Ep. 2 - Calico - (Closed) - Finis
Nov 14, 2014 21:01:00 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2014 21:01:00 GMT -5
Set on Week 1, Day 2, at night!
--------
During the day, the Calico hills rose up from the alkali flats of Nevada. They stood against blue sky in bands of deep color. Golds, reds, bright orange and muted bronzes, all lifted and swirled together, worn into smooth flows by the constant blow of grit on the wind. Thorny brush dug a toehold into the stones where it could and grew low and short, gleaning as much moisture as it could from the daily soak of dawn, and holding on tight when the torrential thunderstorms rocked the area.
Tonight, the grey alkali flats gleamed silver under a waning moon. Stars gleamed overhead, spattered across the expanse of dark sky. In the cities you never saw the wide band of the Milky Way, it was hidden by all the ambient light that constantly flooded those places. Silent and still the desert stretched for hundreds of miles, flat and smooth.
Places like this were easy to run.
Easy to lope along that white dust. Nothing to worry about ahead of you. You could see everything for miles and miles. No surprises, nothing leaping out of the shadows that you didn't expect or worry about. They tested supercars in places like these -- they also tested atomic weapons, but hey, who was counting.
Up on the hills though, that was a different story. It was important to carefully seek out toeholds, test the stone for your weight. Thorny little scrub trees showed you safe places; you can step here and here, that will work. Like the goats, you turned your nose into the wind and kept an eye out for danger. That was automatic.
She'd been on assigment. Run through, drop off the item, and bring another back for Pyrotech. Easily done, but...
In her hip carrier something tiny rattled.
The courier remembered this place. A long time ago she'd come up here and trotted the trails. Along them, the pictographs; art from those long gone. An area where the fossils were; dinosaur footprints so ancient that she couldn't even fathom the time. That's where she was headed tonight.
For once, the night was a balm.
Fortress Maximus sat with his back against a shallow outcropping of rock and let the evening air seep the worst of the heat from his idling engine. It had been a climb getting up into the hills, but the view out over the flats was worth it. Beneath the moon the cracked earth and sand was nearly white.
The tracks of his tank mode gripped into the rock and held him in place, despite the shallow incline. He kept his turret pointed towards the flats, but let his machine guns swivel on their mounts to warily cover his flanks. He wasn't really expecting to see anything this night, nothing living - but then again, he had been caught here once by a Deception cassette. It would be foolish to lower his guard simply because he had been lulled into inactivity by the isolation and the cool night air.
One whip antenna flicked back and forth, absently. It was the only indicator of Maximus' thoughts.
They roamed, restlessly.
The day had gone past in a blur of activity as the Black Rock military base prepared for the attack northeast of Salt Lake City. The 19th Special Forces Group B Company had flown in by transport earlier that evening, which meant briefings. A lot of them, as everyone was brought up to speed on the rapid flow of logistical planning. The Green Berets had been polite, formal, and remarkably untroubled by his presence. Maximus had been impressed by that.
It had been a little overwhelming to be so abruptly returned to a military environment, but good. The base, the tactical organization, the discipline and order - all of it was more familiar to him than the silo had been. For a few hours Maximus had been a soldier again, and it had been like the prison had never happened.
Felt good.
Perhaps that was why the night now held no horrors for him. Maximus scanned the flats below idly. Nothing. He tried a sweep of the hills and -
Something pinged. A glimpse. There and gone.
Maximus tensed. His engine settled into gear; the low rumble echoed through the nearby hills.
A geocache.
Dart had found it on line while looking through the website logs. A click to the picture and and it had sparked that memory.
After that she'd been unable to get it out of her head. Once she'd remembered it, she had to go. To see it for herself, to note that things were still there after all that time away. Changeless moments in what felt like a changeless landscape. She'd been up to Saint Helens not too long ago, and that- well, that was always changing. Grey ash and burned trees being reclaimed by live things, by green and growth and wildlife. Nature found its way back to all those places and reclaimed it. The Pacific Northwest did that; rain and water and plant overgrew everything. Places vanished under the weight of invasive blackberry canes and sharp thorns, under hillsides full of Scotch Broom that made you have to clear your systems a thousand times just to get the pollen out.
