Ep 0.5 - Rat Maze - Closed

[Deleted]

There was organic grit working its way into the fine joint seams of his pedes despite his best efforts and the outcropping of more solid stone that he was crouched on. Steeljaw flicked his audials back, stilled an irritated twitch that wanted to run down his backstrut, and tried to unobtrusively shake out each pede with quick little jerks as he settled himself. By Shadowrunner's amused look, he was less than successful and he sketched an insulting flick of glyphs at her with the tip of his tail.

Even the warmth of the afternoon solar light, which he normally enjoyed, was only registering as unpleasantly bright to his optics, the relaxing heat of it on his plates gruesomely countered by the organic particles and - Primus help him, he couldn't stop a reflexive full plate shudder as he quickly edged out of the way - microscopic organic life that was crawling around his pedes.

He couldn't - quite - raise himself up entirely on the tips of his claws, but he tried, hunched onto the very tips of his pedes so that the bare minimum of his frame actually touched the filthy organic ground. Shadow made a sound suspiciously like a snort. "I realize I asked you to be my controller for this run," Steeljaw huffed at her, "but keep that up and you're going to owe me a full scrub and micro detailing after this is done."

The organic things must be able to smell Cybertronian metals, because they kept deviating from their prescribed pathways and coming to investigate his pedes. Steeljaw swallowed a disturbed sound, shifted again to avoid them, and opened a comm line to the inside of the base. ::In position, Jazz. Let me know when you want me to start the wipe and Shadow will take it from there.::


<< Set late in month 4. Steeljaw, Shadowrunner, Jazz, and Rattrap. >>

[Deleted]

This time, Shadow did snort. "How does that work, exactly?" she asked, finally giving in to the urge to pick up the smaller mechanism and settle him in her (terrifying-non-existent-fragments-of-dust free) lap. "You ask me for a favor because you're doing a favor for Jazz, yet I somehow owe you vast amounts of attention?" She grinned, rubbing the base of his audial arrays. "You really have taken this whole feline overlord thing to spark, haven't you?"

Not that Jaws wouldn't get the scrub down and detailing after this run, whether she "owed" it to him or not. From what she'd heard about the setup for this test run, he was going to need it.

[Deleted]

With Shadow's mesh under his feet Steeljaw did take the luxury of shaking his pedes out properly, one at a time, to rid them of grit (or, Primus forbid, any ANTS). Venting, he rested against her frame. "It's a laughing at the cat fee, of course. Don't think I didn't see you snickering over here." He pulsed the pleased feel of a smile at her, jaw dropping in silent amusement. "Besides, if we've all done our job correctly and this base is as secure as we think it is, I'm going to need a lot of scrubbing after this. So you can wash me, or you can help wash Rattrap." He bumped the flat of his helm against her arm. "I promise not to do anything in the washracks except demand a harder scrub in the places I can't reach."

Settling into her lap, he stretched - not a languorous gesture of relaxation but a deliberate and systematic loosening of his linkages from helm base to tail tip, thousands of small parts lifting, rotating, and smoothing back down in a rippling wave down his frame. "I wish they'd get on with it," Steeljaw muttered. "Don't know what's taking Rattrap so long to get in position."

<<tag to jazz or rattrap!>>

[Deleted]

Jazz's voice slid over the line, ENTIRELY too cheerful. ::Gotcha, Jaws, Shadow. The house is good to go.:: Those last glyphs were perhaps a bit more gleeful than was reassuring. Of course, Jazz had added in some things that no one but he (and, to some extent, Rhinox and Airazor, who he'd had make him some of the equipment that he couldn't cobble together himself) knew about. The fact that everyone involved knew that he'd added in security that they hadn't seen didn't make him feel less like a sparkling about to show his friends all his shiny toys AND just how clever he was with them.

This was going to be so fun. So. Fun.

He'd also bet credits on "the house". So, fun and possibly lucrative. Not that they had much of anything to spend Cybertronian currency on, but still!

::Rattrap, you in position? ... ... ...YO, RATTRAP!::

[rattrap]

::Yeah, yeah, I hear ya,:: Rattrap commed back, finishing the last of the slightly-past-expiration mozzarella sticks Miko had brought him (and really, he wasn't going to get tired of her fascination with Things Rattrap Will Eat any time soon). He studied the base with a thoughtful optic; Jazz was a sneaky fragger, and he'd been looking smug even for him. Plus, Rhinox and Airazor had both been wearing that pleased with themselves EMF that said they'd been up to something.

