Ep 2: Nice Car You've Got Parked There (closed)

[Deleted]

(Set Day 3, week 3, 12pm, at Mount Moriah, Nevada. First round posting order is free-for-all and will then decide the order of subsequent rounds. Our crew of investigators is Jazz, Bumblebee and Arcee. Due to Sol leaving the boards, we've decided that Arcee was never in this thread and to ignore all her posts.)

It started, as these things often did, with a call from Agent Fowler.

No, wait. Scratch that. Go back a bit. Fowler was a part of it, sure, but it had actually started a few days prior at the announcement of the truce between Autobot and Decepticon forces. On the Autobot side, the message had been beamed to every troop, a clear order to stand down and disengage in any hostilities with enemy forces.

Every troop but one.

It was received, certainly. One lone starship sitting by itself out on Mount Moriah, received the signal from its perch on the mountainside. There was no acknowledgment or protest, not initially and this was accepted. It was a surprising message certainly, surely it was enough to leash a certain mech's acerbic vocaliser temporarily. But there were other concerns now that came with the truce and the preparations that needed to be done. So many other matters that had arisen, anomaly noted, moving on, plenty of other important things to do. They would follow it up, later.

At some point.

Eventually.

Then came Agent Fowler's call came in. The Jackhammer, spotted first by satellite, an odd, blurry looking blob that could be found if someone just so happened to be looking at the right coordinates in Google Maps. The resolution wasn't that great but it was there. As this was the internet, a few eagle eyed commentators on an obscure message board did in fact find it. It generated a bit of interest for a couple of hours, of varying degrees of skepticism and outright full-blown conspiracy theories.

("ALIENS R REAL!!1!1!!111 LOOKAT THIS PIC!" declared SwAgluRRD32324's post. It gathered 23 upvotes and 2 downvotes. "REAL ALIEN SPACE SHIP. JUST CHILLIN IN NEVADA. WTF"

"Holy shiiiiit!" raaad9000 responded. "Is this for real?"

"Don't be stupid, its photoshop," DABATMAN rained on their parade. "Any idiot can see that."

"Fuck off DB," raaad9000 fired back. "I have it right on my screen, right now, using Google."

DABATMAN was not deterred. "Google sticks Easter eggs everywhere man."

Oystersauce piped up with various accusation that DABATMAN was just some Google loving shill and that his mother...well, let's not repeat any of that. Safe to say, the conversation turned nasty after that and several mothers of the other board members were dragged into it.

Interest soon dropped after this fascinating exchange.)

Eventually, through various channels and security agencies, the images found their way onto Fowler's desk about a week later, where they were recognized for what they were. (Meanwhile around the same time, on the message board, SwAgluRRD32324 posted a selfie of himself, an half full canvas bag and a blue 2001 Toyota Echo. "PACKING FO TRIP. GOING TO NEVADA TO FIND ALIENS. BRB." Raaad9000 wished him luck and hoped that SwAgluRR32324 got there before any authorities did.

An agent watching the board quietly notified Agent Fowler of this development. Fowler was not unduly worried, based on his IP and his Facebook pictures confirming his location somewhere north in Oregon (thank you SwAgluRRD32324 for providing a picture of your face, and also, for the continuous stream of selfies tracking your progress), SwAgluRRD32324 had a plenty of hours long trip to Nevada. However, Fowler did have several contingencies in case the Jackhammer gained more attention during that time. He would have made the pictures disappear immediately, except for the fact that several board members were keeping an active eye on the topic and having it vanish right under them would undoubtedly be cause to dig deeper into the matter. Better to let SwAgluRR32324 arrive and find nothing, no trace of the Jackhammer, and then quietly remove the thread and all associated pictures from wherever they had been re-posted when the interest had waned.

The owner of said vehicle would have been disgruntled to learn that Fowler's back up plan painted the starship as an experimental military jet that had failed so badly at the experimental part that it had been thoroughly shelved and there were no plans for future research).

So to the Bots it was, and suddenly Wheeljack's initial radio silence in response to the truce declaration didn't seem like a minor issue. What had caused the Wrecker to leave his ship out there, long enough to be detected? More comm contact was attempted and yet it too was met with nothing. Not even Bulkhead's voice yielded a response. That was when it became apparent that they were not being snubbed by the Wrecker, either he was out of range or he was incapable of receiving their messages.

Neither option boded well.

A team of Autobots were to be dispatched, it was decided. They would retrieve the Jackhammer and investigate the immediate area to find out, if possible, what had happened to the Wrecker. Preferably without leaving evidence of their presence there.