She'd been up there on the mountain to leave a cache when she'd found that other thing. The smell. You couldn't forget it once you smelled it. Even that one little shard had turned her internals. Dangerous. Dead. Leave it be. Stay away. It must have been uncovered in the explosion of the mountain and sat under that layer of grey ash for thirty years, waiting.
Dart had wanted to cover it. To dig and dig until it disappeared under the packed ash, to drag rocks over it and bury it for good and hope the mountain blew up and buried it again. But...she didn't dare. She had her orders. You find it. You tell me and me alone.
Ugh. Awful. All she'd thought was no no no don't lick the happy fun ball.
... not that she'd ever say that, but she'd been thinking it. Only because it kept her from turning around in a panic and fleeing. Get away as far and as fast as she could. Ah well. A shake of her head; she snorted out the cool air in a short huff to clear her nose and her mind.
Maybe that's why she was up here tonight doing this. Going somewhere where the chances of running across anything like that were remote. Where running across anyone was remote. Quiet and clear and open sky and the distant flat silver sea of the flats.
Or maybe it was because she just- the game had been on her mind. And how it had stopped, sudden and abrupt.
The blip was faint, and it flickered in and out of detection. The rock shielded most of the surrounding hills from his scanners, which were mostly limited to short-range use. But now and then the rock would reflect rather than block, and he would pick up the echo of - something.
Still rumbling, Maximus transformed.
He ended in a crouch, even as his treads swivelled and slammed into place on his back and shoulders. When the last of the plating had clamped across his chest he rose to his feet, his joints softly whirring. His expression intent, he scanned the nearby rock slopes. Saw nothing, just loose dirt and a few tufts of grass and brush.
Grimly, the big mech reached back for his rifle.
The signal had not been a large reflection, at least. Cybertronian, but a small one. Or at least from a mech that did not throw back a large profile. Stealth-bots were like that. So were a lot of fliers. But a flier would not be travelling by foot, unless it was looking for something.
He felt like cursing. Like blistering the air above him with oaths. God damn it. This was his desert. All he wanted to do was come here and - clear his head. Put his thoughts into order before retiring for the night to prepare for the attack the next morning. But every time he tried it something cropped up. An Autobot. A Decepticon. Hell.
Scowling, Maximus stepped out of his niche and onto a slab of rock. He climbed it, his tall frame and long legs eating ground as he picked his way up the outcrop. He stood boldly at the top and scanned the hills. He could see a lot from this vantage point. Anything could spot him as well, but Maximus was willing to bet that whatever was out there would have a worse night than he would if their paths were to cross.
Dart didn't want to dwell on that too hard. She admitted it, she'd gone up to Vantage a lot in those weeks, trotting back and forth; it was on the way in from a wide patrol, no reasons not to cross that area constantly, nothing that might ping to someone that well, she wasn't where she was supposed to be. That was at least one good thing about her job; she could run a lot of places and say - no, I couldn't go this way or that, the ground was this or there was human activity, and well, it was believable.
Just checking on that bucket. She never expected really for the rock to be gone. When it was, she seriously had to do a double-take. Then even more at his solid handwriting in the book, and then as they'd gone along it had been...
Then it had stopped. Just stopped. Her first thought had been a bad one. Then her second had been worse, and-
A rattle of her spoiler. She wanted to leave those musings behind and so she just stuffed it into motion. Climb up, bound, leap here, touch off this - hit the ridge, and it wasn't far to the cache from there, just on the other side and down an old trail with the gully, she remembered.
Up on the top though, she paused. The courier sidestepped and then turned in place, then glanced around automatically, went to sniff, and-
Nobody. Just herself and the stone and the ridge and sky, and she settled back. Stars were gorgeous tonight, and she couldn't help it and trotted to a stop, looking upwards.
As always, no, she had no idea where Cybertron was. Well that was to be expected, and she couldn't help the little laugh that rolled out of her chest. Why do you even bother to look? But hey, she did. One of these days it might come back to her.
From his elevated position Maximus was able to scan the hills a little more clearly. Nothing reflected back at him, but that was fine - because now he could see what had created the blip.