Also, Jazz had said something about cookies.

Put together, those things told him it was gonna be on interestin' afternoon.

::A'right, I'm ready. Just say th' word an' I'll start showin' ya how it's done.::


((OOC - Do we want to put Jaws next and run it Jaws-Shadow-Jazz-Ratty?))

[Deleted]

The 'house' was ready, which just left making sure the testers were. Steeljaw bumped his helm against Shadowrunner's arm once more, then pushed himself to his feet. "Better let me down," he told her. "It's been awhile since I've done this and it's disorienting - I don't want to scratch you by accident."

Awhile was perhaps a bit of an understatement - the entirety of the war was a better descriptor - but it wasn't as though anything short of catastrophic memory core failure would make him forget the necessary protocols. Jumping down to the least grit-and-insect-ridden patch of stone he could find, Steeljaw tucked his pedes underneath him and shuttered his optics for a klik, running through the parameter checks one last time to ensure he had set them correctly to block out all prior knowledge of the Autobot base.

[Don't forget your control,] Uplink reminded him, the same way he had reminded Steeljaw before every security test for as long as the symbiont could remember. [Yes, I KNOW] was the habitual response, but he double-checked that Shadowrunner's image and designation were slotted into the correct parameter marker all the same.

The real problem was actually Uplink himself, or the secondary core that Steeljaw used for his former carrier's backup. Everything his primary memory core knew was copied to that, which meant the knowledge of the base layout was duplicated there as well and his testing protocols hadn't been written to include what to do with a full online backup. Steeljaw had been working on that problem for the better part of two weeks, writing a patch that would modify his protocols to include the backup core as well. Every simulation had come back positive, but the truth was going to be in the execution. Cycling a deep ventilation, Steeljaw forced his linkages to loosen, settled his weight across a stable base, and queued up the blocking protocols. [Say goodnight, Uplink,] he thought to himself, and triggered the sequence, the world going blank in a wash as his systems cycled down.

Steeljaw rebooted with a jolt, not the systematic reboot from recharge but the sudden surge that was characteristic of security testing protocols. Which told him what - a job - and not to bother looking for a where because that would be blocked except really, short of starting the testing in an empty room there weren't many regions that couldn't be identified by sight and echo pings and atmospheric sensors had already verified that he wasn't in an enclosed space and...

Oh. Oh, that was weird. The atmosphere was oxygen heavy and heated and wet and the solid mass under his pedes was... Steeljaw snapped his optics open and sucked in a short, sharp vent, the surprise rippling in a cascade through his plates from helm to tail tip. Primus bless, was that really...?

Tentatively, he patted the surface he was standing on with one forepede and oh, Maker and Well, it was. It was actually organic, a solid organic slab of geothermic matter worth five thousand times more credits than Steeljaw had made in his entire functioning. His vents seized up, optics darting around - Pit slag, he'd left pede prints on someone's absolutely priceless organic display - but to either side there was only MORE organic materials, carefully arranged in a manner to mimic a natural organic landscape. The light had a strange gold quality - he dared a wide-opticed look up and yes, Primus, there was an alien BLUE sky and yellow star overhead, seamless and as perfectly real looking (and holotech that good was expensive) as the actual organic slabs under his pedes.

They had worked for some rich Towerlings before, but Primus, this could be the showcase garden of an Emirate or a Councilmech. Or the Prime. It was worth... Steeljaw didn't know how much it was worth because every time he tried to calculate it his processor stalled out but slag and smelter fire, it was A LOT. And if their client had this sort of credit to throw around... a completely unprofessional glee surged through Steeljaw's spark. He hoped they had done a very, VERY good job, because this was going to keep them in credits for a long time.

He reached out automatically to share that excitement with Uplink, but found his carrier bond blocked, the circuit dead. Uplink must be sitting in with their client's monitor. Which meant Uplink was watching and there was Steeljaw, reacting like a awe-struck youngling when there was a job to be done. Giving himself one last shake, Steeljaw straightened up, tried to ignore the - alright, YES, actual awestruck glee - at what was under his pedes, and brought up the job notes.

Which included one control contact, a black armored femme by the designation 'Shadowrunner', and yes, there she was, sitting on another organic outcropping a body-length away. Rather forbidding looking femme, really - Primus, that was a lot of armor, she must be someone's security - but Steeljaw put on his very best pleasant and professionally cheerful demeanor and went to greet her, tail curling gently and audials perked. "Hello! Shadowrunner, yes? I'm sure we've met, but I'm afraid I don't remember at the moment - just for the duration of the testing, that was all explained beforehand, right?"

