Ep. 1 - Ghost Town - (Closed)

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Mirage's route led him out of the computer science labs and back into the cold grey halls of before.

The worst part was getting through a security checkpoint that blocked access to and from the labs. Luckily, MECH did not appear to possess technology capable of penetrating his field of invisibility. The checkpoint was straightforward enough: only one guard in body armour who maintained watch from a small room with a single bullet-proof window through which a technician could pass the guard their access card for scanning. No metal detectors, no magnetic sensing loops in the floor. If he was careful and kept his step light, Mirage would be able to pass without alerting the guard.

Beyond that, the halls led back into a featureless maze. While easier to walk in for a mech of his size, they were travelled by more personnel as well, including armoured soldiers with rifles. Overhead the whining LED lighting washed out all shadows with a harsh radiance, and security cameras peered down from the top of the walls.

It was nosier in the halls as well. A low drone hummed in the background, a mix of sounds - ventilation, massive generators embedded deeper underground, idling vehicles. The painted lines were also back. They darted off in all directions; the orange line with F. RANGE stencilled upon it in white letters led in the same direction as the map indicated.

The live firing ranges occupied an entire block. There were six of them in total, all lined in a row. According to the map they were big, able to accommodate anything from pistols and high calibre rifles, to small artillery guns - likely for R&D purposes.

It was here that Mirage encountered another snag.

The area was crawling with MECH personnel - guards, soldiers, hurrying technicians. A broad set of electronic doors led into each range, heavily locked and barred and reinforced with both steel structure and granulated rubber. No windows. Little sound escaped through doors, muffled by the ballistic protection within. Even the air was filtrated to reduce airborne lead particles. The overhead lights reflected off the polished cement floor with a cold sheen.

2D was easy to find - its name was stencilled in white letters across its doors. But two guards stood watch outside it. More soldiers milled outside. An uneasy tension lingered in the air. Something was amiss, and the humans were on edge.

Mirage would not even need to focus his sensors to detect a presence behind the range doors.

Cybertronian. And in agony.

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As he traveled through the halls with a newfound sense of urgency and purpose, Mirage could not help but think of the energy signature he had detected behind that cold black door, and who it might belong to. Whoever they were, he doubted they were in anything remotely resembling good condition - both because the impulses they gave off had been frightfully weak, and because the simple fact of the matter was they were within custody of MECH and that in and of itself guaranteed harm would come to them.

He hurried through the corridors, attempting to brush off the unpleasant thoughts that plagued his mind regarding what had been done to the poor spark, what might be happening to them as he wandered the halls, unable to help them. Try as he might, he could not shake his mind’s dark imaginings, which only drove him through the winding halls all the more quickly. He didn’t like to rush, normally, but given what he discovered, time was of the essence. He did not have time to waste, not when someone was possibly being torn apart or driven near fadeout.

At the pace he was going, it did not take him long to reach the first security checkpoint. Thankfully, until that point his path had been entirely unobstructed by humans, so he could afford to hurry. He no longer had that luxury, not when there was the possibility he may be overheard by the guard overseeing the checkpoint.

Cautiously, Mirage walked past the little bullet proof box the guard was stationed in, taking care to keep his steps light, his presence unnoticed. He had nearly made it to the door when the woman turned her head towards him, and for a brief moment he feared she had somehow detected him, but thankfully that was not the case. Her head had simply turned in his direction as she rolled her shoulders, attempting to work a kink out of her neck.

Detection avoided, Mirage slipped past the guard’s line of sight and into the hallways beyond the checkpoint. The halls were wider, their ceilings higher. There was far more room for him to maneuver in, however, whatever benefit the extra room may have given was negated by the humans scurrying about. He couldn’t see them, not while cloaked, but his thermal-sensors allowed him to view their silhouette on his HUD, so that he could avoid walking into them.

Following the map, he carefully maneuvered his way through the halls, ghosting through them as quietly as he could to avoid drawing the attention of the humans he was forced to weave around. There was nothing quite so unnerving as walking through a crowd, knowing one false move could spell the end of him and his mission - it was a feeling Mirage had experienced countless times before, one he had long since gotten used to. Now it was little more than a pinprick at the back of his mind, a quiet reminder urging him not to falter lest he compromise his mission and reveal his presence.

Following the map, he eventually made his way to the firing range - though the moment he stepped into that particular block he stopped dead in his tracks, balking at the sheer number of orange and yellow silhouettes crowding his HUD. The sight gave him pause, forcing him to stop at a safely unoccupied corner of the block as he considered how he ought to proceed. He debated whether he ought to take the shortest route, cross straight through the block towards the doors barring the firing ranges, and risk having to dance around the humans crossing back and forth, or take a longer, safer route, and waste time he wasn’t sure he could afford to spend.

In the end he chose the latter option, if only because he could not afford to have his cover blown, and taking the shortest, highest-traffic route would increase the likelihood of just that happening. It pained him to move so slowly when he wanted nothing more than to get his investigating done and over with as quickly as possible, but he had no other choice. He could only hope whoever was trapped within Server Room 3 would forgive him for the delay in their rescue.

