Ep. 1 - The House of Stone and Light - Closed - Finis

[Deleted]

They walked.

The sun passed slowly overhead, arching over the top of the canyon. The heat intensified, baking down upon the rock. It shimmered over the ground, silvery mirages that wavered between the feathery grass. The rabbits that had been so plentiful earlier began to disappear into the brush, where they crouched with flattened ears and twitching noses. Soon even the flies stopped buzzing in the scrub, beaten low by the oppressive glare of the sun.

In silence, the two avatars hiked into a narrow bottleneck. Here the walls loomed high, cropped sharply with high noon shadows. The rattle of every rock kicked loose beneath their feet echoed hollowly up the ravine. Further downstream the shadows of clouds raced across distant cliffs.

Even the river, once sleepy and mild, had become turbulent. It churned between the wet rocks, throwing up clouds of mist and spray. The roar of the water filled the air.

Ahead of Dart a section of the wall had eroded and given way. It tumbled over the river bed they walked along, burying it under a steep scramble of loose red rock and dirt and tufts of green brush that spilt all the way down into the river. With her long legs and sure footing, the courier would have little trouble climbing over it. As for her companion...

"Stop!" gasped the man.

He stumbled to a halt and bent over, his hands on his knees. He stood that way for a moment, his shoulders hunched, swaying on his feet. When he looked up again his brow was furrowed, his eyes painfully slit against the sun. The dark bloodstain had seeped back into his shirt.

"I can't climb that," he growled. "Not without some kind of path. Find us a way over it, Decepticon."

[Dart]

Dart had already begun to heave herself up onto the nearest bit of the ruined chunk of wall. Already, she was eyeing the old slide for stable spots. She knew - you had to trust your weight to those places where the stones grew grass between them, where tangles of shrubs had bitten deep into the rock and their nebulous roots had bound the spaces tight. Slow or at speed, it didn't matter. Sometimes slow was even worse; you couldn't kick off the dangerous places and hope you managed to spring to solid ground.

At his command, though, she stopped instantly and turned to look at him. Slowly, she took her hands off the blazing hot rock and then slowly slid back down to land on her feet in a bit of loose crumb and sand.

"Stopping," she told him, to let him know she'd understood.

He looked... awful. Dart wondered what sort of strain keeping the link between the avatar and himself was causing. She just watched him rock a little, and wondered if he was starting to lose peripheral systems back at where they sat in the dark. The stain on his shirt had re-appeared; it echoed whatever was driven into his chest.

Dart stuffed her hands into her pockets and just turned in a slow circle. She was taking in everything; the dangerously rapid river, the slew of rock and stone that arrowed into it. There was no clean path through this, no easy way to trot to the top or the bottom and just circle around.

She took her hands out of her pockets and shook her head.

"That is the path," she replied quietly as he straightened up. "I mean, it's the safest path, sir. If- if we go up, the stone's loose up there. See the lack of vegetation up there? Means the footing's not stable or safe. Down below, same thing."

"I can't even get us across the river here," she said. Dart brought up a hand to swipe her bangs out of her eyes. Had she been human, they would have been sopping with sweat. As it was, it was just a gesture to hide her nervousness at her next statement, because she wasn't sure how he was going to react to it. If she had to hazard a guess, not well. But they had to keep going, because she was absolutely worried that he would slump over, go into shock, and detonate that thing in his pack...

Damage to the avatar damages you. Could easily throw you right into a cascade failure, he'd told her. Be careful.

She really didn't want that. Not in the slightest. She was alive now, she'd like to keep it that way.

"I can help get you over," she offered the Autobot. Her toe dug a little hole in the dirt, but she kept her voice calm and steady. "We- we can take it slow and easy, sir, just a bit at a time."

[Deleted]

The man stood up straight at that. He looked aghast.

"What?" he said. "You want me to - what?"