[Deleted]

Watching Jaws go from fussy and disgruntled to awe and fascination over their surroundings was both adorable and hilarious, but Shadow kept her amusement at the display out of her field and her expression. It was something she'd tease him over later, but right now she didn't think he'd appreciate a stranger laughing at his expense.

And they were, definitely, strangers; everything about how he moved was wrong, even before he put on his professional demeanor and approached her, nothing at all of the cynical, snarky mech she knew in his expression or field. She raised an optic ridge,wondering just how long "cheerful and polite" was going to last once they got started.

Not long, she'd bet. Jazz should have been taking odds on that, too. Primus knew that, in true Las Vegas tradition, he'd been taking odds on every other aspect of the testing.

"I was warned," she said, perfectly non-committal. "You have my comm?" Confirmation came a nano-klik later, and she nodded, rising. "Is there anything you need, or are you ready to start?"

((OOC - Jaws can duck in for a quick tag or Jazz can just get Shadow's go-ahead; I leave it to Neko and Aster to fight over.))

[Deleted]

Jazz settled back in his seat before the monitors and switched Steeljaw out of the loop, just as Jaws had suggested he do. He'd said that information would flow into his own testing protocols better if his only contact was with his control instead of "the house". Shadow had agreed to relay any pertinent information, and Jazz had said sure and promised not to make fun of Steeljaw behind his back.

"All right, folks, lemme go over again the rules here for those playing along at home. What we've got here is a simultaneous, multi-strike security intrusion test. Rattrap and Steeljaw are, obviously, the intruders, and you will start at opposite ends of the base, at what we've all determined to be the likely main entrypoints for any spec ops looking to sneak in."

Other than the front door, of course. But 'Cons busting in the front door was, for obvious reasons, more Ironhide's territory than Jazz's.

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the base undetected and make it to the goal near the center. Now, to make this as hard on me as possible, I've given Steeljaw an old map of the place. Shadow, tell him to assume that the map is old and outdated and partial besides, but it does have his goal marked on it. Rattrap, you don't get a map beyond the one in your devious little helm, but I WILL tell you that there is a cookie for you in Corridor 9.3.

"Primary victory conditions are to get to the goal undetected by the house, but there's a graded scoring system. You lose points for, obviously, being detected either by cameras or by running into one of the personnel on-base. You also lose points for triggering any of the autonomic defenses on-base, which have been de-lethalized but are still not going to be any fun. Feel free to evade, dodge, or dismantle any traps or security measures you find. Please do not actually DESTROY them, and Rattrap, certainly no STEALING them. We need them when the test is over."

Jazz's last systems diagnostic came up clean. He petted the console. "A'right. Any questions? Speak now or forever hold your pieces."


<<If no one has any questions, feel free to both just jump right in and start moving. Once Steeljaw leaves, Shadow can feel free to come to Control with Jazz if she'd like. :DD>>

[rattrap]

Rattrap was already plotting his route through the base. Corridor 9.3 wasn't hard to get to from here - which probably meant Jazz had the most direct route rigged like a minefield. Luckily, if he was willing to risk being out in the open (once in a seldom used corridor, once to cut across a corner of the rec room), he could take an almost-as-easy but much less likely to be trapped path to his goal.

He scurried across rock to a cleverly concealed air vent. The sensors on the latch didn't, as far as he was concerned, count as a trap; he easily routed around them, opened the vent just enough to slip inside, and latched it behind him, scanning his immediate area.

No cameras, no unshielded power lines, and he crept his way along to the first intersection, stopping to scan again.

It's like ya ain't even tryin', he thought as his optical range shifted to include infrared and the laser tripwire became visible. He inspected the area more closely, trying to determine if breaking the beam would set off an actual trap or just an alarm - not that he intended to break it, but it was always nice knowing how the local security thought - and with a little effort (if he'd known his engineering mods were gonna be this useful, he'd have done it way before joining the Axalon) found the circuit leading to...yeah, a trap.

There was also a second circuit leading into the trap, and that he traced back to...oh, nice, a pressure plate behind the obvious tripwire. Maybe Jazz was putting some effort into this.

