[ti]Ep 2[/ti]Reporting to the Commander [Closed / Starscream / Flatline]

[Flatline]

When Sparkplug started with an interested 'oooh', Flatline honestly was expecting a detailed monologue about how useful it was for the native inhabitants to have everything listed out for them to exploit, or something else along those lines. What he didn't really expect, was her to suddenly zero in onto his chest and the secondary set of limbs that resided there. Her interest was so focused; she even leaned to the side, so she could look around his primary limb to get a better view.

Flatline... he didn't often feel self conscious. He knew he was an abnormality, and he accepted it as fact. The mumbled rumors from the troops did little to bother him, because he KNEW his modifications helped him do his job better as far as he was concerned, and that was what mattered! That said, having another scientist straight up evaluate him and seem like she'd want to tear into the limbs, actually incurred a sort of insecure response in him.

At first, his secondary limbs pulled back against his chest, tucking slightly underneath the pectoral flares of his armor. They could not fully hide however, and now that Sparkplug knew they were there, it would be fairly obvious where they rested. However, the more she spoke, the more he tried to equate it to 'talking shop' as if they were speaking about a custom tool and not a part of his frame.

"These are indeed personal mods, yes. Can be used for general use and intricate work, whatever I need of them."

Unfolding the limbs once more, he rocked his weight back some, while easing his shoulders away so that his chest was more angled forward. Being hunched was a natural state for him, and now that he was more upright and formal? It looked a bit odd and awkward with his proportions. What it did however, was reveal more of the limbs and the spherical mountings they attached to.

The small arms held out some, palm up towards the ceiling. They folded over, the thin fingers flaring out and curling to show the dexterity. There was a small thumb that had full rotation capabilities and then two tiny fingers that paired along with it. The forearm itself was flared with banded plates, adding an illusion of some bulk to it and a matching aesthetic, but the limb itself was actually rather thin and delicate. It would be easy to break if he were overly rough.

"I have always felt that an additional set of hands on a project can bring a level of convenience that is frankly priceless. I finally took the plunge when I was stranded, looking for means to occupy my mind..."

He trailed away from where the comment was going, veering back around.

"I wager it is the same reason you acquired your limb?"

Flatline's posture rolled forward then, settling back down into an idle hunch where his spine took the natural curve once more. It partly obscured his secondary's, but they did not tuck or hide again, hanging at rest in a hovering idle. It was his right primary nearest her, that would gesture to her own arm.

"Functionality and convenience, paired with working alone and not having an assistant to fill in the gaps. You have to make do with what you have, and in doing so create something to bridge the gaps."

Sharp red optics watched her carefully, trying to judge her reactions and see if he could read any 'thoughts' in them.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug's helm tilted as his secondary manipulators drew back, and she watched with fascination as they tucked under the flared ridges of his chest armour. So that was how she hadn't noticed them before! As he straightened up and stretched out the small limbs once more, she watched each detail of the way they moved, green optics flicking here and there.

Her flexible features and her field emissions conveyed exactly the same impression; a deep and abiding curiosity, channelled at that moment into a friendly, energetic interest in his frame structure. If there was anything deeper or more reserved behind it, it was very well hidden.

"You carried out this level of frame alterations without help?" she asked curiously, reaching out to take his three-fingered manipulator in both of hers. With gentle, careful touches, she turned his wrist and rotated his thumb slightly, flexing his fingers experimentally. "That's some real delicate work you did. The housing is nicely done, really neat. If I didn't know they were there, now, I wouldn't even notice them when they’re stowed. Good rotation on the thumb... the wrist is nice and dextrous, too. Two fingers, that's interesting. Decent for holding tools, but like I said, not specialised for data entry, you want more digits for that and more widely spaced. Got your main manipulators for that. " Releasing his manipulator, she added approvingly, "Nice design."

She nodded in satisfaction, straightening up herself. While she hadn't entirely forgotten the awkward, uncomfortable confrontation with Starscream, the tension in the room seemed to have drained away with the commander's departure. With Flatline indulging her interest in his design, she was growing more comfortable by the minute with the dark, hunchbacked mech, her posture relaxed and conversational. His mild query into her own structure didn't bother her, either; clearly, Sparkplug was entirely at home talking about her design.

Lifting her helm and looking up at his faceplate again, she replied conversationally, "As for my arm, that was an incremental kind of deal. You know; lots of redesigns, needed more room each time, and in the end, I stuck in an extra elbow so the whole thing wasn't too awkward to use. Whole string of sequential energy condensers in there and focusing assemblies. That's why I had to go longer, rather than thicker. For the kind of energies I'm playing with, you need linear space to get the particle acceleration I'm after."