Eyes flashing angrily, he drew back a step. He jabbed a finger at the ground between them. "Just like that, you want me to put myself at the mercy of a backstabbing Decepticon? That is not happening! I'd rather turn around and walk all the way back down the damn river. This is not a - I'm not going to let you drag me into whatever trap you're -"

He trailed off, sputtering.

The river roared past them, clouding the air with a damp mist. At its edge the man stood and ran his hands back through his hair. He gripped the back of his skill and grimaced, his mouth pressed into a hard line. He said nothing, lost in thought. The unspoken words were clear, however. At full strength, and within a short range from the generator, it was simple enough to project an avatar wherever it needed to go. But they had walked far already. And at longer ranges the ability to precisely alter a projection weakened. It could clip into the terrain, or simply not reappear. And when you were already wounded, losing concentration, bleeding energy...

All of those thoughts seemed to go through the man's head as he stared at the ground. Eventually, he cast a sharp look back up at Dart.

"All right," he said.

At a wary distance he glared at her, his hands lowering. He closed them into white-knuckled fists.

"All right," he said. "But you had better damn well better know already what is going to happen to you if I get a sense that this is any sort of trick..."

[Dart]

The young woman was quiet and watching him throughout. Her bangs had fallen back over her eye; she peered through the wind-tangled fall of hair. Dart simply listened; she didn't argue with him, or get indignant when he called her a backstabbing Decepticon. How were you going to argue with that particular observation at times? You didn't. She was a Decepticon. He was an Autobot. He had no reason to trust her any more than she had reason to trust that once he called in his location he was going to shoot her in the head.

No, that- that wasn't really fair to say. Australia had left a bad taste in her mouth over that sort of thing, though. It just... it had been pretty bad. She'd made an error in judgement, and she'd paid for it. She was still paying for it.

When he finished speaking, she nodded solemnly.

"Yes sir," she replied. "I do know. If that happens, I'm going to die a horrible death."

She turned and examined the rockfall again, looking thoughtful. Then she paced back and forth for several strides; it was obvious she was looking at the path she'd chosen on different angles. What would be easiest, what would work best. Then with a little puff of air from between her teeth, she moved forward and scaled the first set of stones, a solid, heavy boulder buried partially in the shale that did not budge at all under her.

She perched on top of it, settled her footing. There wasn't much room up here for the both of them to stand, but it would have to do. She braced herself, and then...

Dart reached out her hand down towards him, palm up. The young woman's fingers shook slightly before she was able to still herself. "All right. Grab hold, sir, and I'll pull you up."

[Deleted]

Torn, the man hung back. He rubbed his hand over his mouth and gripped it, his weight shifting from foot to foot. His suspicious gaze darted from her open palm to her face.

Behind the courier the rock scramble rose high, perhaps fifty feet at its highest peak. Sunlight shone against the dirt and scruffy plants there. It was hard to say how wide it was - likely they would only get an idea once they crested the top. The slope on the other side could be gentle or a sheer drop. It could descend back down to a smooth river shore or else plunge straight into the fast-running water. Who knew.

The man's eyes narrowed.

"Fine," he said.

He reached up and grabbed her hand.

His grip was firm. As he used her as an anchor to climb shakily onto the slope she would feel that his avatar had weight, mass - not like a real human, but it was there. A basic combat-ready avatar for a front line mech.

"I hope your holoform holds out," he muttered. "Just how 'not the best' is your generator anyway?"

[Dart]

Dart simply left her hand out to the Autobot. She was careful to not stare directly at him, she let her gaze pass by him. She had no idea if he was going to come over, or not, or if he'd just flat out refuse to come close and tell her to get her skinny skidplate back off that rock and they'd be hiking back right now, thank you.

She understood. If the situation was reversed, she'd sure as heck not wanting to get close to him either. He was a fighter, on all levels. A survivor, and he was going to do what he had to to survive. Right now he was running so high and so tight, he was waiting for the next blow to strike.

The courier recognized that on an entirely different level than many. She'd seen injured animals with no retreat bluff and snap and mock charge to try and scare a predator off. In this case though, it had passed that. It was not bluff. If she did anything there would be no quarter given; this mech was fighting for his life.

