Ep 1 - Empty Spaces (Open)

[Bluestreak]

High afternoon on Interstate Highway 15 in Nevada.

The hills in the distance were striated red, gold and brown. Their far-off outlines seemed to shimmer and waver. A long asphalt road cut through the landscape in a straightaway; there were no turns or curves to be found for fifty miles or more. Overhead, the sky was sharp blue; only a few wispy clouds braved the horizon. There was no breeze to move them; the air was absolutely still.

It was one hundred and five degrees in the shade, and there sure wasn’t much shade on this long stretch of road in the middle of the high desert. It was hot. Miserably hot. So hot in fact that all the living creatures with any sense had slunk off to hide in any patch of shadow they could find.

Except the one now driving down this road over the posted speed limit. Really, it wasn’t that he didn’t have sense, contrary to what some believed.

It was more that he was a giant robot from another planet and what was oppressively warm for all the things with fur and feathers and skin was sort of no worse than a couple of bars Bluestreak remembered. Well, okay, the venting system had been broken, so that was probably why, but the drinks had been pretty darn good. Or maybe he’d just been overheating, and by that time he would have drank cleaning fluid out of the janitor’s closet and thought it was great.

No, no - he’d seen what happened when you did that, you ended up with a medic glaring at you and asking you had the party been worth it. Your answer would have to be no, no, it wasn’t, sorry, here’s my insurance card, thank you. Even if it was totally worth it - Primus knew those medics got grumpy sometimes. Oh well, they had their reasons, no doubt. Not that he’d ever drank cleaning fluid, no way. See, there was that sensibility. Right there.

A shadow flicked across the silver Datsun’s hood. The mech realized what it was a moment later and there was a sheepish little light-blink from the headlights. Whoops, that was a speed sign. What did that one say... Sixty five? Sixty? Well, it really didn’t matter because he’d not passed another car for fifty miles.

He’d had to lay low for the evening because he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. Hey, he’d been briefed - scan a vehicle when there’s less chance of them spotting you. Then head this way in the morning. Don’t waste time, no unauthorized contact with the humans. We'll send someone out to meet you.

The time had given him a chance to sort things out, check his downloaded maps- and then engage in a quick hunt for a decent alt mode he could live with for a while.

Which was not oh so not a Prius. Sorry, Earth, he’d apparently be contributing to the hole in the ozone layer. Apologies.

This car suited him though. There had been a lot of vehicles to choose from that night, and no one had noticed him perusing them, thank goodness. Well, okay, the one human had, but... um, he’d also been throwing up on his shoes.

Bluestreak figured that particular meeting didn’t count as unauthorized contact, because the guy then drunkenly asked him when the Kaiju were coming and promptly passed out on the pavement. Whoops. Hey, he'd moved him out of the way, was just the nice thing to do.

So now he was back to fifty miles later. Just four well-balanced tires humming along the hot asphalt, his thoughts, and the radio to fill up the empty spaces between them. He flicked the controls and turned up the music until it bounced along his windows.

[Deleted]

Air Raid had decided that he had both an angel and a devil watching over him here on Earth. Only one of them looked like Ratchet, and the other one looked like -

"Find Bluestreak, get a code to confirm it's him, and then send me your co-ordinates so I can open a ground bridge and bring you both back to base." Ratchet had stuck a finger into his face, his gaze stern. "That's it. That's all you need to do. No stunts. No fly-bys. No fighting. No Danger Zone! Get Bluestreak. Get code. Get back here. Nothing else. Can I trust you with this?"

"Pssh!" Lying backwards over the sofa, Miko scoffed. She thrust out her fists. "That's so boring. You're boring, Ratchet! Go race that Bluestreak dude, Raider! Do barrel rolls! Go find Starscream and punch him in the face!"

Ratchet fell silent.

"I'm sending Electrocap with you," he said.

Ratchet's orders now rang in the Aerialbot's head as he cruised at a little over ten thousand feet. Fluffy clouds streamed past his wingtips as he soared over the desert, his radar scanning the long stretch of highway below. He was being good. He was searching for Bluestreak just as he had been told. He was a diligent Autobot performing an important task exactly as instructed.

He was also inverted.

"Silverbolt once said that prolonged inverted flight would scramble my circuits for reals one day," he said. "He was always like, you'll become disoriented and lose situational awareness, Air Raid. Don't do it. But eh, we've been flipped like this for what, two hours now? And I don't feel no different. Whoa. That cloud looks like it's giving us the middle finger."