What Jazz wasn't doing was thinking like an engineer. Using much the same trick he had on the vent sensors, Rattrap routed the pressure plate circuit into the tripwire circuit, hopped over the tripwire, and continued on his way.

[Deleted]

A... map? Steeljaw flicked an audial as he unpacked the directives his contact had pinged him with. Partial - aaah. Some unfortunate someone had lost, deliberately released, or had stolen an older floorplan of their client's locale. Changes had doubtless been made but they were working under the assumption that whoever would be challenging their client's security would be doing so with access to that previous data.

Steeljaw crackled static quietly to himself. Well, horrible luck for their client, but excellent luck for security contractors who landed the job. Steeljaw certainly wasn't going to complain. He flashed a smile at his contact, or as much of a bipedal frametype expression as he could mimic, glyphs painting professional confidence and reassurance. "I'll see you on the inside, then," he told her pleasantly. "Or when you have to come scrape me out of whatever bit I've gotten myself stuck in. I'd say wish me luck but that's rather the opposite of the point, right?"

From the map layout their client's location was a partially inverted tower - half above level and half sunk below. The floorplan gave him no clue as to what, exactly, the tower was - business? Residence? Research facility? It was a strangely chaotic tangle, with a disproportionately large number of the spaces seemingly made for symbiont sized micro-mecha at best. The entire tower had been modded from the outside to look like some gigantic citadel of organic rock, a monolith thrust up from the center of the garden, and though Steeljaw's scans confirmed that it was actual organic material clear up to the entrance point he was to approach from he guessed that not too far above that point it probably gave way to holo imagery.

Bizarre, eccentric, and incredibly insanely RICH. Steeljaw approved.

The organic facade gave way to proper metal inside... except it wasn't. Steeljaw stopped just inside the entrance, pressing his pedes to the cool, slick surface, and pulsed a few more scans at it, then at the maintenance shaft it lead into. Assured that there was no immediate surveillance, he gave into the surprise and let his audials lay back, leaning down to touch glossa and several sensor tendrils to the floor.

It didn't feel right. It didn't taste right. It wasn't any sort of regular Cybertronian construction material. It was a fragile metal and a harder pulse echoed back a density and thickness that was a far cry from regulation building code. Eyeing it as though it might bite, Steeljaw took another step, placing his pede carefully. The flooring didn't dent or break, though he halfway expected it to - Primus bless, what had their client been thinking? Either some building cohort had ripped their client off in the worst way possible and it was going to be Steeljaw's unhappy job to tell them so, or else they were dealing with a bizarre eccentric who had spent so much on their faux organic exterior that they had skimped terribly on the interior. Steeljaw scraped his fangs against each other and pinged his carrier link again but there was, of course, no answer. Mind on the job, he reminded himself firmly. They were supposed to be professionals. He was going to have to act like one.

The first intersection was marked on his map just where it should be, but he could see a left turning branch just beyond it that was not. Steeljaw vented softly, plates and sensors flared as he scanned the first cross section for any of the likeliest deterrents. He found the tripwire on the second scan wavelength and cycled through the rest because he simply could not believe... no, that really was the only one, a thin laser line horizontal to the flooring that bisected the corridor. That was embarrassing. THAT was their first checkpoint? Honestly?

Steeljaw made a mental note to slap either himself or Uplink silly for that kind of lazy half-afted work - and oh, Primus, PLEASE let it not be that someone else was paying them off to frag over a client this obviously important - and, with one more thorough scan, leapt neatly over the tripwire beam.

And something moved.

Steeljaw's first paniked thought was that the flimsy metal of the floor really WAS giving way, duryllium front pede claws punching through it like so much mesh as he gripped on for limb and spark. The floor, however, did not crumple out from underneath him. It just sunk, very slightly, underneath his backmost pede, and a belated sparkpulse later he recognized the muted click for what it was and cursed himself thoroughly.

Pressure plate. Of all of the idiot youngling tricks to fall for. It was, he determined quickly, rigged to trigger upon depression AND release; freezing as he had with his hindmost pede still on it was the only thing saving him from setting off either an alarm or a more elaborate security measure of some sort. Hissing inaudibly to himself, Steeljaw carefully circled his front pedes around - Primus, his back linkages were tight! - until he was bent in half and could get a good look at his own hindquarters, sensor tendrils seeking out the circuitry of the pressure plate.

It was a rudimentary system and the tissue thin metal - not to mention the crystal-fragile wiring behind it - took bare moments to cut through. Taking his pede off the plate, Steeljaw vented in relief when nothing untoward happened.

