’d awoken there. Cold, lost, starved, confused. Wondering about a flagship that had been lost before he’d even woken up. About a cause that wouldn’t be far behind without a steady hand to guide it.

Many more nights, weeks, and years– perhaps even centuries would have gone on, had one mech not been fortunate enough to catch the faint signal this ship had sent out through an old Nemesis frequency on the day it broke free from the ice.

That mech would be called back to this ship tonight for a different reason. But one no less as important than the first time he’d come here.

Nokta sat alone in the newly accessed captain’s quarters of the Ad Infinitum, two red orbs piercing through the dark like daggers. To anyone else he would have looked like a predator waiting to strike, sitting there in the icy void with an aura of calm violence about him. His digit tapped against the frozen console– not impatiently. He was thinking. Deep in thought.

He’d been doing a lot of this lately.

Atop the captain’s table in front of him, there sat a long, cylindrical object consisting of many sections designed to bend and conform to a mech’s frame. His frame. The beacon had frequently been the object of his ruminations in the past week, though not chief amongst them.

There had been other things. Both past and present. Ruminating in desperate search of something– he knew not what yet. It was too early, but still, he combed his processor for a range of topics– himself, his duties, his captain, his new charge over Windshield, Megatron. Always, Megatron, a looming shadow that never faded.

For so long that thought had been comforting-- Megatron's forever presence had been something to fall back on. But now it just felt like a crutch that could no longer be relied upon in the same way it once was. His conversation with the warlord had weighed heavily on him in the days following it, and so too had the aching confessions he’d had to make, not having had the strength to keep them to himself any longer. Painful, but necessary.

He could no longer avoid the truth: that even in death, his captain’s influence had been holding him back. There was no way of knowing just how far back, but acknowledgment was the first step in finding out just how deep that poison had rooted itself.

The next resided in the very ship that had tried to kill him.

A sudden buzz came over the room, icy particulate slipping from the walls and he ceiling like dust as the ship seemed to come alive with energy. Nokta’s optics fluttered upwards as he remained seated in the captain’s chair. A moment later, the ship surged with another buzz, and the emergency lights filled the room with their dull red lighting. In front of him, a computer console aboard the table shimmered to life with fuzzy blue fluorescents. It seemed the salvage crew had finally restored the ship’s backup power as he’d requested.

With a wave of his servo over the screen, the ship’s long distance communications array was accessed. He wasted no time seeking out the one he desired.

"Windshield."

He allowed a short pause after speaking his subordinate’s name, letting the line pop and crackle, as if torturing this ghost ship’s frayed communications array out of mere spite. Windshield would be able to see that the line he was being hailed on was not in fact Nokta’s own, but one originating from the highest priority line of a dead ship. There would be no elaboration needed as to the lieutenant's location, the coordinates in the margins spoke volumes. 

"I’m in need of your services. Join me." And just like that, the line fizzled out. Succinct as ever.

He left no room for the hacker to argue or deny him his request. Megatron had placed Windshield under his direct command. To deny him would be to deny Megatron.

Whatever Windshield had been doing prior to Nokta’s call, that was over now.

---

Outside, the Ad Infinitum’s half-dissolved carcass jutted out of the ice no less the imposing monstrosity it had been two weeks ago. It rested atop a rocky plateau, where it had been meticulously dragged by industrial cables hundreds of meters away from the frigid shores it had been in danger of plunging into when Nokta had been found. Within a few days of being moved, snowfall had already accumulated, drifting up the sides of its base as if to pull the ghost ship back into the ice where it had come from.

A small camp had been carved out of the ice and snow at the base of a nearby cliffside. Scattered around were containers stacked to the brim with material– leftover tools, electrical parts, and the like. But the breadth of the salvage yard had been filled with raw metals extracted from the hull, their containers ferried in and out on a daily basis, some going to Blackridge, others to mines where the tools would be recycled.

Many panels had been removed from its exterior already, taken for the abundance of rare metals hidden within that did not naturally occur on this planet, exposing the skeletal innards of the cargo ship’s frame to the naked eye of any standing down below.

Nokta stood just below the bow of the Infinitum, most of the stern already missing since deconstruction had begun. He awaited his compatriot in front of a small maintenance door where they would enter the ship, watching as the small team of Vehicon miners moved to and fro about the deconstruction site, like ants feasting on a meal a thousand times their own size.

