[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti] My head's a broken record (Open)

[Red Alert]

[week 1, day 7: Late at night/early in the morning, in one of the barracks halls.]

It wasn't that Red Alert was avoiding sleep – if anything, sleep was avoiding him. He would catch it for a few moments, sometimes an hour if he was lucky, but it would inevitably grow restless and wrench itself from his grasp at the first opportunity.

That night the opportunity had presented itself a first, second, and third time, and Red Alert was not about to chance a fourth. The way his night had gone, it was evident that the odds were not in his favor – not that Red Alert believed in any such thing as luck, per say. Rather, he had a suspicion (that sometimes strayed into the realm of conviction) that the universe had a sick sense of humor and a personal grudge against him specifically. How he could have possibly pissed off the entire cosmos, he had no idea, but if such a grudge did exist it was certainly mutual. Hardly a day went by that Red Alert didn't stare skyward or into the middle distance and silently ask reality why it it was choosing to be the way it was, as though by expressing his incredulity and utter lack of humor the universe would realize its joke had fallen flat and that comedy was not its strong suit.

Resigning himself to another sleepless night, Red Alert sat up and brought a hand to scrub at his optics, as though by doing so he could rid himself of the images haunting the back of his mind. He couldn't remember what the dream was anymore, if it was a memory or just some hellish nightmare of his subconscious's own design, but he supposed it didn't matter. His life was a nightmare so there was no point in making the distinction.

He moved to stand, deciding he ought to do something productive with his time since sleeping through the night was off the table, but he damn near lost his balance the moment he stepped away from the berth. The head rush was sudden but not unexpected – after enduring a lifetime of moderate to severe sleep deprivation, Red Alert was hardly surprised by the sudden wave of lightheaded-ness and vertigo that crashed over him. A bit annoyed, sure, but not surprised.

He took a half step back, his arm reaching for the edge of the berth to steady himself as the world swayed and black began to creep along the edges of his vision. He took a breath, forcing air to cycle through his systems as he closed his optics, hoping to speed the recovery process along as best he could. Within a few moments the floor ceased lurching violently beneath him, and when he blinked open his optics the world around him was no longer fuzzy and tinged with gray.

Not that it made the world any more of a welcomed sight, but at least it was in a higher resolution.

Once he was no longer in danger of falling flat on his face, Red Alert made his way across his room and began the complicated, painstaking process of unlocking the door. Once the door code was successfully keyed in, Red Alert stepped through the threshold and then paused, waiting for the door to shut and lock itself before checking that it was, in fact, locked.

Satisfied that the door was secure, Red Alert turned away and began walking in the direction of his office. He made it half way through the hall before turning on his heel, struck by the sudden urge to confirm that he could unlock the door now that it was locked. He returned to his door, frowning at the lock and himself for indulging this absurd impulse. He keyed in the code, knowing he was wasting his own time but unable to convince the nagging voice in the back of his mind otherwise. Just as he thought, the door came open after he successfully input the code, proving that he hadn't forgotten it, the lock was not faulty, and that no one had managed to remotely hack his door and change the pass code in the twenty seconds he was away.

He knew all three scenarios were absurd, that he would be better served ignoring his intrusive thoughts instead of indulging them, but he simply did not have the patience or the energy necessary to fight that particular battle. It was easier to just give in to the impulse, to make a fool of himself and waste a few minutes of his time on a pointless ritual rather than carry the thought with him for the rest of the night, feeling it needle away at him until his nerves were frayed and riddled with holes.

Not that his nerves weren't already frayed at the edges as a baseline.

The door locked itself once more, bolts clicking and hydraulics hissing as all the latches fell into place. Red Alert stared at the door until it fell quiet, counting the sound of each locking mechanism within the door to ensure they were all properly executed. Assured once again that the door was locked and that he could unlock it as he pleased, Red Alert stepped away and turned to continue on his previous path.

He didn't make it half way down the hall before stopping again, a rough, long-suffering sigh spilling out of his mouth as he closed his optics and grit his teeth.

“...Oh, goddamn it.”

The words were a barely audible hiss under his breath, his hands clenching and un-clenching as he willed himself not to lose his temper despite his mounting frustration and beginnings of a tension headache thrumming behind his optics.

He turned once again, movements stiff and reluctant as he made his way back to the bloody door that was still going to be locked when he checked for a third time.

[Unit 74]

::We know the whole base. Now this unit can plan better::

The voice was pleased, determined, and perhaps faint. The comm frequency that broadcast openly was secure only in the way that it seemed to hide in the open, using a feed that was far outside the normal range for Cybertronians, and yet, Cybertronian it certainly was, as was the language that came across it. One familiar with standard frequencies ranges might have pegged it in the automated machinery range, meant to simply receive direction and return status reports, not for mecha to hold conversation over. Most wouldn't even be able to receive the transmission, and many that were wouldn't be monitoring the a range reserved for 'noise'.

::We don’t know how he will manage it… his brothers are needed:: The intonation suggested that a question was being answered, and yet no other voice had been picked up on the feed. :: Orders say come to earth, his brothers will come. We must do our best until they arrive::

Red Alert wasn’t the only mech who was having trouble with recharge, in the case of a small yellow scrubber, he was still pleased with himself, he had a whole mental map of where he would clean, and when… even if it wasn’t nearly enough. Quietly, he had gotten up, crossed the quarters he’d been in, and scaled the wall to mess with the door until it opened, letting the low night lighting into a pitch black room. Of course, as he was still hanging on the wall, it would appear no one was on the other side.

[Red Alert]

Red Alert was not much of a media consumer – he rarely had the inclination let alone the time to indulge in recreational activities, and on the odd occasion that he did, the looming specter of guilt always hung over his head, insisting he was wasting valuable time better spent on more productive things.