Rudimentary or not, that had been an unpleasantly close call. Growling in the privacy of his own processor, Steeljaw redoubled his scan sweeps and crept towards the unmapped shaft.

[Deleted]

I am a terrible friend, Shadow thought, with a certain restrained glee, as Jaws vanished.

She barely waited for him to be out of sight before she dropped into her alt and shot for the main entrance of the base. She was looking forward to their maze rat and maze cat running into Jazz's surprises far, far too much.

Not that Jazz was any better. His EMF practically crackled with delight when she joined him, and she ignored the second chair to fold herself onto the floor next to him. She second-guessed her choice a sparkpulse later, but moving would just invite questions, so instead she nudged his leg with her shoulder.

"Did I miss anything?" She pulsed sharp-edged humor at him. "Please tell me Rattrap is already six different colors."

[Deleted]

Jazz grinned, his hand falling on her shoulder to squeeze in sympathetic excitement, his field pulsing amusement and glad-you're-here.

The monitors showed two tracers, green for Rattrap, gold for Steeljaw, slowly making their way inwards. Jazz had given them to both participants as diagnostics, so he could see where they were and what they were successfully making it past.

Jazz pointed to the green marker. "Nope! The rat led a charmed life, made it through the first set he came to with flyin' colors. Jaws, on the other hand, armed the first plate trap." He gestured at the side of the main map, where a small indicator was blinking. "Didn't release, so he's not...hmmm...think that one was orange...yet, but we're gonna have to take points off for hitting the trap."

He squeezed Shadow's shoulder, then rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Don't worry. Ratty's likely gonna try to outsmart me. We'll see how well that works for him."

[rattrap]

Rattrap had to admit, Jazz was a tricky fragger; his progress, evading cameras and various other traps, was slower than he would have liked. He made it to the rec room without incident, though, and cautiously poked his head into open air.

Camera...camera...one of his own cameras...and a whole lot of nothin'.

Carefully, Rattrap lowered himself down to the floor and scampered across the room to the vent in the far wall.

[Deleted]

Though Rhinox seemed thoroughly invested in playing Castle Panic with Raf and Miko - a feat he had to accomplish lying down on his front while the children sat cross-legged - his senses were actually constantly scanning the room on high alert. Jazz had enlisted Rhinox's help with a little security exercise he was conducting, and Rhinox, being the helpful mech that he was, had readily agreed. It was an excuse to modify his chainguns a bit, as well.

"Okay, here I go," he said, and pulled a chip out of the cup. "...Oh, no."

"Goblin King?" Miko demanded. "Bogus!"

"It's okay, we can still handle this," Raf reassured them determinedly. "If we all work together, we can do it!"

It was a worthy pep talk, Optimus would have been proud, but Rhinox was only half listening. Behind the couch currently shielding Rhinox's bulk from sight, there was a soft scrape of metal, a familiar smell, and - Rhinox paused mid-move to listen, head tilted - there. A light impact from a lightly-armored mech. His target had arrived.

"Excuse me," he murmured to Jack and Miko. Rising to his knees with a battle roar, he unleashed his chainguns, spraying paintballs along the opposing wall in a broad streak. Somewhere in the middle, he heard a satisfyingly femmeling-esque shriek of affront.

Rhinox lowered his guns, and admired his artistic handiwork. Impressionist Style: The Painted Sanitation Bot. Admittedly, most of the wall was painted too, but art did require a little mess. Rattrap's 'wounds' didn't look fatal, which meant he was probably still in the game, but he would certainly be docked points for this. And be the target of some good-natured ribbing, of course.

Rhinox put his guns away, pinged Jazz with his status, and returned to his previous position. "Whose turn is it?" he asked his game partners.

[rattrap]

Oh, as if SUDDENLY RHINOX wasn't bad enough, the rapidfire impact of his slightly sticky, splatty ammo knocked Rattrap in a staggering line back against the wall and pinned him there. (There may have been yelping, though Rattrap would deny it.) Right in the direct line of his own camera, which he knew for a fact had better image quality than anything else on the base, and if he knew that is Jazz didn't get the video files before he could, Rhinox would.

Some friend.

At least he didn't have to suffer the indignity of being captured. As soon as Rhinox stopped firing, Rattrap scurried across the floor to his goal, leaving a multi-colored, dripping trail across the floor.