This ship had nearly taken his life. Even Megatron had told him that much– that he should have perished within its confines.

And now he was the architect of its demise.

[Windshield]

The cold damp air stirred him from his sleep in the late afternoon. After a long night at work, he had hoped to catch his breath, sleep for a few hours if his processors let him. At least two or three. After all, the work was done. He had been out there, helping the Decepticons update security in one mine or another, and along the way, he started some prep work on a gift for an old friend. The official reports did not need to mention that, of course. No one had to know besides Windshield himself... But even if it was officially nonexistent, it did seem that this little project of his had taxed him more than he knew—in a very real way.

Six hours, forty-two minutes, twelve seconds.

This was the longest he'd slept in ages—centuries. Perhaps revenge ploys had some health benefits he was not previously privy to? He wondered as his bleary eyes opened to the sound of another's voice. Why was everything so blurry? Why couldn't he remember what he did just before he went into power-down?

̵̼̅N̸̼̔͘ë̷́̕ͅe̵̗̾ḑ̴̞͌.̷̻̯́.̵̘̤̋.̵̪̈̾ ̸͙͆Y̷̨̫̽͝o̷̳̓ͅù̴̦r̶̲͉͗̓ ̶͔̤̊̑s̴̖̱̓͑ȇ̴͙r̴̞̆̈ṽ̷̬i̴͇͠c̸͖͈̅͠e̶͓̓s̴͚̽.̸̧͝.̴̧̣̏͠.̷̺̮͑ ̸̗̥̉͂J̷͈̦̚o̸͎̊̾i̸̯̒͊n̴̖̂̈ ̵͈͆̐m̷͕͉̈́̊e̵͔͂͝ͅ.̸̫͈͋.̷̛̞.̶͓̔̈ ̶͙̎

What was that? Who was that? Why was his mind so... tangled?

Oh, there was a sensation—pain almost? Right. Headache. He'd forgotten how those felt. That old friend of his sure made a mess of what felt like pain and what didn't. No matter. He swung his feet up, turning on the berth, and eventually wound up with them on the floor. It seemed quite fast, but it was a slow and laborious motion in reality. Then, he found himself sitting there on the flat top of his recharge slab, staring out into the empty space. Well, not quite empty. There was a square on the wall or... something? A rectangle? He couldn't quite make it out yet. No one else was in the room. Then again, who could be? Only Windshield worked nights so late and recharged so irregularly... He'd forgotten if he even had roommates. Where were they?

Who were they?

No matter. It was time to rise and shine. His memories were slowly coming back. Right, that grating static in his head. That had to be Nokta. He'd almost forgotten about the new chain of command—or at least he wished he had. What was it this time? Something to figure later, he supposed. First, he had to make himself presentable—and quickly. Windshield sobered up suddenly as if a switch was triggered in his processor. His unsteady optics finally focused on a point, a faraway mirror hanging on the other side of the room. He put it there.. or? At least he thought he did. No matter. He saw his face and that was enough to chase away the effects of whatever was making him so wobbly. He shifted his feet, ready to get up and then...

He kicked something.

Windshield looked down. An empty metallic canister. Then another, a third, a fourth. There were no labels, no contents left to examine, just a bunch of empty cans all over the place. He must've stolen them from someone, but he couldn't remember who or why. Surely, no one would just give him a free case of whatever he almost certainly put into his body in very creative ways last night.

In any case, things started to make sense. Windshield was hungover or in withdrawal or something. He quickly collected the empty cans on an impulse with an almost terrifying precision especially given his current condition. It was not practiced or conscious, but purely instinctual. Even now, after everything, the impulse to clean—to maintain—was strong. He started stashing them in his back compartment where he usually kept the broom... His broom? Where? Where was it?

It wasn't there, the subspace was empty?

Oh, he must have left it at the special place he'd been preparing his special gift for his very special friend. Another thought to discard and shove to the back of the old cranium for later. As for now, he had to remain focused lest he incurred the wrath of his lieutenant. Wrath...

Pressure... Crack...

Windshield's grip on the can in his hand closed, crushing it at once.