It stood on a ridge above him. It was not much higher up than he was, perhaps a hundred feet or so. The moon and the stars were bright enough to cast its silhouette against the night sky. Had he not climbed onto the outcrop he never would have spotted it.
Maximus went stiff. He raised his rifle to his eye and took careful aim, but did not place his finger on the trigger. Instead he sighted down the scope. It focused in on the figure, which did not appear to have spotted him. The scope revealed it to be a dark and slender robot, with two odd points pricked over its back. It was not the silhouette of an Autobot he recognised, but nor was it a Vehicon either. Then -
All at once it hit him. Stunned, the warden lowered his rifle.
What in the pit was she doing here?
Shouting did not seem right. Maximus licked his lips. Then, curtly, he whistled - a single sharp blast, like he'd used to gather the attention of his officers.
Obviously she'd totally not suspected for a moment that he was there.
Not in the slightest.
Her reaction was rather comical in a way. Well, to anyone else who happened to be watching.
The courier hopped straight into the air. She spooked and bounced nearly right over the side of the ledge before she curvetted like a rodeo pony somehow, twisting to get her feet back on solid ground. All limb and leg and not the most graceful of moments as she flailed into a immediate stop. The tips of her spoiler over her shoulders and pricked forward as she tried to pinpoint the sound. Automatically she trotted forward a step or two.
Her nose lifted, her brain was somewhere else; focused on a whistle, sharp in the audial and she froze. Dumbly, she just stared for a moment. Here? How did he - oh, how as she going to explain herself to him, but then she realized something else. She was still standing, she wasn't already bounding forward to answer - So, no, that couldn't be- who-
Her nose swung into the air, and then...
A blink as she gathered the outline of the mech. Tank treads against the sky, high over his shoulders. Bulky and heavy and solid and- oh. Oh. The absolute last mech she expected to see and then she just rocked back on her heel and tucked her hands to the small of her back, instantly, obviously polite. Her spoiler was creeping up though, and the tips peeked over her shoulders.
Now she saw him. Maximus lowered his rifle. Then he reached back and hooked it back upon the clips at the small of his back. He didn't need it.
For an instant he was uncertain what to do next. The last time he had seen the courier had been in the wake of a Decepticon raid. She might not have been the one who shot Bulkhead, but she had been a participant in the raid nonetheless. It was clear that she worked for her faction. But she had also stayed behind to help the Wrecker return safely to the Autobots - and Miko too.
She also roamed the west coast burying harmless items for humans to find. She had left him messages, personal ones - little trinkets. It was hard to see her as a threat. But he told himself it would still be wise to find out what she was doing here. Of all places.
Maximus shook his head.
The distance that separated them - him on the outcrop and her on the ridge - was not far. Maximus eyed the gulf and did a mental calculation. He held up one big hand, signalling for her to wait. Then he lunged, took one step, two steps -
- and sprang into flight.
He crossed the span in two leaps. His first landing planted him upon a slab of rock, which he vaulted off of before it could crumble beneath his weight. When he hit the ridge he simply reared back one hand and drove it into the rock face to anchor him while he hung from the sheer slope, braced on one extended leg. Then he reached up with his other hand and swung himself onto the top of the ridge.
As Maximus approached the courier he brushed the dirt and dust from his hands. He frowned down at her.
"What are you doing here?" he said.
Dart was utterly baffled by his appearance as well. Then all of a sudden, her spoiler gave the tiniest little side-to-side motion that was half hidden by her frame.
Not dead.
She'd wondered. Well, you started to fear those things, she supposed. He'd stopped so abruptly that she'd been afraid that that's what it was. Frontliners, that was their job. This was a war. They died. She'd been around many that had. His notes had started out a bit stiff and then just slowly turned just ever so slightly, drawn to the environments, the places. She'd read them.
Dart watched as he slowly lowered his rifle. His body language changed from being wary to being confident in the situation now; she lifted her nose just enough to watch him sling the massive gun over his shoulder and clip it down.
Body language understood, he was here and she was there and he'd asked her to stand and stay. A more sensible Decepticon might have immediately thrown their hands up at that and prayed to whatever deity they happened to be following just so that they'd have a better trip back next time on the karma wheel and not be turned into a blender or some awkward appliance in the next life.