On a lighter note - okay, it wasn't that much lighter, a tank versus Trans Am? Yeah, no. Not unless it was on Knight Rider, and K.I.T.T. had missiles and a cool button that allowed him to turbo boost over all sorts of dangerous moments. Her cool button got AM evangelist radio.

When he shifted his weight, she managed to hide her soft blink of surprise by quickly ducking her chin. Yes. That was familiar. She did it too when anxious, frightened, deep in thought, and he gave her the same signal right then. Then his shoulders lifted and he reached for her.

Dart wasn't sure if she was utterly thankful for this or flat out scared to death for several reasons.

Most of them were along the lines of her not screwing this up somehow.

Don't glitch, please don't glitch, steady now, steady...

She concentrated. Hand, stay steady. Have- have to keep it steady, stay solid, please work.

It did. She gripped his wrist even though she found herself trembling at how close he was to her, how important this was that she not let go or spook or flinch. Memory; fold your fingers around his wrist, so that even if he slipped, she could hold him; and she braced her heels and she set herself. Compared to his avatar, hers felt lighter, faster; but there was a strangeness to it, almost... archaic? Older model of the technology, perhaps.

"I hope it does too," she admitted as she helped him up. She braced herself perfectly, letting him find the way that created the least amount of strain on the mech. She threw a wary eye on that backpack of his until he was able to stand beside her. "It takes a lot of effort to keep it steady. My systems originally weren't designed to have it, and it doesn't mesh. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes it just... it glitches, you know?"

This admission was followed by an embarrassed shrug from the girl.

She glanced up on the rock scramble and lifted a hand to shade her eyes. "I don't even know when it's doing it sometimes, sir. It doesn't feel any different to me when it happens. I promise though, I'm doing my best to keep it on track, sir."

[Deleted]

The man laid his hands on his thighs and ducked his head once he had found his footing beside her. He stood in silence, his mouth a hard line and his gaze distant. A mayfly drifted over his hair before floating back towards the river, disinterested.

In response to her promise he grunted.

"Good," he said.

He wiped his palms on his jeans and leaned back. There was a bitter look on his face as he glanced up at the top of the scramble.

"This is the first time I've used mine." The words came slowly, as if he were reluctant to enter into a conversation. "Never had a need to before this. Not used to looking at the world from this perspective. It's - different."

In disgust, he flattened his hand over the bloodstain on his shirt. He dragged it downward, and the holoform rippled. When he lifted his hand the ugly stain was gone again.

"I don't know why it keeps doing that."

[Dart]

Dart was already perusing the next steps to take - there, that one next to them seemed steady and he no doubt could do that without a hand or any help. The courier slipped to the next steady place and waited for him to follow.

The courier tipped her head. "It's- it's really different, isn't it?" she offered, as she lifted her nose in an effort to find a breeze. She had no idea why she kept doing that. It wasn't like she could oh, smell anything with the avatar, but it was so hard-wired to sniff, to test, to constantly read her world through her her olfactory sensors that the lack of odors made her incredibly uncomfortable.

"In some ways, it can make you feel a whole lot smaller, of course. Vulnerable, I guess," Dart said thoughfully as she glanced over at him. "But, down here, you're more part of the world in a way. You move through it different. You see all the things that you overlook, and you learn a sense of how tough things are. We think it's all fragile, right? This world? It's not. It's all about how things survive and thrive and live and find a way to keep going."

The courier had lost herself for a moment. She'd lost herself in the red stone and hot sun, the way the swift river ripped and crested over the rocks like sharp, dangerous teeth. There was stone and brush and sky and there was no mechanical hum, no growl of engine or tick of lifters, no screech of jet engine or scrape of metal talons against an angular chin.

Then she blinked and focused on his last question. "Oh. Sorry, sorry, sir... um...."

The girl's blue eyes went to the bloodstain in the center of his chest. Then shook her head, and there was an emotion one might not have expected from her, given the situation. Concern.