The groundbridge would deposit them on a rocky outcrop, only a few meters away from the starship. The Jackhammer lay dormant, its engines cold and the landing ramp retracted and sealed tight. In its week of inactivity, the local spider life has seen fit to appropriate various nooks and crannies for their webs. The ship had taken no damage however, it didn’t look any worse to wear than the last time it had been seen by the Omega base Autobots.

It was also, inconveniently, locked. Perhaps, someone of the spook persuasion might be able to unlock it, if given enough time. Time, being a resource they had plenty. (SwAgluRRD32324 posted selfie number 5: himself and his car, finally packed full of his 'alien spotting gear'.)

The soil was thin here, and could support only grasses and small shrubs, plants with a shallow root system. If there had been any tracks left in the dirt, it was unlikely that they would have been preserved long, exposed out here to the elements. Further down the mountainside, pine trees sprouted from the thicker soil. Should a Bot happen to peer even further down the slope, they'd see that it eventually flattened out to a basin thick with brown grass and the occasional trunk of a dead tree.

And if the Bot had particularly keen vision or perhaps was feeling adventurous and decided to scout down to the basin, they might also notice the blast marks and the pitted earth, places where the ground had been gouged out in large chunks. As if someone had splattered the landscape with a high powered energy weapon. Most unusual and certainly beyond the means of the average inhabitant on Earth.

[Bumblebee]

Bumblebee was no stranger to these weird human 'conspiracy' websites, having been the star of more than a few himself every now and then. He just considered himself lucky that he had Raf looking out for him, and that he wasn't actually featured on the websites for very long.

So when someone else had started to grace the pages of these sites? It'd gone mostly unnoticed for probably too long. That was until Fowler got ahold of it, and quite rightly was annoyed about the entire thing. Especially when they all knew exactly what it was the google maps had picked up, and was one of their own.

One of their own who wasn't responding to any messages, or making any contact at all.

Finding out where Wheeljack had gone was a priority to Bee, given he was an Autobot after all, but so was moving the damn shuttle before Fowler exploded. It was the perfect job for a scout, so Bumblebee had jumped at the chance to go. He'd been a little reluctant, having got a new.. 'friend' yesterday, but the cat should be safe and unnoticed in his quarters. All Bee could do was hope the thing stayed quiet until he returned from this mission, which hopefully wouldn't take too long. Bee was there, why would it take long?

He stepped through the groundbridge, optics adjusting slightly to the mid-day sun. It didn't take him long to spot the Jackhammer, and he quickly moved over to it, trying the door which was frustratingly locked – as if half expecting Wheeljack to be inside it. He wasn't, so his next thought was to look for tracks, and he'd scramble a few steps away from the shuttle to start looking.

Nothing.

Servos planting on his hips he'd swivel around and look to his two companions.

--Sooo.. Thoughts? I don't see any tracks.-- He beeped curiously, he hadn't thought to look around further or stray far from the crashed ship - not that he'd go off on his own anyway in unknown territory, as curious as he was about where Wheeljack could've gotten to.

He'd swivel around again to look for more tracks leading from the Jackhammer, as if expecting some to ~magically~ appear. This was confusing. Why were there no tracks? He couldn't have gone far, right?

[Deleted]

Arcee walked alongside Bumblebee as the groundbridge vortex slurred through its sequence before closing up. While the yellow and black scout attempted to open the Jackhammer, she surveyed the surrounding landscape to ensure they were indeed alone and free from human eyes.

The two-wheeler turned around back to the ship when her teammate bleeped in dismay.

--Sooo.. Thoughts? I don't see any tracks.--

Arcee glanced at the Jackhammer in consideration. Unfortunately, the ship was too small for Arcee to search out for any crevices she might be able to slip into with some persuasion.

"Jazz use those black-op skills of yours and see if you can override the Jackhammer’s lock, if not force it open. Wheeljack might no appreciate it, but he’s not here to complain. Bumblebee find a high point with cover and keep an optic out for any trouble that might approach.” Arcee said assertively. As an afterthought, she realized Jazz technically had seniority, but she’d been the acting field commander for Earth much longer that it had been habit more than anything to take charge. She hoped he didn’t mind too much. “I’m going to go to the base of the mountain to make sure there isn’t anything we might not see from here that would indicate Wheeljack’s location or what happened to him for that matter.”

She turn back towards the open country below and performed a quick scan for human heat signatures. Finding none, she proceeded to lift herself down over a few of the larger boulders.

Frag it, Wheeljack, where are you? You owe me another sparring match! Arcee thought as she marched down the rocky terrain down to the basin below. She snagged a snarled tree at the base and jerked with a hard YANK! The pathetic conifer’s roots snapped with minimal resistance as Arcee held it aloft by her side. She nudged a few rocks to cover up the evidence of disturbing the sparse vegetation. Dragging the half dead conifer behind her to blur her tracks in the softer dirt, the blue femme made the slow trek to where the ground flatten out.