Turning around, the small femme presented Flatline with the back of her left shoulder. Five articulated panels opened outwards, like tapering, squared-off petals, exposing an emitter nozzle like a small, flared rocket engine opening. Reaching over her own shoulder with her dual-jointed arm, she tapped the emitter. "That's for countering recoil. The backwash from the accelerators is dumped into an uncollimated burst out of here. It'd blow me clean off my peds, otherwise. Probably not a good idea to stand right behind me if it ever comes down to a fight."

[Flatline]

Flatline didn't like to think about those days back on the ship. It was a game of survival, and a game of brutality. It did not take long for individuals to start to turn against one another out of fear, a paranoia that grew rampant considering the cargo they were carrying and the stress that it could be used against them. Starvation, accusing the guards of taking too much for their larger frames, intellectuals demanding resources... Hiding was a good way to survive, and tucking back into the shadows to let others mutilate one another was... well...

He lived.

Then was alone.

The paranoia had hit so fast, that after the chaos, there was ample fuel for a couple individuals to subside for some time. Flatline used the opportunity well, but it was not pleasant. Any means to occupy his mind, any means to keep him focused and on a path... that was why he did the secondary arms, because not only did he have to make a set of arms, but he had to code in and practice with the motor functions to not move his right primary and secondary with mirrored actions. What could have been a long elaborate reply, one to share of the difficulties he challenge, was boiled down to a hollow word.

"Yes."

After he said this though, the black and red mech froze abruptly.

She had grabbed his secondary! She was moving it around!

Flatline's mind effectively stopped the moment she took the limb in her hands and started to move it around and inspect it with care. It was not unlike a scruffed cat in that regard, his frame locking up, his helm perched high upon his throat, while forearms held ridged and at the ready in nervous tension. His field recoiled instantly with curdled stress and anticipation for the worst, having abrupt flashbacks to that red and white Autobot tearing off the limb not long ago. Ghost pains shot up his arm to his processor at this memory, making him fear for the worst, and fear that she would twist it right out of its socket unintentionally with her unwieldy large fiddler crab arm!

The small secondary would move easily while she looked it over, the wrist moving at her turn and elbow extending when needed, though the digits were stiff. They didn’t seem to want to respond to her poking, some resistance that kept the thumb from rotating its full degree of motion, though it still showed its dexterity well. If she were to listen closely, there would be a faint clicking sound coming from the thumb as it was extended however.

Sparkplug's words were half falling on deaf ears, Flatline's mind screaming out in concern. He knew she was praising his work, he could pick up on that much, but he was nearly crippled out of his fear of having the limb damaged. He had calibrated it so sensitive, so acute to details, that he did the most delicate of work with it exclusively, and had the capability of measuring distances between his thumb and pointer with nauseatingly accuracy. This internal ruler, was moving and adjusting its numbers as she moved the thumb, and it was disorienting having it tweaked outside of his control.

"Ah... thank you."

Moderately higher pitched words, his stress not well hidden. Out of all his neurotic habits and possessions, this was the one thing he didn't like being touched most, and he would have backhanded her across the face if he wasn’t scared shed lurch back and her large arm would take his with it. Really, he had no idea what that thing was capable of!

Once the limb was released, it tucked back quickly to hide along the flaring on his chest once more, small fingers curling into a ball, to press the wrist joint in the deepest portion of the channel. It still left the forearm panels exposed, but it was at least somewhat protected well. On some level, Flatline knew that she wouldn’t intentionally harm him, but paranoia was strong.

"I take great pride in my work."

He managed to drop these words out, trying to remain professional, trying to remember that Starscream was going to come in at random in who-knows-how long. With his luck, the Second in Command would walk in right when he was in the middle of strangling this femme! He had to behave, play nice. He wanted to scold, but no... no... he could get revenge later somehow, trying to hide the stress that consumed him a moment before.

It was easy to get some time to collect himself then, considering she was an immense chatterbox. For the first time he was grateful for her inflated words, as it allowed him to try to reel his emotions back in line with enough spare to actually try to consider what was being said. It explained some more to him about her arm, and clarified that it wasn’t some muscle bound thing, but was some sort of weapon with thrusters to counter its propulsion.