"It mirrors. That's what I was told, anyway. You have to be careful with these. Sometimes it just mirrors things. Emotional states. Physical states. Stress. I think that's what I remember. You're hurt, bad, sir. I could smell how bad it is- that looked like a terrible fight. I'd- I'd probably be dead, sir, if I had been skewered like that."

[Deleted]

The man let out a barking laugh.

"Skewered," he said. "Yeah."

He climbed awkwardly, as if all of his joints were stiff. His boot slipped in loose red dirt, and he touched down briefly on one hand before staggering upright. Despite the stumble he made it to the place where she waited for him without aid. The uneven slope had grown steeper however, and he had to brace his feet against the rock to stay upright. The canyon breeze tugged at his shirt, making him sway until he caught himself. With a huff he wiped his wrist across his forehead.

"I suppose that explanation makes as much sense as any," he said.

He brushed the red dust on his hand off on his jeans. As he did he glanced at her, in time to spot her expression. Taken aback, he gave her an odd look, before scowling and turning away.

"What is your name?" he said curtly. "We're going to be stuck here together for a while. I can't keep calling you 'Decepticon.'"

[Dart]

Well, it was a laugh. Which was much better than most else he'd offered her. At least he hadn't taken her comment as some comment about his weakness and promptly threatened to break her in half like a twig. She nodded in agreement; it did make a bit of sense, even to her.

Standing above him on a solid portion of slab, the Decepticon's avatar rocked back on her heels. Her knee bent, the rip in her jeans gapped a bit. From this angle, her bare knee had a Band-Aid, printed with cartoon cat faces, complete with pink bows. She surveyed the area again, and this time...

No, it was just getting worse, and he was too. She looked down in time to see him rock a bit on his feet and she sucked in a breath. Through her teeth. Last thing she wanted him to do was fall on that backpack. Dart scrambled back down to him, and stopped, but by then he'd turned back away from her.

She inclined her head, surprised. Now it was her turn to look wary. She leaned her nose forward a little, as if she was trying to catch some scent. Then she lifted her toe, beginning to paw at the ground. However, she quickly stopped and simply stuffed her hands into her pockets again. A loose thread on the cuff of her worn black shirt flicked in the breeze.

"Dart," she told him hesitantly. "My name's Dart, sir."

[Deleted]

The man frowned.

"Dart," he said.

It was the last word he said for a while after that.

A little time passed. The man hiked up the scramble without speaking, his face dark with concentration. Evidently he had taken the courier's advice to heart, as he kept to the areas where the green brush clung to the dirt in stubborn clumps. The longer he struggled the more it became clear that he lacked her deftness of foot, relying on strength and resolve to haul him up the worsening incline. His boots skidded in the worst of the loose scree, throwing clouds of warm dust into the wind. He merely set his jaw and soldiered on, heaving himself up step after step, until the rockfall finally took a steep pitch upwards towards the peak of the slide.

Using both hands as leverage, the man grasped a heavy stone and a gnarled bush that had taken root there and used it to haul himself onto a narrow shelf. He knelt there for a moment, his forearm resting across his knee, looking weary.

"Dart," he said, and coughed. "Now I know what that name puts me to mind of. Intelligence reported the arrival of several new Decepticons recently. Aerial reconnaissance indicated that one was likely a runner. That's you, isn't it."

[Dart]

"Maybe, sir?" Dart offered honestly as the Autobot rested heavily on that tiny bit of outcrop. She'd been watching him struggle upwards and on out of the corner of her eye. He stumbled, he fought his way up, head down... he was exhausted.

Dart had quietly paused several times as they climbed upwards, as if to reorient herself with their direction, or puzzle out an easier path. She would wait there for him, keeping herself constantly at the same distance from him before continuing on. Unfortunately, there wasn't better way to go; this was a hard, hard climb with the footing. Didn't matter what form they were in, probably. Well, no, she guessed that the treads of a tank would have made short work of it.