[Jazz]

Jazz just listened to Arcee giving her field orders, looking between her and the ship that lay dormant only a few paces from their location. While one would have assumed him to have seniority in this situation, Jazz was more than happy to allow command to someone who knew what they were doing, and Arcee had more than enough experience to know the right way to go about things. Not to mention she had a lot more knowledge about this planet and the threats posed to them here so Jazz was not about to be assertive about some place within Prime's ranks. A rank reset for him was probably for the best anyway, and he was definitely not gonna argue about having some down time from any sort of command-giving-stuff, at least while on this strange planet with its funny organic life.

Organic life that had one at least one sour apple. From the way that Prime passed down the order from this 'Fowler' human and tones used, he could tell that it was someone who had some sort of ranked authority within the human's hierarchy, but... probably not the brightest ray of sunshine. Probably a good thing Jazz didn't have to hear about it directly.

"Rodger, Dodger, 'Cee," Jazz responded as he started to make his way down to the ship. His companions were off, Bee following his commands and Arcee looking for signs of their missing 'Bot. His visor was scanning the ship, pinging in any areas that looked suspicious while in the left corner he was keeping his sensors on high alert for any sound of movement that may indicate company. He circled the ship once, logging various key points.

And, of course, his chatterbox self couldn't help but to poke a little fun. What was a mission if you were so uptight about it the entire way?

"Ya know, when you say 'black ops' like that, 'Cee, ya make it sound like I was part of some super exclusive organization that assassinated top officials or somethin'. So... dark and gloomy. Someone may get the wrong impression of me, always thinkin' I'm plottin' their demise and that ain't gonna look good with this whole 'truce-of-enemy-type' thing that's goin' on. Never know who's got a happy trigger finger."

There was a pause as he reached the hatch. He tapped on it a couple times as if he were expecting it to snap open or something and, when it didn't, he pinged back to his teammates. "So, it's definitely locked, Cee-Bee," and so came in the combined version of the two's 'nicknames' over the comm, "and I don't think the keypad is workin'." There was a tap, faint pings and a rather unfriendly buzz, some minor hums and clicks, then another response. "Yup. Not workin'. Or rather, I don't know the fancy little entry code and it doesn't give different chimes when you randomly hit the right number." Jazz passed air through his vents as he studied the exterior of the ship around where he was. It only took a moment of searching before he found what he was looking for. "Gonna go in for plan C." A loud CRANK and the sound of metal being smashed in, followed by a groan of what could only be described as some cry of protest which carried through the comm link.

Now, Jazz didn't know Wheeljack, but he did still hope the guy wasn't too attached to his ship looking nice ( that would have been part of information 'to know first' BEFOREHAND ). Once he had the access panel off he turned around to lay on his back, slid part of the way inside the compartment, and started to scan the jungle of wires and fuses and what-have-its that made up most of this. This wasn't going to be easy and, just as he suspected, was going to take a lot more time than just them having the codes and walking right on in.

"Well, this is a bit of a pain in the ol' crankcase. I don't think it's anythin' I can't override, but it IS gonna take a LIL' more effort than I thought. So, Bee, I'm gonna need you to be Superman and keep them keen optics of yours on constant lookout. You got the best pair out here, kiddo! Make 'em count."

[Deleted]

The lack of tracks was not helped by the fact that Wheeljack had not left any tracks in the first place. The Jackhammer had flown itself to its current location, the Wrecker had never stepped a foot outside on the rocky outcrop. Try as Bumblebee might, even the best scout could find something that was never there.

There would be little to keep him occupied unfortunately. If he climbed further up the mountain, he'd been able to keep an optic out on the remote landscape. And it was very dull indeed. Boulders. Shrubbery. Grass. Unchanging. He'd have a view of that for miles and would be able to see if anyone approached. They were far from human civilization. It might be pretty, if one was into that whole environment and nature sort of thing but it didn't provide any clues as to what had happened to their missing Autobot.

Should he choose to walk down to the basin, he'd would have a bit of a walk ahead of him but Cybertronian legs would have an infinitely easier time of navigating the rough terrain. Once he was clear of the steep rock face, the slope became a much more gentle incline and was host to patches of pine. To avoid the trees or not was up to Bumblebee, both were navigable.

Beyond the slope, was the flat basin. That was where the slow fading evidence of Skywarp and Wheeljack's battle remained. Skywarp had been indiscriminate with his shots, they scored the landscape all over as he'd tried to track a teleporting opponent. There was no pattern to the blasts, save that they were all near places that Deuce had been but any hints of the neutral's presence had long faded since.