Finally, after what seemed like a terribly long time to him, but in actuality had only been a minute or two at the most, Mirage made it to the guarded doors that barred access to the firing ranges. He moved past them, following the map inside his head as he counted down their numbers.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2----

His tanks lurched, his field flaring with alarm as he drew close enough to room 2D to feel the agony radiating from within it. He found himself freezing in place, his unseen and unseeing optics widening in mute horror as he could only begin to imagine what was going on beyond the door. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know - no, he was certain he didn’t want to know.

That spark-wrenching feeling was all the evidence needed to confirm that there was indeed a second Cybertronian lifeform being held within the base, and the moment he recovered from the shock of it, he turned on his heel to make a swift retreat.

He needed to report back to base, to let them know what was going on, to let them know a rescue operation needed to be performed immediately before their rescue tragically became nothing more than a retrieval of remains.

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The aching field of pain faded away behind him again as the spy turned away. Soon it would become little more than the dreadful memory.

The map laid bare the base for scrutiny. Mirage would be able to see the route he had taken during his infiltration and retrace it with little difficulty. It was a long hike back through halls filled with cameras and MECH guards, and there was a hard climb back up the old elevator shaft at the end of it, but it was doable.

Now, armed with a map, he would be able to see that there was another option available to him. A faster one.

Not far from the firing range block was a massive open space - an underground garage or hanger of sorts for the storage and maintenance of military vehicles. Cargo and fuel trucks, tows, cars - even helicopters were parked there. Its massive hanger doors opened onto a flight apron and helicopter pad that was tucked out of sight near the top of the hill.

Though the map did not include schematics of the base electrical systems, it was probably a safe guess that both the hanger and the apron would be brightly lit for MECH maintenance workers. But it was a wide open space, with plenty of room to manoeuvre in, and it led directly onto the hill, which would allow him to slip away quickly into the night.

There did not appear to be any other routes of escape from the base that would accommodate him.

Two choices, then.

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As much as Mirage disliked the idea of leaving behind traces of his presence at the base - namely, the cabling he had used to climb down the elevator shaft, he disliked the idea of wasting precious time even more. Now that he knew for certain that there were not one, but two mecha trapped within the compound, he simply did not have the spark to retrace his steps and leave the way he came in. The trip back was lengthy, and if he followed that route he would once again need to brave the many personnel and cameras that made the path all the more challenging to navigate.

He did not have the time to spare on a task requiring such finesse. The mecha trapped there--whoever they were--would suffer for every second wasted. He could not afford to keep them waiting. Neither his conscience nor his sensibilities could stand the thought of members of his species, regardless if they belong to his faction or not, being subjected to such degrading conditions.

That MECH had the audacity to treat Cybertronians in such a way offended him on a visceral level. The thought alone made something twist unpleasantly inside him, and Mirage found himself heading towards the map’s alternate exit route with a severe expression forming beneath his cloak. He was somewhat displeased with himself for this, as he felt it was below his dignity to allow such a lowly group of creatures such as MECH to evoke any sort of emotion within him whatsoever other than the odd mixture of pity and disgust. Somehow, the foolish little organics had managed to accomplish something that well and truly upset him. He was offended, outraged even, to the point where no amount of apologies or recompense could mollify him--not that MECH would ever try to make amends for their crimes. Even if they did, they would not be forgiven.

Mirage had no intention of letting these people--these butchers--to continue on with their lives without paying for what they had done. To him, this was not a matter of revenge. This was not a matter of taking an eye for an eye, tit for tat. This was simply holding a group accountable for their actions. If in doing so those people wound up imprisoned for the rest of their miserable lives, well, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t find such an outcome at least a little satisfying.

He made quick work of navigating through the hanger towards the open gates, weaving between cars and helicopters, crates and cargo trucks. The moment he met the cool night air outside of the hanger, it took all his self-restraint to keep from breaking into a dead-run, to get safely out of detectable-range so that he could contact Optimus as quickly as possible.

Not wanting to be detected when he was nearly home free, Mirage forced himself to continue sneaking until he was certain there were no guards lurking about who could possibly overhear. Once he made sure of this, Mirage broke into a sprint, his slight frame carrying itself easily across the hill and away from that hellish outpost.

When he finally reached what he considered to be a safe distance, far enough away that neither his radio-signals or the light of the ground-bridge would be detectable, he immediately commed back to base, his tone urgent.

::Mirage to base: Requesting immediate ground-bridge::

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Out of sight of the base, down on the cool dark hillside, the ground bridge responded swiftly to his call.

It rippled open across the grass. And waiting on the other side of it was Arcee, in the same position he had left her in - upright and still, her shoulders squared and her back to the monitors. Optimus had left but she remained, waiting in the light of the monitors for him. It was likely she had not moved once since he had walked out of the base. Her fierce blue optics followed him as he stepped back through the portal.

"Thank Primus you made it," she said. "Tell me everything you've uncovered. Please."




and fin!