Despite this, Red Alert still possessed a passing awareness of common media tropes, having absorbed them through cultural osmosis. Some were more reflective of reality than others, and some were little more than narrative shorthand meant to move the plot along without a care as to how impractical or contrived it was. He was sure there were names for them, the more common storytelling devices, but such things were beyond his care and ken.

Which was a pity, because he had no words to describe the door at the end of the hall opening seemingly of its own accord as anything other than horror movie bullshit.

Red Alert paused his (fifth, for the love of Primus) go at unlocking his door, instinctively clearing out the long string of keystrokes he had already keyed in as he turned to stare down the darkened corridor. His optics brightened as he focused, his gaze sharpening as he searched for a figure beyond the doorway. He couldn't see one, which was disconcerting for a variety of reasons, but he wasn't ready to sound the literal and metaphorical alarm just yet. He tilted his head, the 'ears' on either side of his helm sorting through the background noise of the base – distant voices and footsteps, the creaks and groans of pipes and ducts and the building settling. Those and a hundred other little sounds that were seemingly inconsequential but impossible for Red Alert to ignore were all pushed aside has he zeroed in on the end of the corridor, searching for any auditory evidence that would explain what in the hell he was dealing with.

He could hear a spark pulsing, which meant very little – only that there was a Cybetronian somewhere beyond the door, though who specifically he couldn't say. Smaller mecha tended to have faster spark-pulses, but that didn't narrow the list of potential suspects down by much, especially if he increased the pool to include mecha that were both known and unknown to him. He knew the chances of an unknown mech somehow infiltrating the outpost without triggering any of his safeguards was statistically improbable – borderline unfeasible-- but nothing was impossible.

He felt his hand twitch, the small, interlocking mechanisms inside his arm anxious to shift themselves into something more appropriate for addressing a potentially dangerous situation. Red Alert curled his fingers into his scarred palm, clenched them into a tight fist in an attempt to dismiss the urge. He wasn't going to bring out his ion rifle in the middle of the bloody base without due cause – and not knowing if there was due cause was not, in and of itself, due cause. No matter how much his instincts disagreed.

Not wanting to make a rash decision – his poor credibility could scarcely handle another false alarm – Red Alert cycled in a deep breath of air, to allow his olfactory sensors to search the atmosphere for clues as to who his mysterious company was. At first he couldn't smell much of anything beyond the acrid scent of harsh cleaning chemicals, which immediately brought to mind images of someone trying to eliminate evidence at a brutal crime scene, but Red Alert was not so anxious as to completely dismiss his own credentials in order to believe the case scenario. If someone had been horribly murdered just down the hall from him, he would have noticed.

More likely, the room had been recently cleaned for much less unscrupulous reasons, though why and by who Red Alert had no -

Ah. No, he did have an idea. The smell of cleaning chemicals, a relatively fast spark-pulse indicating a smaller frame – there was a particular Bot who came to mind, though Red Alert was not overly familiar with him – them? He wasn't entirely sure if the minibot identified as a individual or as a part of a greater whole, and suddenly felt ashamed for having never sought clarification on the matter.

The entire deductive process took less than ten seconds, shorter than it would have taken for him to remotely key into the camera in the room and confirm Unit 74s presence visually. He still did so, if only to double check that his senses were correct and that he had made the proper assumption, and was relieved (albeit a bit bemused) to see the little mech clinging to the wall just out of view from the doorway.

“Seventy Four?” He said, wishing there was something kinder to call the mech. “A bit late, isn't it?”

[Unit 74]

Looking to either side of him, Unit 74 was gauging his distance from the floor, deciding if he needed to climb, or if he could just drop down all at once. He was oblivious to the person on the other side of the door, or that there was a camera in the room…or really just about anything that wasn’t running through his processor about brothers and cleaning. If Red Alert still had access to the feed, he would see his helm tilt as his name was called out, before using his adhesive servos to lead the way around the corner, just enough to peek around it, the small o of his derma completing the ‘who?... me?’ look that greeted the security mech.

“This unit IS Seventy-four.” He was surprised, unlike Red Alert, the cleaning unit had no means to ‘know’ someone without encountering them. It never occurred to the Minicon that someone could find out about him from a file, report, or monitoring the base. Still, he smiled no less brightly at this mech who clearly knew him (and therefore was obviously his friend). “We were excited! We have learned the base enough to clean better.” Wasn’t that the most wonderful thing? So wonderful, he briefly forgot that many big mecha didn’t like to hear about cleaning, and he didn’t know if this one would be upset with him.

::Being on the wall isn’t good for talking. Unit 74 will make our friend feel unimportant:: The ‘consensus’ of the single mech was reached, soon followed by a drop. Removing his contact with the wall, the cleaning unit fell to the floor, legs folding to absorb the impact of his frame, unarmed. With a little bounce to his step, he joined Red Alert in the hall, but didn’t come close. It was easier for him to look up from a distance. What didn’t help (but was more comfortable), was the way he settled down to his full pede, resting on the heel wheels of his digitigrade legs.

“Unit 74 is happy that his friend has found him! … but he isn’t sure how he is known.” There was no suspicion or accusation. His vocals lacked the subtle trailing of words to indicate the unspoken question most mecha would have. He was curious, yes, but the natural entitlement to have an answer was completely missing. Why would he be worried? However he was known, it was definitely a good thing. Did it even matter? So long as they were friends, that was what was important.

“It's also late for…” Briefly his easy smile was lost, as he struggled with his words. “We are sorry… this unit doesn't know the designation of our friend.” Should he ask for it? Servos shifted, coming closer before him, so his claws could click together, the sound a small excuse for his gaze to flit down at them. "He would like to."