It didn't surprise her that intelligence knew these things about mechs coming and going. There was constant observation going on from both sides, reports written. You had to. Dart understood it was one more survival skill as a frontliner. Listen. Learn, because you had to keep up on the strengths and weaknesses of who you might go toe to toe against. Pyrotech studied the files constantly, he read and reread them.

"I mean, I don't know," she continued. "There could be another another runner. I've never met one, though, on either side. Er, not that I remember, anyway."

She braced herself on the hillside, one foot below the other. Even her light weight sent the pebbles and dirt shifting, but it didn't move.

[Deleted]

The man heaved up to his feet.

"You look like a runner," he said.

He looked up the slope and grimaced, then took a moment to thumb his backpack more securely over his shoulder. When he was sure it was snug he set his jaw, took a deep breath, and took the first step onto the last steep pitch that led to the top of the scramble.

Loose rock slithered out from beneath his boots and scattered down the rockfall. The man hesitated, his hands spread for balance. An uneasy look flickered over his face before his expression of stony irritation reasserted itself. He trudged up another step, placing his foot awkwardly.

"You're the only one I've seen here," he said. He skidded, and grabbed a prickly brier before he fell. "Damn it. So that makes me wonder..."

Scowling, he glanced up at her. "Why the hell did the Decepticons send a runner into this valley after me? Do they expect you to kill me?"

[Dart]

Dart looked down at herself, and then that lopsided, quirky smile slipped back onto her features. She chuckled a little, but it was obviously at herself. She reached down and adjusted the sweatshirt tied around her hips. "Yeah. I- I guess I do. It's funny how these things work, isn't it? I mean, mine's like this and yours is like-"

She inclined her head and looked at him thoughfully. "An outdoorsman," she said finally. "Like a hiker, but not the sort that just- I dunno, hike through the area and don't stop to learn it. A ranger, I guess..."

She brought up her hand and rubbed the side of her nose. "Survivalist, sorta."

"Er, not the crazy sort that types out manifestos in a cabin up in the woods or anything," she reiterated, realizing that it could be taken rather poorly. "I mean, your avatar, sir, not you personally, I guess guess - wait, um - er..."

"That came out wrong," she offered, spreading her fingers sheepishly.

Dart had stopped a bit above him again; this time when he stumbled, she cast a look down into the fall below them. Then her eyes went to his backpack. A flicker of worry crossed her features immediately and she reacted before she could even think about it. Immediately, her avatar wavered, it rippled, equally automatic and instinctive. She bounded off the rock she was on, hopped to another, and slid past him in a rush of gravel and sand. Now she was downhill from him, ready to brace him if he fell backwards.

"Wait, what...? Kill you?" she echoed, and tried not to laugh. Then she abruptly realized what she'd done, and that standing below him - not in front of him as he'd ordered throughout - was probably not the wisest thing to couple with those words.

[Deleted]

The man did not react well.

He had startled the moment she leapt past him, light and nimble-footed. Just a fleeting glimpse of ruffling clothes and dirty-blonde hair. Now he lurched back, grabbing desperately at another shrub to root himself. His fingers clutched at empty air.

He hit the dirt on his shoulder. Dust flew into the air as he somersaulted backwards through a combat roll that brought him staggering back into a crouch, his hands dug into the earth and one foot braced against the rock below. For an instant the man blinked through the red dust that settled on his face and shirt, his expression shocked. Then he bristled and surged to his feet, already reaching back for the heavy rifle he kept strapped to the small of his back.

He froze. It was not there. It rested on the knees of a damaged mech in a cavern further up the Colorado River.

Stunned, the man stood tensely, breathing hard. Dust sifted from his hair, his dirty clothing. His gaze cut to the courier's eyes and his face darkened. He kicked a rock aside and advanced on her, limping, seething with rage.

"Kill me!" he snarled. "That's what I said! What do you think you're doing?! Did I not explicitly tell you to stay in front of me at all times? Do you want to get shot?"