When he lunged into motion she couldn't help but just - whoa. She'd seen him move fast before, back down at the Canyon but... time and space and she'd never seen him in an open space like this. For something so broad and large, he carried himself effortlessly. The courier was astounded; the leap, the weight, the move. Fighter. All she could think of for a second was how had those Vehicons actually managed to even hurt him so badly in the first place, and-
Then he asked the question. It was a totally logical one.
She looked up at him from under the brim of her helm. "Geocaching," she admitted with a little sheepish smile.
And not paying attention apparently but she figured he'd figured that out all for himself. Erk.
Her answer took Maximus by surprise.
"Geocaching?" he said.
He stared at her blankly. He hadn't expected her to admit she was on patrol, or scouting - Black Rock was nearby, and as a military facility it was always a potential target for the Decepticons. He had thought he would get an evasive answer. He certainly hadn't expected this one.
Maximus gave her a funny look. It had just occurred to him that this was the first good look he had ever gotten of the courier. It had been dark in the train tunnel, and he had been too hunched over and preoccupied with Bulkhead and Miko to give her his full attention. And before that, in the canyon - the haze of pain had fogged his mind and made it difficult to focus. Now he could see clearly, and realise that she was tall and slim, scuffy. All skittish leg. Carriers on her hips, and no visible weapons that he could detect. Travelling light, like a courier would.
Those slanted blue optics. He did remember those.
"Geocaching," he said again. Maximus lifted his head and looked around the desert, still frowning. "There's a - a cache location near here?"
Dart nodded. Her spoiler had pricked up again and she'd drawn a tiny little sneak of air; he smelled... well, better. Not that that was perhaps the thing you said in polite company; but he no longer smelled of blood - er, fuel, and pain and all those things. His body language wasn't the cramped hunch of the tunnel or the drawn in shoulders of the cave where he'd been running on pure survival.
"Yeah, it's down by the dino-" she started to say and then caught herself, realizing, well, hey, look, she'd just given that location away in an instant. "Down below, I mean."
She tipped her head and looked up at him. "I was... well, you know," she said, even as she fumbled with the explanation.
He did. She was leaving something at the cache, as she had before.
Maximus looked back at her and furrowed his brow. He said nothing at first, but simply studied her. There was the possibility that she was lying. But her manner was not one of someone concealing the truth. She seemed genuinely sheepish about being caught out in the desert, not guilty or frightened of simply being caught.
In all likelihood she was on patrol and had deviated from it enough to make this visit to the cache. He could not imagine that Decepticons were given much off-duty time to spend on their own devices.
Maximus scrounged for something to say.
"I made it out to those first coordinates you provided," he said abruptly. He nodded vaguely with his chin. "To Vantage. With the horses."
Dart looked up at him and her spoiler came ever so slightly forward. "I know," she said, and her voice was surprisingly earnest at that. She did. The up on her toes posture relaxed just a bit; she was still in a quiet, formal stance but her arms shifted slightly. In the moonlight, it was easy to see the new weld mark burned into the metal of her shoulder. Not a clean repair or a neat one; there were beads of metal that hadn't been smoothed into her finish.
"I mean, I saw you'd written in the log book, sir," she smiled, catching herself. "I- I just... I was wondering. If you would."
"I know, it's not a fancy monument, or a big one." she told him. It wasn't. Not by the standards this mech had seen. Probably even built. "Thank you though. For going, I mean."
"It was interesting," said Maximus. "That monument."
He frowned. That wasn't a good explanation of his impressions. He was not an eloquent speaker, and was conscious of the need to guard anything he said in front of a - a - this courier. But he collected his thoughts and elaborated, "More organic than anything I've seen before. No surprise there. Pretty rough. The elements had gotten at it. But they were well-constructed, the horses. Very..."
He rolled one hand as he groped for the word. There was nothing in his vocabulary that described what he was trying to say. "Artistic? No. Aesthetic. No. Imagi- no! I don't know. I liked them."
A huff of air escaped him. Maximus narrowed his optics, silently daring her to smile. "Anyway, yeah. I found the logbook too. Wasn't sure if I was expected to write in it or not, but it seemed appropriate. Found your next set of coordinates too. And... the rock."