Lieutenant. The voice in his head. Oh, how he wished it had been someone else. Same tone, same cold dismissal, but a different voice. It wasn't him. It could never be him again. This was just another boot on his throat to slash at the shin. Yes... But why did it fill him with so much rage and confusion? This was no different from before. This was how it started once, a long time ago. Perhaps he was too much like him. Too much like the phantom in the dark recesses...

A wraith to replace a ghost. It would have been fitting, he supposed, and yet it still hurt. It was only then, lost in the mire of his mind as he was, that Windshield saw himself in that distant mirror, his pallid face contorted grotesquely into a picture of demented anger. It disgusted him. He never made faces like that, only that wretched thing he'd stolen it from did. For a while, he considered throwing that damned can at that damned mirror so that he wouldn't have to look at himself anymore. But as he was winding up, he stopped. He remembered something. Five words.

Keep going until the end...

With an awkward, stilted motion, he simply let his arm fall to the side of his body and dropped the can. After a brief clatter, it tumbled and rolled on the darkened flooring until it disappeared somewhere beneath the recharge slab. He did not search for it and left his room instead. The impulse to keep things clean was gone.

Forward, not back. Never back again.

---

Soon, a cerulean portal appeared on those ice-bound, wind-swept plains. In the shadow of a colossus, in front of an insignificant door to nowhere, he stepped out of the blue at once. Windshield sauntered forward, his body relaxed, stretching as he was so fond of doing. An arm to the top of his back, another placed at the elbow. Swap around, swing, and done.

"Alright, whatever it is you need me for, lieutenant, we better get it over with quickly."

Casual, indignant, only pretending to be annoyed and inconvenienced. Nothing changed on the surface. Not now, not in all two weeks of knowing Nokta. At least he used his title in a slightly less sarcastic of a tone these days. Still... Windshield's disposition was as irreverent as ever. Putting a hand on his hip, he shifted his footing slightly once he stopped just a short few steps behind Nokta.

"This place gives me the creeps."

He cringed in disgust briefly, though in a comical and exaggerated manner. There was nothing real there to observe. Worms burrowing in a rotting corpse—how quaint.

[Nokta]

Portals rose and fell along that icy plateau for a while after Nokta called his charge forth. Overhead, one of the pair of Eradicons he’d assigned to guard the construction site flew, scanning the immediate region for incoming threats. There were none.

Nokta watched as the worker Vehicons ferried cargo in and out of the small space that had been set aside for incoming groundbridges– and eventually Windshield did come forth.

Silent as the hacker walked up to him, his crimson gaze would scan that darkly plum colored frame seemingly indifferent, before he spoke his mind.

"You look like scrap." Calm, to the point. There was no biting edge to his words. It was simply an observation.

Nokta spun on his heel, typing in a keycode on the panel beside the maintenance door. He stood back then, folding his arms behind the small of his back to wait. The hatch squealed against the ship’s frame as it slowly opened, the vibrations peeling ice and snow off the ship’s immediate exterior and onto the ground. Before long, it was open.

"How long this takes will depend on you. Follow."

He would not reveal much else before stepping inside. Darkness would engulf the pair, but there was just enough light to make out a small ladder leading upwards, further into the ship’s innards. Nokta wasted no time in scaling the equipment, dropping to a knee once he reached the top, facing downward.

A pair of red optics shone down through the dark as the lieutenant extended his servo for his subordinate to take, visible just barely by the biolights on his onyx wrists.

[Windshield]

Like scrap...

"I think the humans have a saying about this. Something with a pot and a kettle," Windshield mused idly about the lieutenant's commentary whilst waiting for him to open the hatch. He accompanied his words by a gentle smile, as if though he was trying to make small-talk with a friend, offer some light workplace banter—but his optics reflected none of the associated levity, remaining as inhuman and stoic as ever.

When the doorway finally hissed open, he followed him into the dark corridor, saying nothing more.

There within, at the ladder, he watched Nokta ascend. Two orange circles set in a yellow surface stared blankly at the proffered hand for almost a second too long before Windshield decided to simply scale the ladder by his own means instead of accepting it. Perhaps it was a show of mistrust or perhaps he simply did not wish to be touched. Whatever Nokta made of it, the agent did not care. All the lieutenant had to do was to move aside and make space.

In any case...