The Wrecker, on the other hand, had been conservative with his attacks, the one shot that had missed his target would be indistinguishable from Skywarp's own blasts. There was a spot near the centre of the basin where clumps of grass and dirt had been kicked by a Cybertronian. Wheeljack mostly, when Skywarp had punched him and driven him backwards. More dirt nearby had been disturbed by the clash between the two.

Meanwhile, back at the mountain ledge…

The Jackhammer had sat silent and unresponsive at Bee's initial attempt to open it. A shudder went through the ship as Jazz took his own turn at it and settled on ripping the access panel. If the owner of said vehicle had been around to witness Jazz's chosen course of actions, he would have been deeply unimpressed and unamused. Oh, it was fine with Wheeljack when he decided to treat his starship like slag and put it through all kinds of rough treatment. It was, after all, his home and refuge and it kept going because all the effort he put into it. No one else had earned the right to abuse his ship, not even a fellow Autobot.

Jazz would find that under the access panel lay a...confusing, to say the least, mishmash of wiring and machinery. The Jackhammer might have been a factory assembled ship, once upon a time, but its owner was a Wrecker and, by extension, so was the Jackhammer. It had through many a battles that, by all reasoning and logic, should have been the end of it. The Jackhammer had been fixed, upgraded, fixed again from the Pits and back, and it was rare for Wheeljack to have at hand the correct components. What lay beneath its plating was a lot of custom work and repurposed hardware. Also love. And spite, because this was Wheeljack.

And because this was all wired together according to Primus knows how Wheeljack's brain module functioned and the Wrecker was never one to stop fiddling and fine-tuning his ship, there was every chance for something that looked like it belonged in there and its purpose was clear cut and obvious, to have been rejigged for something else entirely.

(SwAgluRR32324 selfie #6 was him, in his bathroom, having suitably attired himself for the trip. Suitable attire in his mind involved camo pants and a small black T-shirt, that presumably was supposed to accentuate his abs or something but only emphasized the flab)

[Bumblebee]

Bumblebee nodded affirmatively at the order – it wasn't like Bumblebee cared, of even minded being ordered around; he was a simple scout, nothing more. Orders were orders, and as such? He would follow without any protest or question. It wasn't like there were any tracks he could see in the nearby area, so therefore he couldn't follow any leads, so being given a direction on where to start was welcomed.

--Aight, on it!--

He'd shake his arms a couple of times to get ready, giving Jazz a thumbs up before moving to scramble up the rocks onto the higher area, making quick work of the climb. He was about halfway up to the higher ground when he heard an almighty CRANK, metal breaking, then a groan. Bumblebee visibly flinched at the noise, pausing his ascent. Helm peering over his shoulder and down at Jazz and the ship, as if trying to work out what'd just happened. It was pretty obvious.

::...Did ya seriously just do that?:: He couldn't help but laugh over the comm. Well, that was one way to do things. ::Did it work at least? Didn't sound good whatever ya did, man.:: At least it wasn't Bee that broke something. With a cheerful huff, he'd climb the rest of the way up...

...Only to be met with instant disappointment. His doorwings would slump, and the only sound would be of his optics whirring as he peered around. That and the insects. So many insects.

::Well there aint anything up here.:: he droned, servos moving to rest on his hips as he peered around the boring landscape. Just for good measure he would walk around and explore a little bit, peering behind trees, nudging the occasional boulder with his pede. He'd at least been expecting something interesting up here, but found nothing.

::I think I'm gonna come back down. I cant even see anythin' from up here.::

Ah well! At least he had reason to explore the area a little more. Plus going down would be easier than climbing up, and as such, Bee would slide down the rocks with ease back to where Jazz was. He was careful with his movements on the off chance that some humans came hiking through here, he was already on enough conspiracy websites without them finding giant footprints in the middle of nowhere.

He'd side glance Jazz warily as he passed. Watching as the other mech poked around with wires.

::Don't trigger an explosion, aight? That's the last thing we need!::

He chuckled, continuing on down the slope. It wasn't as steep the further he made his way down, so he didn't have to be as careful with his movements. He made a point to avoid the pine-trees on the way down, using them as cover as he passed them – while there were probably no humans around, he was still a little paranoid at being caught in his root-mode. It didn't take him long to traverse his way down, thankful that he was able to cover a lot of ground in a few short steps.

Once he reached the bottom of the slope and made his way into the flat basin, he'd roll his shoulders and peer around once more. Well at least this looked to be more interesting than what he'd found at the top of the rocks. It looked like there'd been a fight here, or at least something had happened. He'd hum in thought, not reporting back to Jazz just yet – wanting to explore a little more himself as he made his way toward the center of the basin where there were obvious signs of a Cybertronian scuffle.