--------
During the day, the Calico hills rose up from the alkali flats of Nevada. They stood against blue sky in bands of deep color. Golds, reds, bright orange and muted bronzes, all lifted and swirled together, worn into smooth flows by the constant blow of grit on the wind. Thorny brush dug a toehold into the stones where it could and grew low and short, gleaning as much moisture as it could from the daily soak of dawn, and holding on tight when the torrential thunderstorms rocked the area.
Tonight, the grey alkali flats gleamed silver under a waning moon. Stars gleamed overhead, spattered across the expanse of dark sky. In the cities you never saw the wide band of the Milky Way, it was hidden by all the ambient light that constantly flooded those places. Silent and still the desert stretched for hundreds of miles, flat and smooth.
Places like this were easy to run.
Easy to lope along that white dust. Nothing to worry about ahead of you. You could see everything for miles and miles. No surprises, nothing leaping out of the shadows that you didn't expect or worry about. They tested supercars in places like these -- they also tested atomic weapons, but hey, who was counting.
Up on the hills though, that was a different story. It was important to carefully seek out toeholds, test the stone for your weight. Thorny little scrub trees showed you safe places; you can step here and here, that will work. Like the goats, you turned your nose into the wind and kept an eye out for danger. That was automatic.
She'd been on assigment. Run through, drop off the item, and bring another back for Pyrotech. Easily done, but...
In her hip carrier something tiny rattled.
The courier remembered this place. A long time ago she'd come up here and trotted the trails. Along them, the pictographs; art from those long gone. An area where the fossils were; dinosaur footprints so ancient that she couldn't even fathom the time. That's where she was headed tonight.
For once, the night was a balm.
Fortress Maximus sat with his back against a shallow outcropping of rock and let the evening air seep the worst of the heat from his idling engine. It had been a climb getting up into the hills, but the view out over the flats was worth it. Beneath the moon the cracked earth and sand was nearly white.
The tracks of his tank mode gripped into the rock and held him in place, despite the shallow incline. He kept his turret pointed towards the flats, but let his machine guns swivel on their mounts to warily cover his flanks. He wasn't really expecting to see anything this night, nothing living - but then again, he had been caught here once by a Deception cassette. It would be foolish to lower his guard simply because he had been lulled into inactivity by the isolation and the cool night air.
One whip antenna flicked back and forth, absently. It was the only indicator of Maximus' thoughts.
They roamed, restlessly.
The day had gone past in a blur of activity as the Black Rock military base prepared for the attack northeast of Salt Lake City. The 19th Special Forces Group B Company had flown in by transport earlier that evening, which meant briefings. A lot of them, as everyone was brought up to speed on the rapid flow of logistical planning. The Green Berets had been polite, formal, and remarkably untroubled by his presence. Maximus had been impressed by that.
It had been a little overwhelming to be so abruptly returned to a military environment, but good. The base, the tactical organization, the discipline and order - all of it was more familiar to him than the silo had been. For a few hours Maximus had been a soldier again, and it had been like the prison had never happened.
Felt good.
Perhaps that was why the night now held no horrors for him. Maximus scanned the flats below idly. Nothing. He tried a sweep of the hills and -
Something pinged. A glimpse. There and gone.
Maximus tensed. His engine settled into gear; the low rumble echoed through the nearby hills.
A geocache.
Dart had found it on line while looking through the website logs. A click to the picture and and it had sparked that memory.
After that she'd been unable to get it out of her head. Once she'd remembered it, she had to go. To see it for herself, to note that things were still there after all that time away. Changeless moments in what felt like a changeless landscape. She'd been up to Saint Helens not too long ago, and that- well, that was always changing. Grey ash and burned trees being reclaimed by live things, by green and growth and wildlife. Nature found its way back to all those places and reclaimed it. The Pacific Northwest did that; rain and water and plant overgrew everything. Places vanished under the weight of invasive blackberry canes and sharp thorns, under hillsides full of Scotch Broom that made you have to clear your systems a thousand times just to get the pollen out.