Once they were both deeper within, he tried to adjust his optics to the darkness. It was an unsurprisingly easy feat. Windshield spent very few of his waking hours in daylight and so the black faded to gray in but a few brief moments.

"Alright, lead the way and all that," he sighed wistfully.

The climb upwards, the narrow entrance. It was all so intensely familiar and yet he could not place his finger on it. All Windshield knew was... It stank like sewage.

[Nokta]

“Hm. Debatable.” Nokta mused in response to the other mech’s blithe jab as he watched Windshield ascend, still holding out his servo for the hacker to optionally take. He didn’t know what he was expecting when Windshield didn’t take it. Couldn’t let but one blow to his pride in accepting any assistance, Nokta supposed.

They could work on that later.

Nokta spun on his heel once it was clear Windshield was not going to humor him, and instead continued into the ship at a brisk pace. This section of the ship would certainly have been familiar, as it was a part of the cavernous cargo hold Cintra and Windshield had bridged into the first time they’d come here. Further up ahead was the ramp that led to the crew dormitories, and further on to the cockpit.

As they approached the ramp, the dull red of the emergency lights began to fill out more of the darkness, casting the lieutenant in a harsh silhouette ahead of Windshield.

“These halls were my home for quite some time as we drifted through space,” the lieutenant suddenly spoke, apropos of nothing. This would perhaps not seem normal to Windshield, who had only ever spoken to him at length twice– once when Nokta was half starved and on the brink of death, and the second when he’d been distracted by the weight of Megatron’s reliance on them for their mission earlier in the week. Neither of those had been his default.

“They sink their talons into you after some time, yes?”

They’d arrived at the dormitories. A much smaller room than the cargo hold, but still large in its own right. Six rooms flanked a wide hallway, three on either side. Of the six rooms, five of them had a bright red 'X' spraypainted across the doors hiding berthing arrangements behind them. Only one on the back right side remained untouched.

Up ahead the door to the cockpit remained shut. Nokta padded towards it, pressing a series of buttons on a keypad on the wall. “Watch your helm,” would be the only warning he gave to Windshield as a ramp began folding down from the ceiling with a whirr of old hydraulics and gasps of steam to accompany it.

This was not a room Windshield had been in yet.

[Windshield]

They passed them, the red symbols. A plague or — something other? Windshield almost had it in him to ask questions right away, almost, but not truly. Not yet. Whatever meaning the symbols had, he did not care for them at the moment. Indeed, Nokta's words kept him somewhat a tad too occupied, guiding him through the bleak dim-red halls.

"Talons...?"

Well, he wouldn't put it quite like that. It was more like...

"Ever been to the sewers beneath Iacon?" He asked, unprompted. It was a sudden question that came just about as the ramp began its descent. Windshield said it in slower tone but still one that was ever so light. As if he'd been elsewhere at the moment of speaking, in some distant future or an ancient past, and he did not concern himself with what transpired in the present. If he had not inclined his head to make room for the emerging ramp, Nokta would probably find it difficult to tell whether Windshield was even conscious at that very moment.

He was. — And he saw it now as it was then.

"The atmosphere is dense down there. It clogs up the systems, stiffens the servos. The walls are narrow and the tunnels dark and long. Most drones break after a few years in service... Physically, psychologically. — It's like that."

Such a gentle, friendly tone for a reality so grim and yet not a hint of remorse behind any of those words. And still, that smile...

[Nokta]

The ramp folded down slowly. In silence, he listened to his compatriot, watching as he spoke those words with a faulty smile and two magma optics whose gaze held the all too familiar intensity of introspection. He let the words settle, lending his charge the attention of his audio receptors and his contemplation.

"The Infinitum broke us faster than that." Nokta did not smile in the face of his own grim commentary. He merely said it as it was. The words were about as much of an agreement as Windshield would receive.

Walking around to the opposite end of the room where the ramp had finally hit the floor, this ascension did not lead into a void like the ladder before it had. Emergency lights were functioning in the room above, even if they were at the lowest available capacity due to the active deconstruction.

At the top of the ramp there was a landing where another door awaited. It appeared ornate, enough that it stood out from the overall design thesis of the rest of the ship. Gilded patterns had been beveled into the black metal and set with silver.