Stepping forward, Flatline walked back to her side, observing the construction of the limb while she showed off the panels that opened for countering the weapon's kickback.

"It must have taken some time to regain full dexterity in regards to coping with an additional joint."

Throttled words, Flatline was trying to mimic his normal speech patterns. His gaze however, was still a bit wide eyed, staring her down, while secondary's were safely tucked close to his body, behind the protection of his hunched frame and primary limbs.

[Sparkplug]

Occupied in exploring his odd geometry, and even more distracted by explaining her own system design, the little signs of his distress went right past her without registering. Sparkplug nodded along with Flatline's comment about the difficulty of regaining dexterity after her own redesign, flexing the articulated panels over the anti-recoil nozzle before folding them shut neatly, the seams barely visible.

"Oh yeah, that was a real pain in the aft," she agreed casually, flexing her dual-jointed arm. "Had to modify the controller to take account of the new cluster of servos, and the proprioception model - you know, the model of where your chassis thinks it is - had to be updated as well. Well, you'd know all about that, having to add two whole limbs to your chassis. Did take some getting used to. Two joints makes it harder to know which joint you need to move to efficiently get the end of the limb into the position you want it, had to develop an internal model for it. Not really something you'd want to have to adapt to in a hurry. if I was combat-frontline, there'd have been a convalescence period, but with the work I was doing, I just kept on until I got used to it."

It was then, as she concluded her sentence, that she belatedly noticed something was wrong. Flatline was even more hunched over than before, curled around the secondary limbs which had been pulled right back into his chassis, and though his one optic was distorted by the shoddy repairwork to his faceplate, his expression didn't look quite right either.

A thoughtful frown grew on her faceplate, her optic ridges drawing together. "Flatline, is there something the matter? Your faceplate wound bothering you?"

[Flatline]

"Ah, no. Such frivolous things do not bother me as it would our prissy medic"

And there we go.

The daily requirement to take at least ONE swipe at Knock Out.

That was an obsession to harp over another time however, as he tried to root himself down and suppress his hostilities as best he could in a constant roundabout loop. This was an interesting coping mechanism he was trying to use, his system trapped between wanting to fly off the metaphorical handle in some way like a spited old woman that found offense at something, while on the other hand he had to remain professional and respectable. This individual was possibly going to be reporting to Shockwave, and he had to seem superior to her in some way so that she reported to HIM first as a go-between. Flatline did not want to share the helper position AT ALL, since he had some wrongful concept that he was worthy of being the scientists right hand assistant above all others.

"I just am not typically amicable about individuals handling my smaller limbs."

That was about as politely as he could think to say it without calling her rude or inconsiderate or weird. Yet, he also was starting to understand her more which was helping him curb over his whiplashing emotions between hate and acceptance. The more Sparkplug spoke, the more she acted and did, the easier it was for him to start to make a small profile in his processor on who she was and how shed react to things.

She reminded him of a younger individual, one that wasn’t as developed in social situations, but was very far from being as simplistic as a sparkling or Skywarp. Skilled in sciences to do what she has said she has done, and still be alive this far in the war. She was probably isolated for much of her time, throwing her results to her Commanders before prancing back to her lab to make something else of note.

This was all assumptions however.

"Seams appear manufactured well on the limb. You build from scratch or merge parts?"

A pause.

"Have you constructed any other body parts?"

He gestured broadly at her limb again with a flick of his wrist, trying to keep the subject matter off him and his neurotic habits.

"-and would you want your lab to accommodate such surgeries, or are you doing weapons only?"

A quick pepper of questions, he was trying to figure out what exactly she may need for her area, to make it seem like he could help or guide somehow. Maybe he would have suggestions for her lab once he knew what she hoped to accomplish! Though he was also silently digging for info, hoping she cobbled the limb together and just managed to fuse it well. He didn't want to feel challenged by another manufacturer being around, his pride could only take so much.

[Sparkplug]

Okay, so Flatline considered a gaping gash in his faceplate - held together with staples - to be a frivolous and prissy thing to worry about.

Yikes.

Sparkplug had not often been in a position where she'd taken serious chassis damage, and when she had, she certainly hadn't taken it with the blank-faced equanimity, even boredom, that this mech affected. Either he was really, really tough, had taken too much damage to care overmuch anymore, or was putting on a front. It didn't seem like a front.

Once again, yikes.