The white jet rolled over. It yawned, then made boombox noises.

"Pssh! I'm so bored. Are you bored, Cap? Have you spotted anything yet? I don't think my radar works very well while I'm inverted. I think I might have been scanning clouds the entire time. See any cars down there that look Autobotish? By that I mean all shiny and new and junk."

[Deleted]

It felt just like a firm, warm hug. A little bitey on the shoulders perhaps, but even with her dorsal and posterior mag clamps on the harness was still supporting a fair portion of Electrocap’s weight as she hung upside-down in the cockpit. At Air Raid’s prompting, she whirled her head until she spied the offending article.

“Holy frack, you’re right about that clou-woah!”

The jet flipped into a graceful roll, and Electrocap’s aft made proper weight-loading contact with the seat for the first time in two hours. Disengaging the mag clamps quickly dispersed that uncomfortable tingle from overexcited sensors (‘pins and needles’, to use this country’s vernacular) and she rubbed the top of her shoulders where the straps had dug in.

Not the most comfortable way to travel, but flying was always fun. No matter the orientation.

Stretching out her arms and legs, the minicon relaxed back into her seat. “Mm,” she hummed, fingers meshing together over her midsection. “Not really. It’s a cosy kind of bored, I guess. I’ve been doing so much cleaning since I’ve gotten in that I swear, if I see one more rusted conduit, I’m going to snap. Went through the itty little bits of Ratchet’s medkit to start with, then moved on to cleaning and fixing all the energon filters, and now I’m scrubbing the vents just outside the medbay. I’m so scared he’s going to have me go round the whole base in concentric circles. This could be the last patch of sky I see in months. Years, even. I’m savouring it while I can.”

Electrocap knew she was grousing. She loved being at Omega One, she really did. Having a fragment of her home on Earth after vorns of separation from other Cybertronians, or studiously trying to avoid them, was a reality she still found she was pinching herself for. Every mech she’d met so far had seemed so friendly and sincere, and better yet, no one had tried to stuff her inside an energon dispenser for barrack-room kicks. Big plus.

But by virtue of being a minicon, there were some jobs Electrocap was better suited to than others. And given the lack of targets to infiltrate, and the already healthy state of the monitor roster, Ratchet had snapped the orange bot up and put her straight to work disinfecting, scrubbing and mending in all manner of tiny, dark boltholes. Which, after thirty years of roving free as a bird, a face full of dull, discoloured construction-grade panels every day was a rude shock to the system.

Even so, after unsuccessful attempts to score a shake-up in her duties by pleading, cajoling and straight-up whinging, it turns out that naming your tools after the cast of Jersey Shore in ear-shot of your medic will get a mech’s patrol requests approved faster than they could say “T-SHIRT TIME!”

Who knew, right?

Ex-venting languidly, she wriggled her backplates into a more comfortable position and crossed her hands over the back of her head.

“Nah, you're good. I’d let you know if that was happening.” As Air Raid’s radar scoured the dusty landscape beneath them ‘Cap’s own systems were plugged into his mainframe, streamlining command trees and shunting lower priority protocols to her own processor to boost the jet’s output. They’d had so much time drifting above the highway with little to do, she’d even started running a low-level defrag. “It’s not as if there’s much area to scan down there anyway. There is only one road he could be on. But, you know, the ‘Cons could come at us from anywhere up here. As far as I’m concerned, Air Raid, you’re thinking way ahead of the – hello.’

The orange minibot straightened up as the radar gave a ping. She punched the air. “Hahaha! We have life! That could be our boy in blue!”

Well, it HAD been over two hours.

She sent out a cursory ping on a standard Autobot frequency. It was as much to alert any potentially aware mechaniod of their arrival as it was to invite them to comm. back on the private channel enclosed. As far as the Autobots and the United States government were concerned, MECH were unable to decipher Cybertronian glyphs. Yet.

After a brief pause, excitement soon gave way to a manual optical reset. Wait. Were they still cruising?

Electrocap shot a pointed look at the monitor.

“Well, what are you waiting for? A written invitation?” She flapped her hands impatiently. “Go go go!”

[Bluestreak]

Huh, how many times could the station he was listening to play this same song...?