((Note: We are ignoring Arcee's post after this one, and all the ones she made prior. This post was edited so the thread can continue without her, due to Sol leaving the board.))

[Deleted]

Jazz's voice filtered over the comm.

"Ya know, when you say 'black ops' like that, 'Cee, ya make it sound like I was part of some super exclusive organization that assassinated top officials or somethin'. So... dark and gloomy. Someone may get the wrong impression of me, always thinkin' I'm plottin' their demise and that ain't gonna look good with this whole 'truce-of-enemy-type' thing that's goin' on. Never know who's got a happy trigger finger."

The two-wheeler rolled her optics. "You know what I meant, Jazz. I've done my own share of stealth missions and it's not always that deep in the cloak-and-dagger category."

Jazz did succeed in getting a slight chuckle out of her, but she's wasn't going to admit that to him.

Arcee gradually made her way down the rocky incline, careful to not disturb the terrain too badly. She'd finally arrived to the soft loamy soil, knowing she's have to tread more carefully. Either she'd have cover up her pede tracks every carefully afterwards or she could move about on tires. While the tire tracks would be horribly out of place in the remote wilderness, it would fit in better here on Earth than large and unusual foot prints in the soft soil.

Arcee scoffed. Organic worlds. Impossible to completely cover up your presence in some regions. She definitely refused to consider Jack's joking suggestion of "Yeti Feet" attachments to the bottom of their pedes. Currently would send the conspiracy nuts on a wild goose chase.

She heard Jazz's muttering about the ship being sealed tight. "Do what you can, Jazz," the blue femme replied.

Deciding to press on by foot, rather than wheel, Arcee had a better view of the valley floor. She furrowed her optic ridges as a scattering of still visible disturbed signs in the soil spread out in a non-descript pattern. Before she could investigate further, Bumblebee chirped over the comm.

::Everything okay with you two?::

"Affirmative, I may have found some clues to our missing wrecker, but I'll let you know soon enough if it's anything conclusive."

The smaller femme approached the nearest of the disturbed markings, still taking care to minimize the impact of her steps.

[Jazz]

     :: I ain't gonna make anythin' explode! Not on purpose, at least. :: He chuckled. ::  Good thing to keep a distance, though... just in case. :: There was another small chuckle.

     Meanwhile, his visor was scanning the... well... 'situation' at present. The ship had been clearly worked on countless times and the Wrecker probably used whatever resources were available to get the thing operational again or to patch up this or that. Jazz had been forced to do that same on his own ship while he was traveling on his own and most of the time the parts he found needed some fixing or 'altering' to make them compatible. It worked, but there was a serious problem with doing that:

     Each little alteration was special. Custom. Rarely would anyone who didn't have part of their own servo in the pot be able to figure out just what was... what.

     So all he could do was poke around, trying to see what wires led where, trying to find the one that would go to the keypad. Sure, Jazz probably could have done this a lot easier and just ripped the stupid thing off the outside of the ship and fumble with the thing that way, but this way? At least he could try and figure out what was where and override it without damaging the exterior. He tugged on different pieces, trying to see if something was triggered, and he followed a bundle of cords leading up in the direction of the keypad. Now to just follow them back to the main CPU and mess with overriding it.

     ... and try not to have something blow up in his own faceplate, as he'd already been gracefully warned of.

[Deleted]

Time had eroded the signs of battle. There had been three Cybertronians in the basin a week prior but now only evidence remained for one of them. The few footprints left were mere impressions in the earth, no sharp recognizable outlines that might identify who had made them. They were near impossible to notice anyway, what Bumblebee would find were blast shots mostly. But there was no way to determine who had made the shots, which factions had been involved in the clash…

That the Jackhammer sat nearby did suggest the Wrecker had been involved. And given Wheeljack's reputation, it was almost a given that he'd been involved with the battle had taken place.

Only there was not clues to provide even the slightest picture of what had happened. What were the odds that two teleporters and a Wrecker would encounter each other here at the same exact moment?

~

Tugging on mystery components that Wheeljack had installed in a system was probably not the wisest thing to do. The bits crackled and sparked, and Jazz would find himself on the receiving end of a rather strong electric shock.

The wire Jazz needed lay behind a coil of thick grey tubing. It was also embedded in a bundle of identical blue cables. Fortunately for Jazz, the vital wire he was after was a dull brown. It also looked different in terms of age and quality. It was a replacement and looked to be a poorer one than the original.