As Nokta stepped up and onto the ramp, he spoke again. "I visited Iacon frequently, but her undercity was not the one I was most well acquainted with." A change in subject was likely not uncalled for. They were inundated by the influence of the ghost ship’s environment well enough already.

[Windshield]

He smirked briefly, letting out a faint sound someplace between an ironic scoff and a mild chuckle. It did not echo very far before he spoke again and the smirk disappeared: "No, of course not. Many who lived in Iacon didn't even know..."

Ah, Iacon. So beautiful and resplendent with knowledge and prestige—all too little did she pay attention to those toiling beneath her many feet. It almost brought a nostalgic tear to the optic—almost and no further. He did not cry for the past and instead followed Nokta into his, stepping onto the ramp with gentle footing. Though he did not share his "defect", the well-learned movements of a Decepticon operative ensured that such differences played little role and Windshield was nearly as silent and cordial in his presence on the Ad Infinitum as its sole surviving crew member.

In body, if not in voice. A sweet and kind voice full of empty memories and nothing-feelings.

"Not that there was much to see.— Unless you really enjoy the overwhelming feeling of crushing misery."

Iacon was gone — dead. He did not mourn it. He felt no pity, offered no sympathy in his tone. If anything, a brief relief washed over him with the realization of the fact. The smile on his face widened for a moment before ultimately subsiding as he faced the gilded room. In his mind, a brilliant city burned bright behind those magnificent doors. At the foot of a tower, he held life in his hand and it made him happy. Not anymore... But it did once, a very long time ago.

As for the moment? He was simply content to observe what Nokta did next.

[Nokta]

"Easier to ignore the bleeding backs your kingdom is propped up on when they’re busy wading in your forgotten slag." Solidarity. Nokta had read enough of Windshield’s file to know that he’d been very low caste before the war. He couldn’t relate to the hacker’s specific occupation but he knew that same oppression just as nearly every other Decepticon had. The least he could do was acknowledge it and move on.

Nokta reached the landing, and he outstretched his servo for the door waiting in front of him. Spindle digits tapped along the keycode for the door in front of them, and after a moment the door whirred to life just as the ramp before it had.

Nokta stepped inside, and proximity lights blinked on, inundating the forgotten room with partial blue-white flickering fluorescents that mostly drowned out the dull red of the emergency lights at the edges of the room.

The captain’s quarters were just as ornate as the door to it– or at least, they would have been when the ship was fully operational. Ice damage along the surfaces had tarnished the past splendor the room might have enjoyed for centuries past, leaving behind a dull, sickly residue as ice crystals clung to everything like dust, relegating the room to a forgotten tomb.

On the far wall there was a captain’s table, with a large chair facing it, so too were there a pair of large floor to ceiling cabinets flanking the back wall, in-between two narrow windows that had been tinted all the way to black, windows that came to wrap around the sides of the room in rounded corners until they terminated about midway through.

Along the walls hung various screens, monitors, cracked display cases that might have once housed model ships, weapons, or stuffed carcasses of alien creatures from faraway planets and moons.

On the far right was a double doorway leading to a smaller room with a berth that looked like it had seen some use recently. 

Nokta did not seem interested with anything in this room but what was in front of him however, as he continued walking all the way around the large table until he was positioned in the middle, just in front of the chair. As he waved a servo over the built-in screen, the sickly turquoise of a computer screen flickered back to life once more.

"Come."

[Windshield]

"Until the slag starts lapping at your boots," he replied in short, joyless tones as they proceeded further into the room. Unlike Nokta, Windshield seemed quite taken by the surroundings—or at the very least, he was clearly unfamiliar with them to the point where he felt the need to glance at the oppressive cabinets and the display cases bereft of their curios. It evoked little emotion in the end and his shifting optics could merely be the result of training, an eye for detail so to speak.

Eventually, they settled on the stirring display screen for a few seconds. Windshield stopped two paces at his side of the table, the shadowy corridors of the Infinitum sinking into him from the back. He crossed his arms just below his chest and gently shifted his balance, ever so off-center.

"But we're not here to reminisce, are we?" Windshield droned with a plain and honest smile, treacherous and obscure optics now pressing into those of the other mech at half-lid. The table that separated them still remained within their periphery, tilted ever so slightly downward as those concentric circles of fire were.