Apparently once every half an hour by way this planet told time. Bluestreak had to wonder if – oh yep, if he kept tuning his systems in, it was playing somewhere on some radio station. He cheerfully amused himself for several miles with that. He’d almost gotten three or four of them to align up and - dangit, now the lyrics were firmly entrenched in his head. Human male meets female, she strings him along, tells him to pike off (my goodness, you’re missing out, he seems like such a nice fellow, buying you dead vegetation - er, flowers. Flowers.) Right, flowers and you totally spurn him.

Well, hello universal constant, owch.

He spent a good minute singing along again and then another good minute having a discussion with the guy in the song about maybe taking up a hobby. He idily drifted between the white lines on the side of the road, then made up a quick game. Tires can’t touch the yellow stripes; right, left, right, left...

Ping.

At first Bluestreak thought he’d kicked up another rock or something since it sort of faded into the background of the radio. Then it pinged again, and the mech realized oh, no, it was a ping and it was a hail - he was being hailed and it was Cybertronian. Even better was that it was Autobot, because whoo, he’d really hoped that the Decepticons were nowhere to be found because there wasn’t anything out here to take cover behind except a handful of little rocks. Not the best hiding place, even he could admit that.

His answering ping practically scrambled out of his processor, along with a delighted, cheerful query. Where are you, I’m here, I’m here! ::Hallo!:: he called out suddenly over that private channel. ::Hail and hello and hi and all that! Sorry, I lost you in the radio- oh, sorry, let me turn that down, whoops, there– they keep playing this song and what’s worse is that I keep listening to it, because once it’s in your head, it’s just not leaving without a fight, haha!::

The silver car dodged between the yellow lines again - zipping back and forth, and then in a burst of sheer relief and sudden laughter, he slammed on the brakes. A spray of dust and sand whirled up as he swept his rear axle around, spinning into a burnout in the middle of the deserted highway. In mid-spin, he transformed, bouncing up onto his feet with a wide grin.

He tipped back his head, shaded his optics and spent a moment surveying the landscape. Huh, no car, no cloud of dust as far as his optic could see; interesting, because right now he could see a good long distance. Bluestreak turned in a quick circle, rocking back on his heels, his doors flaring to keep his balance.

::So, hey - where are you at?::

[Deleted]

"'Where am I at', he asks," said Air Raid. He chortled. "Let's show him, Capo!"

Without waiting for her to reply he rolled onto one wingtip and entered a steep dive. Immediately the wind began to scream around his canopy as he built up speed. His cockpit rattled, his airframe buffeted by the forces straining against it.

Their altitude shrank rapidly, numbers spinning downwards on the HUD. At five hundred feet the white jet casually flipped onto his back again, racing inverted over the highway. Bluestreak was a dot on his radar now. He saw no other cars nearby. Perfect. Time to make an entrance, Aerialbot-style.

"Oi, Blue," he said. "I'm at your six o'clock, about sixty-eight miles back. I'll be over you in like... six seconds. Please don't shoot me, bro."

The highway made a gentle curve, then shot as straight as an arrow for the distant horizon. Still inverted, Air Raid skimmed along it at less than one hundred feet, delighting in the massive cloud of dust his wake torn up from the asphalt. A silver robot appeared beneath his nose and he blasted over him, filling the air with flying dirt.

Laughing, he flipped over again. He flew down the highway for another twenty miles before transforming, ejecting Electrocap from his cockpit and catching her neatly in his arms during her brief instant of weightlessness. He hit the desert floor with ease, skidded to a stop, and stood proudly with her cradled in the crook of his arm while a storm of dust crashed over them both.

When the air cleared Air Raid gently set Electrocap down at the side of the road.

"Got a few minutes before buddy shows up," he said. "Let's flag him down. Show some leg, Cap!"

Jokingly, he stuck out his thumb.

[Deleted]

Electrocap squealed as gravity suddenly bottomed out beneath them. The sky roared by the cockpit canopy like a wild thing, shaking every rivulet in her body and jolting her up and down in sympathy with the barest fraction of its chassis-splatting might until even SHE couldn’t hear herself yelling “FASTER! FASTER!” the entire way down.

Then the world flipped over again and they were shooting along the highway like a bullet. A brightly polished silver car flew underneath the hood. It wasn’t even a fair fight. It was the BEST fight. That mech could only dream of hitting speeds like this, and what was he eating? Their DUST. They were going so fast she could feel her energon thrumming in her audios, blocking out all other sound, narrowing her focus to the pinprick thrill of the amp-tech hyperstimulating her senses.