She'd been up there on the mountain to leave a cache when she'd found that other thing. The smell. You couldn't forget it once you smelled it. Even that one little shard had turned her internals. Dangerous. Dead. Leave it be. Stay away. It must have been uncovered in the explosion of the mountain and sat under that layer of grey ash for thirty years, waiting.
Dart had wanted to cover it. To dig and dig until it disappeared under the packed ash, to drag rocks over it and bury it for good and hope the mountain blew up and buried it again. But...she didn't dare. She had her orders. You find it. You tell me and me alone.
Ugh. Awful. All she'd thought was no no no don't lick the happy fun ball.
... not that she'd ever say that, but she'd been thinking it. Only because it kept her from turning around in a panic and fleeing. Get away as far and as fast as she could. Ah well. A shake of her head; she snorted out the cool air in a short huff to clear her nose and her mind.
Maybe that's why she was up here tonight doing this. Going somewhere where the chances of running across anything like that were remote. Where running across anyone was remote. Quiet and clear and open sky and the distant flat silver sea of the flats.
Or maybe it was because she just- the game had been on her mind. And how it had stopped, sudden and abrupt.
The blip was faint, and it flickered in and out of detection. The rock shielded most of the surrounding hills from his scanners, which were mostly limited to short-range use. But now and then the rock would reflect rather than block, and he would pick up the echo of - something.
Still rumbling, Maximus transformed.
He ended in a crouch, even as his treads swivelled and slammed into place on his back and shoulders. When the last of the plating had clamped across his chest he rose to his feet, his joints softly whirring. His expression intent, he scanned the nearby rock slopes. Saw nothing, just loose dirt and a few tufts of grass and brush.
Grimly, the big mech reached back for his rifle.
The signal had not been a large reflection, at least. Cybertronian, but a small one. Or at least from a mech that did not throw back a large profile. Stealth-bots were like that. So were a lot of fliers. But a flier would not be travelling by foot, unless it was looking for something.
He felt like cursing. Like blistering the air above him with oaths. God damn it. This was his desert. All he wanted to do was come here and - clear his head. Put his thoughts into order before retiring for the night to prepare for the attack the next morning. But every time he tried it something cropped up. An Autobot. A Decepticon. Hell.
Scowling, Maximus stepped out of his niche and onto a slab of rock. He climbed it, his tall frame and long legs eating ground as he picked his way up the outcrop. He stood boldly at the top and scanned the hills. He could see a lot from this vantage point. Anything could spot him as well, but Maximus was willing to bet that whatever was out there would have a worse night than he would if their paths were to cross.
Dart didn't want to dwell on that too hard. She admitted it, she'd gone up to Vantage a lot in those weeks, trotting back and forth; it was on the way in from a wide patrol, no reasons not to cross that area constantly, nothing that might ping to someone that well, she wasn't where she was supposed to be. That was at least one good thing about her job; she could run a lot of places and say - no, I couldn't go this way or that, the ground was this or there was human activity, and well, it was believable.
Just checking on that bucket. She never expected really for the rock to be gone. When it was, she seriously had to do a double-take. Then even more at his solid handwriting in the book, and then as they'd gone along it had been...
Then it had stopped. Just stopped. Her first thought had been a bad one. Then her second had been worse, and-
A rattle of her spoiler. She wanted to leave those musings behind and so she just stuffed it into motion. Climb up, bound, leap here, touch off this - hit the ridge, and it wasn't far to the cache from there, just on the other side and down an old trail with the gully, she remembered.
Up on the top though, she paused. The courier sidestepped and then turned in place, then glanced around automatically, went to sniff, and-
Nobody. Just herself and the stone and the ridge and sky, and she settled back. Stars were gorgeous tonight, and she couldn't help it and trotted to a stop, looking upwards.
As always, no, she had no idea where Cybertron was. Well that was to be expected, and she couldn't help the little laugh that rolled out of her chest. Why do you even bother to look? But hey, she did. One of these days it might come back to her.
From his elevated position Maximus was able to scan the hills a little more clearly. Nothing reflected back at him, but that was fine - because now he could see what had created the blip.
It stood on a ridge above him. It was not much higher up than he was, perhaps a hundred feet or so. The moon and the stars were bright enough to cast its silhouette against the night sky. Had he not climbed onto the outcrop he never would have spotted it.