But further consideration of that thought was entirely overwritten as the black and red mech explained what was bothering him. She let him finish talking, anxious not to interrupt, but as soon as he paused, she burst out, "Oh, scrap on an engine block, I'm sorry about that. Didn't mean to make you unhappy there, especially when you were going out of your way to show off your morphology. I thought - well, doesn't matter what I thought, that was super rude of me, and I won't go near your chassis again without being explicitly told to."

She took a small step backwards; not backing away, but giving him just a little more personal space in recognition that she'd invaded his too far. Her green optics blinked up at him, obviously a little anxious that she'd unintentionally offended.

She paused, giving time for her apology to sink in before she went on at a less rushed pace, "I built my arm from scratch. Done a lot of chassis modifications on myself, come to that. Usually its incremental stuff; shifting components around, replacing subsystems, but for work like the cannon and tool kit I wanted to fit into this limb, it had to be a complete build from the strut upwards. Built the shoulder assembly at the same time, too. Had to be able to take the recoil. Needed some help to fit it, mind you, you can imagine how hard that'd be to do by yourself."

A wry grin touched her flexible lips, beginning to relax again as she delved back into her area of specialisation. "Have I constructed any other body parts? Heck, Flatline, I was a chassis designer before the war. There isn't a body part I haven't built. Used to build out whole frames. I did some decent research on energon pumps - think 'An Improved Morphology for Mid-Range Energon Pumping Modules' was the highest profile paper I published."

The paper she referred to was of a number she'd published, though more cited than any of her others by at least an order of magnitude. It described a customised toplology for Cybertronian energon pumping systems that produced an efficiency increase of several percent. Part of the never-ending incremental improvements to the general Cybertronian condition by both sides, it had been published in Autobot scientific circles, then swept up with tens of thousands of others by Decepticon industrial spies. The lead author had indeed been listed as 'Sparkplug', though certainly not a Decepticon at the time. Whether a particular mecha knew of it would depend on how deeply they read into the chassis-construction literature and whether they had an onboard library of scientific papers - it certainly wasn't something to make her name known outside of her specific research interests.

"Left all that behind me these days," she went on. "Weapons are where it's at for me. There's so many things you can do with weapons. So I'll make chassis mods if I need to, to accommodate new weapon systems, but otherwise - nah. I'm not here to build someone a new pair of legs. I'm here to give them the means to blow someone's legs off."

[Flatline]

Flatline's face injury really was a lot of show and not so much pain or deep damage. It was superficial, with a rather garish appearance with some discoloration on it, but really? It didn’t so much hurt that much anymore. A subtle aching pain, a stiffness where the underlying mechanics didn’t want to work when told... It only really stung or showed signs of discomfort, when he sneered pretty hard, or tried to grin or smile in some way. He just needed to remember to mute his expressions, to avoid this sharp needle like poke that probably just agitated the injury to begin with. It is because of this, his features somewhat flattened down to a neutral state, though it was hard to keep neutral when she blurted out again.

Hooking brows, a sort of confused look, she was apologetic to an extreme and actually seemed sincere about it too. This was confusing. She didn’t brush off his discomfort or cast it aside with a half attempt at an 'oops', but instead backpedaled so hard she actually took a step physically as well. It was respectful, kind, and was really odd to see from a 'Con. He shelved this for now though, moving on to the questions and if she had actually made that limb of hers from scratch,

Then the conversation shifted in a way he didn't want.

Oh no.

She manufactured parts and pioneered changes well enough to have written a paper about it and gotten it published for others to read and learn from. If that wasn't a 'fuck you Flatline you are unneeded', he didn't know what was. His ego instantly took a hard punch from this, and internally recoiled back like a wounded animal. This wasn’t someone like Knock Out who learned medicine through a crash course when the war came out to hide off the frontlines; this was someone that had a profession before the war like him. This was an individual that could make him run for his position if he wasn’t careful, because she not only built parts; she branched off into weaponry as well, which he had not been able to do.

He had lost so much time when he went into stasis; he lost so much it was painful. It made him wonder what he could have done with himself if he didn’t get trapped as he did. If he was free to research and improve himself... if he was able to chase advancements and make discoveries of his own... all of that was robbed from him and it was suddenly very scary to think that he was actually BEHIND. Maybe he would have picked up a gun and looked it over with a new eye, maybe he would have sought out a solution to some of his more troubling puzzles by now.

Flatline had to remind himself however, that there were plenty of individuals that manufactured frames back in the day, and just because someone knew how to do something, didn’t mean they could do it well! For all he knew she had just a fluke and stumbled across a breakthrough in technology, while he constantly produced complex pieces of ART as far as he was concerned... but that time thing was still a concern... even a hack could improve in that amount of time. It didn’t matter that she didn’t seem to want to work on frames any more, that was only a tiny consolation prize.