Life was good.

Suddenly, the world was the right way up once more and Electrocap was flying, freed from the cockpit at a startling speed. Air Raid caught her only a moment later and lowered her gently to the ground. She was still screaming.

“AAAAAAHHH YES! FINALLY! Frag mech, why were you holding out on me like that?!”

Half-stumbling, she righted herself in the direction Bluestreak should be coming from. In a few minutes. Snrk.

Electrocap chortled at Raider’s suggestion. “Ohoho, you’ve gotta pull some better tricks to earn that leg. There wasn’t even a barrel roll in that little schlick. Not a single one.”

Her processor, still booting back to normal playing speed, paused at the hint of familiarity in the glyphs that Air Raid had used for their target. 

Squinting, she shielded her optics against the glare of the sun and looked up at the jet. “D’you know Bluestreak?”

[Bluestreak]

"Shoot you? Hahaha, no, no, I never mess up on a target, honest - huh, six seconds, whoa, you must be laying pedal to the metal because I'm not even picking up a blip," the mech replied, as he turned in a circle in the middle of the road. He flicked out his sensors over the dry expanse of desert. His blue optics were puzzled, but his grin had not left his features. "Tell you what, how about I meet you halfway."

With that, Bluestreak laughed and dropped back down into his vehicle mode. "Seriously, nope, still not picking you up. Not a dang thing," he continued even while he transformed, everything folding smoothly into place. "You know, I wonder if this targeting capacitor is giving me fits again, I can't remember if I got it repaired before or after uh, that little incident back at- well, yeah, okay, it had to be after. I took a little whack upside the head."

The silver mech revved his engine and shot forward. A spray of sand flicked out from under his tires and scattered across the asphalt, dancing in the waves of heat rising from the roadway.

"Totally my fault," he chortled sheepishly as he drove. "It was an exit door, and see, I was standing on the other side of it when- hey, wait just a minute, you sound awfully familiar, gosh, sorry, I'm terrible sometimes with voices over comm, everything sounds like you're under a-"

It came over him with a roar, a flash of wing.

"Holy-"

Whatever else Bluestreak said after that was drowned out in the deafening snarl of a jet engine. The silver car threw on his brakes, leaving a wide streak of rubber behind him as he fishtailed across the road. He ended up sideways smack in the center of it. The wall of dirt pinged off of him a second later. It swept over him in a wave of little pebbles, gravel, and a rather surprised scorpion that proceeded to tap its stinger against the glass with an evil little glare.

The squeal over the comm was totally Bluestreak's tires as he spun around in a circle like a cat that had jumped on a working woodstove.

Totally a tire squeal. That was his story and he was sticking to it. His windshield wiper slapped at the scorpion, and then flicked off the poor innocent scuttling beast even as he heaved himself out of his dirt ruts and back onto the road.

His mirrors tilted back and forth. "Whoa...." he said to himself. That had been a lot of jet, and that had been a lot of- what the heck sort of flier did that kind of stunt. Well, it sure wasn't a Decepticon or he would have been a silver smear, nice Blue, you missed that one. Look up. Up is an actual direction, you know that.

That sort of stunt... he turned that thought over in his head. Yeah, he'd not seen someone do something quite like that since, wow, it had been a while, and-

"No way. No way," he breathed.

Bluestreak's laughter suddenly spilled out as he turned back the way he'd been driving and he shot forward, the silver car chasing after the aircraft in a vain attempt to catch up. He opened up full throttle, engine roaring as he not only ignored the posted speed limit, but booted it aside with joyous delight.

[Deleted]

Air Raid grinned. He was aways tickled when someone enjoyed his flying, rather than screaming and threatening to nut him.

"Sorta!" he said. He squinted down the highway, his thumb still raised. "I mean, I got stationed all over the place during the end of the war. I met a lot of Autobots during that time. I've forgotten about a lot of them too, but I remember this Bluestreak dude. He's a nice guy. He talks a lot, but he's super nice and he's a wicked shot, seriously. And a fast set of wheels as well, so he should catch up with us shortly. I think we caught him by surprise. Ha!"

The Aerialbot laughed. He could never turn down an opportunity to show off when it presented itself. It wasn't often that he got to buzz an Autobot, especially here on Earth. Good times.

He scanned the horizon, one hand raised to shield his optics from the bright sun. Sure enough, a cloud of dust was approaching them rapidly. Air Raid pointed at it.