But while it was an oddity where it was, there were plenty of other mismatched wires and components around it. The bundle of blue cables plus the mismatched brown one was the only ones that connected to the keypad, so Jazz was on the right path at least. The brown cable plugged into a port at the back of the keypad. Both the cable connector and the port were of the universal Cybertronian kind, so whether Jazz chose to plug the cable into himself and hook himself up to the Jackhammer directly or plug himself into the keypad to hack it was up to him.

All the password protecting and encryption stuff did happen at the keypad level, which would then send a signal through the cable to the rest of the ship to unlock the door. Bypassing the keypad and telling the ship directly to open up was the easy way to get around all that. It was not the most secure system in the universe, then again the Jackhammer spent most of its life in deep space, where it was highly unlikely that someone would get the chance to dig into its wiring.

[Bumblebee]

::See that ya don't! I know Wheeljack loves his ship, and I wouldn't want to piss him off by makin' it explode!:: Bee would laugh. There was also the fact that explosions made noise, and while they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere? Knowing their luck, someone out there would hear the explosion and come check it out. Nothing like having a park ranger come across two fancy sports cars and a crashed alien ship in the middle of wherever this was. That wouldn't send alarm bells ringing at all!

Bee wouldn't stray too far from the bottom of the cliff yet – although he would wander around nearby, just to try and scope things out. There would be a small hydraulic whir and hiss as his small energon blasters would slide from his arms – he was being overly cautious just incase something happened and he needed to have some sort of defense. Nothing like being caught off guard and unarmed!

He saw the footprints – or at least what was left of them. Whatever had happened here? Happened a while ago. Still, he was oh so very curious. They were obviously Cybertronian, even if he couldn't work out who'd made them. Not that he'd probably be able to even if they were more visible.

The blast shots that littered the area though? They were more interesting. Had they come from the Jackhammer? He assumed it was armed, given the fact it traveled through deep space... But who, or what, was it shooting at?

::So uh, when ya done not blowing up the ship.. Ya should come down here. Maybe. There's been some kinda fight. Lotsa blast marks, I think there's uuh... Twwwwo.. No.. Three different pedeprints down here... Real hard to tell though, they're all worn out. Can ya tell if it was the ship that fired any of the blasts? Surely it has some kinda logs right?::

Damnit Wheeljack, where are you? Hopefully the ship held some kind of missing clue as to just what'd happened, as there was nothing down here aside from 'Yes, there has obviously been some kind of firefight' – but that didn't explain where they had GONE.

::I'm gonna look around a bit more, see if there's a message or anythin' been blasted into the dirt. It's a tooootal long shot, but I got nothin'.::

And with that? Bee would take off a little further, following the blast marks. His weapons still drawn even if whoever it was that'd been here was long since gone. He'd check trees for any little clues, he'd check rocks.. The ground...

He even glanced up at the sky more than once. Cos you never know!

[Jazz]

     This was circuit splitting INSANE! There were wires that led to nowhere, parts that should have been replaced eons ago, and other parts that... well... they just had no point in being there. This thing looked like a scrap heap gone wild or something. Then again, beauty was in the eye of the beholder and all that. Jazz hadn't had the most sunny side of philly as far as ships went but the contraption served her purpose all the way to Earth. This one probably provided the same sensation for its owner. This Wheeljack fella certainly had his own knack for how he put things together- and probably for taking them apart.

     ... Ontop of making it so that anyone else opting to repair this would take one look at it and completely 'nope' away. If it weren't for the fact that Jazz pretty much had to get inside? He probably would have done the same. Good thing he had a crap load of patience to spare.

     He wiggled one of the wires that seemed to be going where he wanted to, but the moment that he pulled he felt a very familiar- and somewhat painful- shock travel from his servo along the sensors through his arm and shoulder. He made a rather sudden sound similar to that of a cat's startled hiss and pulled his servo away to shake it. Like that would really do much, as it wasn't like a human receiving a burn or something of the sort where the cool brush of air would make it stop hurting. This was internal and required however long it took for his system to stop being stupid to quit aching. Which at least it didn't take TOO long. 

     :: Oops. Well, the ship didn't blow up, but it didn't like me tinkering under her skirt. Darn blasted thing bit me. :: He rubbed the tips of his digits together to test and see if everything was still working since the sting had subsided to a dull ache. :: If I had a short fuse I would have lashed out and kicked it. But the ol' gal's safe. Quite... well... put together in a way you would expect a human child trying to make a map of Cybertron to look.::

     He spotted a piece that looked much older than the rest, probably not replaced, but it wasn't the age that had caught his gaze. It was the construction... the... material... that Jazz recognized. He followed it to see where it would lead while his visor fed him the readings and highlighted the origin and the now final destination.