[Nokta]

The lieutenant remained hunched over the table, his digits sliding this way and that over the holoscreen in front of him, staring intently enough that it would almost appear that he wasn’t listening to Windshield at all. This was not the case, of course, but it was clear whatever Nokta was doing was important.

"Not to reminisce. To remember." He would finally speak, raising his intense gaze from the screen in front of him to pin Windshield once more following that vague elaboration.

With a wave of his hand, the screen spun around, blurring as the holographic projector on the table recalibrated to now face Windshield at the opposite end of the table.

“The Infinitum’s black box data remains encrypted behind a set of administrative keycodes that were lost along with the rest of the crew,” Nokta began.

"I need you to bypass the encryption for me."

Given the sheer amount of data the Infinitum possessed in CCTV footage alone, siphoning the data for personal review would likely take many hours, perhaps even days, but that was not of immediate concern. Accessing all of that data in the first place was the reason he’d brought Windshield here tonight.

[Windshield]

While the lieutenant explained the matter at hand, Windshield remained almost impressively still. He watched the display move about, already attempting to decipher the very basics: operating system, infrastructure, code compliance. His optics moved down by a few degrees, placing Nokta into the periphery now and the holographic screen into the focus. From thereon, they did not move.

Even before he got his mission statement, he already knew. It was unnecessary. He knew that he wasn't here to make lighthearted banter and talk sewers with his comrade. He knew that he wasn't brought here for his shining personality. And most of all, he knew that others only deigned to lower themselves to his level when they needed something. Windshield was not bitter about this fact. He accepted it at its own terms, neutrally. It's been in his life too long for him to argue with it, and so he was not about to start.

For now, the black box.

After a while, when he assured himself that he knew the very basics, where to categorize the technology they were dealing with, or rather with which he would be dealing with, he lifted his optics again to face Nokta in full.

"So you've lost your keys and you need me to open the back door for you. — Easy enough, I suppose." His arms fell from under his chest, landing gently at the end of the table. He trailed a clawed digit across the edge first, leaning further forward. With a warm and gentle smile, he continued: "I do wonder, though: Why? It's not like anything in here will be of use to the Decepticons. — Unless..."

He paused, raising a brow. His smile grew into an insufferable smirk. The glee writ plain across his features was only undermined by the fact that his gaze remained stone cold and razor focused on the sable mech ahead of him. There was no warmth, only ice. No amount of theatrical over-exaggeration made up for that which Windshield lacked deep within. It was, at best, a thin blanket in the blizzard.

Today, the tears in the fabric were quite too many to put on a convincing farce.

"This is a personal matter."

Empty, emotionless words, as if spoken from the wraith's own mouth.

[Nokta]

The lieutenant observed his subordinate with unfettered optics.

"You’re observant." He replied matter-of-factly, without a hint of annoyance in his voice despite what many would have considered Windshield speaking out of turn by highlighting any potentially ‘personal’ facets to a task given to him by a superior officer.

"Which is only part of the reason why you’re still standing here now," the lieutenant concluded the second half his statement. His words were not quite yet a silent threat– but the way he spoke them seemed to denote the underlying idea that Nokta now very much had a say in Windshield’s fate. Nokta was the other half of that reason, and now for better or worse, Windshield was his to do with as he pleased until one of them expired, or until Megatron declared otherwise.

Nokta wouldn’t pull the rank card quite yet, but from his demeanor alone it was clear that whatever ‘personal matter’ this was, it was important enough that Windshield didn’t fuck around and treat it like the busywork he was likely used to.

"No one else knows about the black box," he would then reveal, perhaps surprisingly to the hacker. "And I would like to keep it that way."

Perhaps now Windshield would begin to realize what deeper implications this assignment might have for him. For both of them.

"Can I trust you with this task quite limited in scope, or will I have to find someone else?"

The die had been cast. It was up to Windshield now how this abrupt working relationship between the two of them might proceed. Would Windshield remain a pawn who could not be entrusted with anything more than the surface level duties required of his occupation, or might he take a step in proving that he was worthy of more opportunities than just that?

What he didn’t know was that for Nokta, this was just as much a test of himself as it was for the hacker in front of him.