Maximus went stiff. He raised his rifle to his eye and took careful aim, but did not place his finger on the trigger. Instead he sighted down the scope. It focused in on the figure, which did not appear to have spotted him. The scope revealed it to be a dark and slender robot, with two odd points pricked over its back. It was not the silhouette of an Autobot he recognised, but nor was it a Vehicon either. Then -
All at once it hit him. Stunned, the warden lowered his rifle.
What in the pit was she doing here?
Shouting did not seem right. Maximus licked his lips. Then, curtly, he whistled - a single sharp blast, like he'd used to gather the attention of his officers.
Obviously she'd totally not suspected for a moment that he was there.
Not in the slightest.
Her reaction was rather comical in a way. Well, to anyone else who happened to be watching.
The courier hopped straight into the air. She spooked and bounced nearly right over the side of the ledge before she curvetted like a rodeo pony somehow, twisting to get her feet back on solid ground. All limb and leg and not the most graceful of moments as she flailed into a immediate stop. The tips of her spoiler over her shoulders and pricked forward as she tried to pinpoint the sound. Automatically she trotted forward a step or two.
Her nose lifted, her brain was somewhere else; focused on a whistle, sharp in the audial and she froze. Dumbly, she just stared for a moment. Here? How did he - oh, how as she going to explain herself to him, but then she realized something else. She was still standing, she wasn't already bounding forward to answer - So, no, that couldn't be- who-
Her nose swung into the air, and then...
A blink as she gathered the outline of the mech. Tank treads against the sky, high over his shoulders. Bulky and heavy and solid and- oh. Oh. The absolute last mech she expected to see and then she just rocked back on her heel and tucked her hands to the small of her back, instantly, obviously polite. Her spoiler was creeping up though, and the tips peeked over her shoulders.
Now she saw him. Maximus lowered his rifle. Then he reached back and hooked it back upon the clips at the small of his back. He didn't need it.
For an instant he was uncertain what to do next. The last time he had seen the courier had been in the wake of a Decepticon raid. She might not have been the one who shot Bulkhead, but she had been a participant in the raid nonetheless. It was clear that she worked for her faction. But she had also stayed behind to help the Wrecker return safely to the Autobots - and Miko too.
She also roamed the west coast burying harmless items for humans to find. She had left him messages, personal ones - little trinkets. It was hard to see her as a threat. But he told himself it would still be wise to find out what she was doing here. Of all places.
Maximus shook his head.
The distance that separated them - him on the outcrop and her on the ridge - was not far. Maximus eyed the gulf and did a mental calculation. He held up one big hand, signalling for her to wait. Then he lunged, took one step, two steps -
- and sprang into flight.
He crossed the span in two leaps. His first landing planted him upon a slab of rock, which he vaulted off of before it could crumble beneath his weight. When he hit the ridge he simply reared back one hand and drove it into the rock face to anchor him while he hung from the sheer slope, braced on one extended leg. Then he reached up with his other hand and swung himself onto the top of the ridge.
As Maximus approached the courier he brushed the dirt and dust from his hands. He frowned down at her.
"What are you doing here?" he said.
Dart was utterly baffled by his appearance as well. Then all of a sudden, her spoiler gave the tiniest little side-to-side motion that was half hidden by her frame.
Not dead.
She'd wondered. Well, you started to fear those things, she supposed. He'd stopped so abruptly that she'd been afraid that that's what it was. Frontliners, that was their job. This was a war. They died. She'd been around many that had. His notes had started out a bit stiff and then just slowly turned just ever so slightly, drawn to the environments, the places. She'd read them.
Dart watched as he slowly lowered his rifle. His body language changed from being wary to being confident in the situation now; she lifted her nose just enough to watch him sling the massive gun over his shoulder and clip it down.
Body language understood, he was here and she was there and he'd asked her to stand and stay. A more sensible Decepticon might have immediately thrown their hands up at that and prayed to whatever deity they happened to be following just so that they'd have a better trip back next time on the karma wheel and not be turned into a blender or some awkward appliance in the next life.