     :: Eureka! Looks like I found the gold at the end of the rainbow. Should be smooth sailin' from here.::

     Jazz tugged on the origin of cable to pull it from the back of the panel leading to the keypad, then brought his right arm up and opened the small panel there. He plugged the cable into the jack and started to type of the little digital screen that lay beneath it. He was trying to access the ship's mainframe in an attempt to find the folder that held the security codes. While the keypad was the main focus at the moment, it wouldn't hurt to have any other passwords and access keys that may have been installed, just in case Wheeljack had installed some security system that would like... fry anyone who sat in the pilot seat without the proper scan or something. This was a basic system which he could have probably plugged into after a quick tearing of the outer panel of the keypad, but what was done was done, so all he could do was... well... finish what he started. He had the keypad overrode rather quickly and typed in a new series of numbers of his choosing to get into the Jackhammer. Once done he unplugged the cable, closed off the panel, then plugged it back into the back of the keypad. 

     Then he slowly started to back out, rolling first onto his front before getting on servos and knees to scoot on back and out of the hatch. He did bump one of the thicker cables, striking his sensitive audial sensor, but he didn't let that stop him from removing himself from the tight space. Surely, Jackie had to be smaller than him to be able to move freely through! Now safely out he stood and brushed off the loose dirt and debris that had caught on his frame and rubbed his servos together as he went to the keypad. 

     :: Now we see if this works, :: he commed to Bee as he typed a lengthy series of the same numeral, then paused to wait and see if the bypass worked.

[Deleted]

Selfie no.7 featured SwAgluRRD32324 at a MacDonalds which, according to his geo location data, wasn't all that far off from his house. A fifteen minute drive at best. Well, at least he'd made it onto the road, at long last.

The caption to the image was "FUELING UP FOR MA ALIEN HUNTING TRIP."

~

The basin was peacefully. A gentle breeze swept through it. But nothing new popped up to answer the questions Bumblebee had. Nobody had been considerate to blast into the ground, "WHEELJACK GOT TELEPORTED TO CYBERTRON BY AN AFT-HAT AND ONE IDIOT SEEKER."

The local wildlife on the ground had long fled at the approach of the yellow Autobot.

But up, up in the sky…

Far above, a bird decided to relieve itself.

Bumblebee would become aware of this when its poop splattered against his helm.

Well, that was that.

~

The bypass worked.

No fanfare, no drama. The Jackhammer's ramp obediently lowered itself as it was programmed to do. The small, two mech cockpit came into view. Wheeljack's home for the length of the Exodus was devoid of its usual occupant. One familiar with the Wrecker might have assumed that his living area would be as chaotic as he was but the cockpit was plain. All loose items were stowed away in their compartments, where they would not be a danger during his more daring manoeuvres.

The two seats were empty. An array of control panels and monitors flanked them. The screens were dark, unpowered as the ship was. Attempting to activate the ship would not set off any security measures, Wheeljack had set none when he'd left the Jackhammer, confident that he would be returning to it soon. One could get it running with no further hindrance, now that they were inside.

Examining the Jackhammer's logs will reveal two things. One was that it hadn't fired its weapons recently, indeed the last time was prior to Wheeljack's first arrival on Earth. Secondly, its flight path would show upon its departure from the Omega base, the ship had landed twice prior to setting itself down in its current location. The first landing occurred a day after Wheeljack had departed, the ship had landed in the La Madre Mountain. Two days later, Wheeljack had piloted it down to the basin, where Bumblebee was currently exploring, then the autopilot had kicked in and put the ship down where it was only a few minutes later. From that, one could infer at least, that Wheeljack had been down to the basin, though where he went from there was an open question.

How very curious.

[Bumblebee]

Bumblebee hadn't been expected a carved out message in the dirt, but he was at least hoping to find something that might've given away what'd happened here. He probably should've been helping Jazz get into the ship, but he didn't know the first thing about that stuff, and would've no doubt gotten in the way.

::It bit ya? Whoops!:: He chuckled over the comm. ::Least it didn't explode though! That's the main thing, man! And yup that sounds like Wheeljack! That ship is his pride and joy from what I hear, so it don't surprise me none that it's well put together and maintained.::

He'd nudge at a rock with his pede. This was boring. Still, he'd keep on looking for things that weren't there, just until Jazz was done with attempting to get into the Jackhammer. At least down here he was out the way incase something did happen and the thing exploded. He had every faith in Jazz, of course, but all it'd take was one wrong move and KABOOM!

At least it was Jazz that was working on it. That short fuse he'd mentioned? Bee sure had one of those, and it wouldn't have taken the young Scout long to lose his temper and kick the thing out of frustration before no doubt giving up.