[Windshield]

While Nokta explained the secretive nature of the task at hand, Windshield loosened his posture and fully leaned into the table. The smirk on his face wore off soon, falling back into that resting smile of his. He was listening now with the expression of one who'd heard this tale before. Everybody wanted something and when that something was out of their reach and no one respectable could know that they wanted it, they always came to him. He wondered for a while, perhaps, whether more important mechs than Nokta would try one day.

If he stayed on Earth long enough, who knew?

Ah, but those were musings for another time. He did not let them run their course for too long or distract him from the lieutenant's own demands. Windshield buried them deep and then waited a good while in silence, locked optic-to-optic with a monochrome wall. Funny, a few days ago, he didn't even think it could desire anything and yet today it did, turning to him of all the people for this reason of all the reasons. The irony was, well, it was not lost on him but he found himself oddly disappointed in how little it entertained him.

Perhaps he'd lost the taste for it somewhere between it all.

With a slight narrowing of the optic, an infinitesimal adjustment, he answered: "Fine," the resignation in his voice was as fake as any smile, a halfhearted effort to play his part, "After all, I am your only hope, aren't I?"

Who else would help? Who else could help? Soundwave? Somehow, Windshield suspected that Nokta did not want him involved in this, and no one else around was even a tenth the code-breaker that he was.

He raised his hands off the table again, optics naturally drawn down in the moment to commence, beginning with a routine survey of the systems, a brief test of the defenses, but then—Windshield stopped himself before he even touched the interface at all. He faced Nokta again. In that moment, he pictured him as they had first met aboard the Infinitum. In the shadows, weak, thirsty, so very exhausted, and everyone else broken and dead and gone. Like they were ghosts.

"Well, I hope you find what it is that you are looking for."

There was an odd sincerity to that statement, so deeply uncharacteristic of him that it felt jarring to hear, to see, and more importantly, to be so certain that it was spoken without facetiousness. These were the words of a someone that no longer existed in the traditional sense, of a person that may have once been, that may now only exist in these brief moments of clarity.

Gone, too soon. Always too soon.

Windshield helped himself to a weak smile once more and carefully laid his sharpened digits on the fluorescent-blue surface.

[Nokta]

Only then, when he was finally sure Windshield could actually be relied upon here, did the tension in his frame seem to settle. The seasoned lieutenant let a sigh ex-vent itself from his systems, bringing a bony hand up to pinch his brow between his digits. He looked tired, for only a split second as he let out an amount of stress that had clearly been shouldered by his emaciated form for some time.

"Thank you," he said as he peeled his hand from his face, splaying it outwards before it would come to rest at his side once more. His gratitude sounded as sincere as it could be, at least.

Windshield’s bitterness aside, it had been clear he was a stellar worker of his trade from the start. Nokta wouldn’t blatantly say so now, but Windshield wasn’t just a means to an end like so many others were apt to be.

If one wanted to be an efficient military officer they had to take certain steps to curate the mecha under them, leaving only those who were a step above the rest in terms of capability– or if they weren’t yet, could get there with a firm hand to guide them. At least, that had always been this lieutenant’s philosophy.

He would appear to stare at the table in front of him, his end now sparse with all the various floating holographic screens now facing Windshield. The sheer, black surface of the captain’s table was just as blank as his expression.

With another short ex-vent, whatever he’d been briefly ruminating on was shelved, as he moved to reach under the table for something. A cabinet was pulled out, rough with the sound of ice scraping against outer hinges, and something was plucked from its depths. A thin, dark-colored cylinder would appear to return from the cabinet between the lieutenant’s fingertips, the mech shortly after bringing the tube to his lips, where the object would remain as he reached for another object within the depths of the table. A moment later, he’d be holding a small, rusted lighter in his hand, about to light the end of the tube resting between his dermas when he finally glanced at Windshield, staring at the hacker for a moment, appearing to think on something.

"How impolite," the lieutenant mused of himself. Reaching back down into the cabinet, he plucked a second object of similar variety from within. Nokta then raised himself, sitting such that one leg was resting on the table as he himself leaned across it, reaching out to Windshield to offer the item between his fingertips.

"Would you like a cygarette, Windshield?" The words were so calmly spoken that it would be almost unthinkable to assume any ill intention. But so too was this mech offering anything to Windshield so suddenly, unthinkable. Or it would have been a moment ago.

All the same, the cygarette was still proffered to his subordinate.