When he lunged into motion she couldn't help but just - whoa. She'd seen him move fast before, back down at the Canyon but... time and space and she'd never seen him in an open space like this. For something so broad and large, he carried himself effortlessly. The courier was astounded; the leap, the weight, the move. Fighter. All she could think of for a second was how had those Vehicons actually managed to even hurt him so badly in the first place, and-
Then he asked the question. It was a totally logical one.
She looked up at him from under the brim of her helm. "Geocaching," she admitted with a little sheepish smile.
And not paying attention apparently but she figured he'd figured that out all for himself. Erk.
Her answer took Maximus by surprise.
"Geocaching?" he said.
He stared at her blankly. He hadn't expected her to admit she was on patrol, or scouting - Black Rock was nearby, and as a military facility it was always a potential target for the Decepticons. He had thought he would get an evasive answer. He certainly hadn't expected this one.
Maximus gave her a funny look. It had just occurred to him that this was the first good look he had ever gotten of the courier. It had been dark in the train tunnel, and he had been too hunched over and preoccupied with Bulkhead and Miko to give her his full attention. And before that, in the canyon - the haze of pain had fogged his mind and made it difficult to focus. Now he could see clearly, and realise that she was tall and slim, scuffy. All skittish leg. Carriers on her hips, and no visible weapons that he could detect. Travelling light, like a courier would.
Those slanted blue optics. He did remember those.
"Geocaching," he said again. Maximus lifted his head and looked around the desert, still frowning. "There's a - a cache location near here?"
Dart nodded. Her spoiler had pricked up again and she'd drawn a tiny little sneak of air; he smelled... well, better. Not that that was perhaps the thing you said in polite company; but he no longer smelled of blood - er, fuel, and pain and all those things. His body language wasn't the cramped hunch of the tunnel or the drawn in shoulders of the cave where he'd been running on pure survival.
"Yeah, it's down by the dino-" she started to say and then caught herself, realizing, well, hey, look, she'd just given that location away in an instant. "Down below, I mean."
She tipped her head and looked up at him. "I was... well, you know," she said, even as she fumbled with the explanation.
He did. She was leaving something at the cache, as she had before.
Maximus looked back at her and furrowed his brow. He said nothing at first, but simply studied her. There was the possibility that she was lying. But her manner was not one of someone concealing the truth. She seemed genuinely sheepish about being caught out in the desert, not guilty or frightened of simply being caught.
In all likelihood she was on patrol and had deviated from it enough to make this visit to the cache. He could not imagine that Decepticons were given much off-duty time to spend on their own devices.
Maximus scrounged for something to say.
"I made it out to those first coordinates you provided," he said abruptly. He nodded vaguely with his chin. "To Vantage. With the horses."
Dart looked up at him and her spoiler came ever so slightly forward. "I know," she said, and her voice was surprisingly earnest at that. She did. The up on her toes posture relaxed just a bit; she was still in a quiet, formal stance but her arms shifted slightly. In the moonlight, it was easy to see the new weld mark burned into the metal of her shoulder. Not a clean repair or a neat one; there were beads of metal that hadn't been smoothed into her finish.
"I mean, I saw you'd written in the log book, sir," she smiled, catching herself. "I- I just... I was wondering. If you would."
"I know, it's not a fancy monument, or a big one." she told him. It wasn't. Not by the standards this mech had seen. Probably even built. "Thank you though. For going, I mean."
"It was interesting," said Maximus. "That monument."
He frowned. That wasn't a good explanation of his impressions. He was not an eloquent speaker, and was conscious of the need to guard anything he said in front of a - a - this courier. But he collected his thoughts and elaborated, "More organic than anything I've seen before. No surprise there. Pretty rough. The elements had gotten at it. But they were well-constructed, the horses. Very..."
He rolled one hand as he groped for the word. There was nothing in his vocabulary that described what he was trying to say. "Artistic? No. Aesthetic. No. Imagi- no! I don't know. I liked them."
A huff of air escaped him. Maximus narrowed his optics, silently daring her to smile. "Anyway, yeah. I found the logbook too. Wasn't sure if I was expected to write in it or not, but it seemed appropriate. Found your next set of coordinates too. And... the rock."