"There he is!" he said. "I think you'll like this guy, Cappy. He's cool. We'll have to give him the tour of the base or something when we get him back home. I bet he'd like that. Oi, Blue!"

He leapt up and down once, waving.

[Deleted]

((Feel free to skip EC's turn! She's just chillin'.))

[Bluestreak]

Bluestreak laughed again at the leap and wave in the rapidly decreasing distance. Not that he’d admit it to himself, but it was always a bit disconcerting to go to new places and just - wait to meet someone. Most of the time it was fine, all was well, and everyone got where they needed to go without any major incident.

Then there were the other times where you stepped into a downright dangerous situation in the first fifteen seconds. Yep, the first one was okay, the second one was on his ‘do not want’ list. Sure, it was a pretty big list, even he knew that, but hey, he figured that one was on everyone’s list, right?

In less time than it took Bluestreak to run those thoughts through his head, he had caught up to the other mech and - oh, two.

The silver Datsun hurtled up the roadway and his nose passed right by the two Autobots before he threw on the brakes. His rear-tires whirled him around, the rubber squealing on the hot pavement. Even as he spun, he was transforming again; and then the mech popped up on his feet with another laugh. He touched a finger to his brow in a cheerful salute before he rocked back on his heels, his doors flicking back for balance as he glanced between Air Raid and Electrocap.

“Hello!” he offered, with a cheerful grin, and then before they could even answer that greeting, the mech ducked his helm. “Gosh it’s good to see you - whoa, now that was a heck of a meet and greet, you nearly grazed the paint off my hood. Awesome!

“Air Raid, right?” Bluestreak said, nodding in affirmation mostly to himself even as he stuck his hand out to clasp Air Raid’s with honest delight. “Whoa, it’s been a long time, but I totally remember you, back from that - well, kinda, we were a little busy at the time for too much of a chat but oh boy I remember that run you made back on-“

He looked at Electrocap, and his expression changed to a bit of awe as he laughed again. “You should have seen this guy, wow,” he told her and brought up his hands close together in a quick gesture. “Back on Cybertron, right, we’re all pinned down and it’s getting really ugly, and all of a sudden here he is and giving them a run for their money. One heck of a dogfight, seriously, and we’re watching him because all of a sudden he just turns and takes them through this gap and it’s tighter than a turbofox hole, and the guys going after him catch a- yeah- wow, you know, thinking on it, I don’t think I could have gotten through.”

The silver mech mused this over for a split second.

“Nope. I would have totally twitched or something and ripped a wing off. That’s probably why I’m perfectly fine down on the ground, thank you very much, I leave flying to experts and I’m sure not an–“

He caught himself, and sheepishly looked back down at the orange femme. “Oh, erk, sorry. Sorry. I’m totally being rude, been a long day. Well, no, it’s been a long few days. But mostly last night. A guy nearly hurled on my foot and I wasn’t even in a bar, go figure... but hey, found a cool alt mode because of it, so it all worked out.”

A grin, and he held out his hand to her. “I’m Bluestreak. Awfully nice to meet you.”

[Deleted]

Air Raid put his fists on his hips and modestly stuck out his chest.

"Man, I am made of awesome runs," he said as he struck a casual pose, his weight thrown over one leg. His angled his wings to catch the sunlight, radiating pride. "I remember that one, though. I thought I was gonna rip my nav lights off against those walls in the gap. I nailed a Con in the dogleg, though. Blam! It was great."

He grinned and sized up the silver Autobot. "Man, it's good to see you down here on Earth though, Blue. We can use all the bots we can get out here. It's a nice planet, but a bit dirty and frontier, you know? Oh hey, where are my manners. Lemme introduce you guys."

The Aerialbot laughed and took a step back. He graciously motioned to Electrocap.

"This lady here? This is Electrocap," he said. "She's our resident comm specialist, coder, hacker - you name it. She specializes in giving jerks like Soundwave enormous headaches, which pretty much makes her a straight-up badass to boot. And I think she knows the lyrics to Gilbert and Sullivan songs, but I've yet to put that theory to the test. It will happen someday. She's totally sweet."

Optics gleaming, he gestured again. "And Capo, this is Bluestreak! He's like, one of the best sharpshooters out there, seriously. He could shoot the wings off flies, but then he would apologise to them because he's a nice guy. He's really fast too, and from the looks of things he's chosen a pretty awesome alt mode - though I didn't get a good look at it when I was blasting past at six hundred miles and hour! Woo!"