::Just let me know if it works yeah? Then I can come ba-::

He cut off mid sentence at feeling something splap against his helm. A wary glance up. He saw the offending bird, and it didn't take him long to work out what'd happened. He'd been pooped on by birds before, it was pretty much a given when sitting around in his alt-mode, but... He was in his root-mode now! Damn that thing had good aim. Not that it was aiming for him. But.. Eeeuugh.

::..Aaaand I just got pooped on. Gross!! Anyways yeah let me know when to come back up, aint nothing down here but blast marks.::

This was nasty. Not that it was a lot of poop, given how big Bee was compared to the bird, but it was the principle of the thing! Now he'd have to make a trip to the wash-rack! Ugh!

[Jazz]

     :: Pooped on? Uck. I hope ya wash up before ya head back to base! ::

     Jazz didn't even want to think of the mess that probably was all spattered on Bee. He'd heard the stories, he'd seen other vehicles who were the receiving end of such sky bombs and he just... didn't even. So far he'd been lucky to avoid the flying earth creatures but he didn't dare think that out loud, or else he would probably mess up and jinx himself.

      There were other things to muse over, however. Right now he was sitting in the pilot seat, checking over the controls. It was a different feel from his own old ship, as this one was.. well... styled in old form, but a lot of the components were new. Ships all pretty much operated the same, just had fancier ways of being flicked on or piloted. Jazz could only hope as he fumbled with some of the more familiar buttons that there wasn't going to be any incident.

     A few more switches later and all seemed to be good. Seemed as though getting into the ship was the difficult part. Well, that was to be expected. Out in the middle of space one never really did much in the way of internal locks unless it was a fleet ship for security sake, but these personal transporters? It was almost the same story from the ships Jazz had hot-wired and 'sabotaged'. They were secured from the outside, a shell that once cracked, the internals were almost a breeze. Sometimes Jazz was surprised but that was a rare case. This was just not one of those.

     Once he had access to the logs, he started to skim through at an unusually quick pace. He didn't need to read everything word for word since his visor scanned everything into his memory core to be accessed later while picking out the various key pieces that he needed to find right away. So the process of figuring out what he needed from the immediate time frame was easy... but there was a lot of other bits to go through.

     :: Well, I'm in if ya wanna swing your way back on up. Maybe grab a leaf on your way up or somethin' to get the... gift... off first. Wouldn't want it to spread in the ship.:: The way he said that last part was more of a 'don't get that plague all over the ship'.

[Bumblebee]

::Just my luck, huh! Already visited the wash-rack this morning, now I gotta do it again!::

Bee couldn't help but laugh. Then again he was used to it. Sitting around outside the school while waiting for Raf made him a prime target for getting pooped on by the occasional bird. It was worse in his alt mode because they seemed to have a knack for hitting his windshield, which was so not fun. His root mode wasn't as bad because he was so much bigger than the birds, and so the little 'present' was little more than an annoying, tiny little white splat against yellow.

It was still gross. Although he couldn't help but give a silent kudos to the bird that'd managed to get a direct hit on the top of his helm while he'd been moving.

He'd wander around some more, making some futile attempt to find more of the footprints he'd found earlier – but was unable to. Even with his enhanced vision, he could barely find a trace of them – which made him question just how long ago it was that... Whatever happened here, happened.

He'd scuff a couple of the blast marks with the tip of his pede, trying to make them look more 'natural' so that if a wayward camper came out here, they wouldn't be greeted by the sight of blackened soil from an obvious gunfight. Then again, it was so remote that it could probably be passed off as some weird and top secret military testing. The Jackhammer, however? Could not.

Jazz's voice sounded over the comm once more, which was more than a relief. He'd done it! Without triggering some huge explosion! Not that he ever doubted Jazz's skills, but he'd half expected there to be some sort of security system to deter people breaking in.

::Aight, on my way back!:: He'd chirp in response, before doing one last glance around the area and making his way back up the slope to the area where Jazz and the Jackhammer were. He took note of Jazz's words - specifically the last part he said - and would grab a small but leafy overhanging branch and made a sad, sad attempt at wiping off the bird poop. It sort of worked, but not really. Still, he tried!

Once he was satisfied that he'd done a good enough job, he'd make his way into the ship.

--Whoa, it's bigger in here than I thought! Any idea of what even happened anyway? It got any kinda recording system or something?-- He'd chirp as he moved to sit in the co-pilots seat, optics wide as he looked around - although he was smart enough not to touch anything, keeping his servos firmly in his lap.

This was really cool! Maybe he'd have to ask Wheeljack really, really nicely sometime to take him – and possibly Raf – out for a flight. 

...Once he got back from, uh, well, wherever he was, anyway.