Cheering, he threw his hands into the air and waved them.

[Deleted]

She grinned, taking the closest digit to shake with both hands. “Nice to meet you too!”

Electrocap loved stories. War stories. Alt-mode quest stories. Stories about mechs meeting again after vorns and getting on like a tyre fire.

Yeah. Those stories were pretty rad.

So she listened with rapt attention as Bluestreak gave an account of her wingmech’s absurdly brilliant dogfighting skills. She looked up at the flier and beamed, optics automatically dimming against the fierce glare of sunlight off his paint job. That was so cool.

When Air Raid directed the praise party back down to her she gave a modest shrug, as if to say ‘I just can’t help it’.

“Dude!” She turned back to the new Autobot. “I’m totally going to introduce you to some quality theatre. By the time I’m through with you, you’re gunna be reciting ‘I Am The Very Modern Model Of A Modern Major General' backwards. It’ll be awesome.”

At Bluestreak’s introduction, her optics lit up. “No way! You can actually shoot the wings off of flies? I knew a sniper who could shoot the anti-gravs off ore gnats, but she was a mini. Don't know what a mech your size could do.”

“And you know what ‘Raid?” she smirked. “I think you’re right. But I don’t think we could manage it on the second round either.”

[Bluestreak]

As the small femme reached out and took his hand, Bluestreak immediately let his arm relax. Probably wouldn't be good to be so enthusiastic in his handshake that he took her off her feet or accidentally rattled a piece of plating off. The mech ducked his helm to get a better look at her, blocking the sun overhead. His shadow fell across the small femme and the hard packed red and grey Nevada dirt.

"Electrocap," he echoed, and his smile became a bit shy and awkward. Bluestreak shifted his weight, his doors sloping a bit off-kilter behind his shoulders. He dug his toe into the ground, scuffing up a divot of sand. A pebble plinked off of his foot and bounced off into the scrub.

"Hullo-hi, hello. Um. Hello," he stuttered.

However, he didn't stay too shy for long once she let go of his hand. "Oh wow, a hacker, that's some serious stuff, that's dangerous around with the situation with the Decepticons. Totally impressive, wow. Not that Air Raid isn't impressive with all his flying stuff, but aw, no I don't shoot the wings off of-"

He grinned sheepishly and shook his head. "Haha, yeah, I guess I would apologize. A lot, I'd feel pretty rotten if I did that. I try to keep those things to non-living targets if I can, that's for sure."

"Oh, though, I like quality theater!" he chattered cheerfully. "I used to love going to the the holos back on Cybertron when I could afford it. Well, the funny ones, not the depressing ones, those sort of set me back a bit. Funny ones, though, I love the funny ones, and boy do I love musicals. Actually the music on the radio's been pretty good down here, been enjoying it. Except Celine Dion, but I think that's an totally acquired taste, and---"

Then he suddenly rocked back on his heels and looked at them. He laughed and rested his thumbs on his hips and cocked his head, his blue optics as bright as the sky overhead.

"Ooooooh. Wait, wait a second here, we talking another total flatten poor Bluestreak here to the road, or are we talking open up the engines and haul back to wherever the base is? Because I'm totally game for doing that, yes I am, let's do that, that would be awesome, I have some testing to do on this whole new alt mode thingie."

He laughed and waved a hand. "I'm not a air mech, but dang, I'll try and keep up."

[Deleted]

Air Raid laughed.

"I'm always up for round two, pal," he said, grinning. "But not to the base! We've got a rule: no driving or flying direct to base. Just in case Soundwave is watching. But I can do you one better anyway."

He touched the side of his head and opened a comm line.

"Yo, Ratchet?" he said. "You still on monitor duty? Electrocap and I have met with Bluestreak, and we're gonna need a pickup about fifty miles north of our current position, if there's a section of empty road or desert there that will suffice for a bridge. We'll comm you when we're ready for you to fire it up."

He winked down at Electrocap as he waited for a response. After a pause his line crackled.

"Why-" said Ratchet.

Air Raid cut the connection and rubbed his hands together with glee. "Beauty! Ratchet said he's cool with it. So how about we race to a point fifty miles up the highway from here? Loser has to sing... 'We Sail the Ocean Blue' in the middle of the control room upon returning to base, straight to Ratchet's face. No explanation give, just pure vocals. The acoustics in there should be pretty sweet. Deeeeal?"