Ego wounded but not dead.

"That is rather impressive; I would love to read over your work at some point."

Now it was time to try to brag himself.

"I have made my fair share of frames as well. Before the war I worked as an independent Sparkling Manufacturer in the Mosnak quadrant of Iacon where I created incremental stages to a Cybertronian's frame from scratch."

Ahh the good old days, equally painful and nostalgic all at once.

"On the Nemesis, I now work on replacement components for the injured and large overhauls or specialty projects."

Flatline lifted his right primary then, pointing a hooked claw in the direction of the table with the tarp over it. While he didn't really know if he should divulge anything about it, he somewhat felt obligated to lay down a couple breadcrumbs towards the truth, if it meant he could show off some of his own skills.

"Fun fact, what remains of the rest of that body is still alive in storage..."

He purred these words out with a level of smug arrogance that was hard to describe, a smirk pulling back across his features. Overconfidence, pride, he seemed excessively pleased that the individual is still forced to clutch to life under his care, and was not allowed to pass on to the well yet. With every spark being as precious as it was? They couldn’t afford to lose out on one if they could help it.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug nodded, smiling at his compliment of her work. It certainly was nice to find that even on a warship so actively engaged on the front lines, there were still scientists with an appreciation for the finer details of research. Of course, with Shockwave around, the odds of a strong science presence aboard the Nemesis skewed dramatically.

And oh yes, the sparklings. Sparkplug never liked them; weird little things, artificially crippled to mimic the quirks of organic growth patterns, when the spark inside was capable of being fully sentient from the beginning. But she'd been warned about Flatline's background in their design, so she put aside her distaste for their development, and responded genuinely, "It has to be tricky design work, scaling up the components and refining the lines while keeping everything recognisable."

She turned as he gestured to the hidden wreckage on the central table, wondering for a moment if he was going to tell her more about what could have damaged the carcass beneath the tarp in such an odd way, then twisted back towards him, blinking, at his concluding boast.

"You managed to keep the rest of that thing alive? Spark intact, fuel pump still going, all of that? But that's most of the torso you've got lying under there!" Okay, now she was impressed. "How in the heck do you even - do you have some sort of full body emulation life support machine hidden away in one of these cabinets? I mean - for scrap's sake, if I'd come across a body that was blown up and burnt and hacked in half and whatever else the heck was going on with that thing, I'm pretty darn sure I'd step back and go, 'Nope, this one is deader than a scraplet in a bucket of live grenades.'"

Gesturing at herself, she went on, "I'm not medical. I mean, sure, give me a physically stable mech in a nice clean workroom and plenty of time, I can rebuild a chassis as neat as you please, but that's not the same as keeping a spark alive through serious trauma. Bring me someone with all their fuel lines lacerated and shrapnel banging around shorting out things and getting stuck in gear trains, they're gonna have a really bad day. Which, yeah, has happened. Stayed away from the front lines, mostly, but sooner or later they end up coming to you if you don't go to them."

She glanced at the shrouded shape once more. Her curiosity was killing her, even moreso now that she knew this wasn't a disconnected lump of wreckage from some kind of explosion, but a segment of a bot that was still actually functioning. "What happened to that thing? Were you there to see it? I mean, since you got it stabilised so quick. Because that right there looks like more than a few nano-kliks unattended would have been pretty terminal."

[Flatline]

Annnddd there went Flatline's ego again.

It was such an easy thing to mend it seemed, as a lot of the fear and terror that Sparkplug may be a threat to his station here, was replaced readily when she started to pour out statement after statement flaunting his accomplishments. It made him start to correct his posture from the uncomfortable curled-in hunch he was doing before, growing more confident in the situation. He was still hunched mind you, his body seemed to flow into a perpetual curled state, but he looked far more natural, the secondary limbs loosely draping out of their sockets to hang at rest as well. They curled up and towards one another, the fingertips of one draped over the wrist of the other, but were visible.

"Are you familiar with Garrus 9?-"

He asked before quickly filling in anyway, trying to jump over any response she may have cut in so that they didn't veer off on another tangent. He had a thought he wanted to get out, and bragging to do, and he didn't really want to wait around.

"-The ability to remove the spark and keep it in stasis is possible with the right tools, while letting the rest of the body basically die off as-is with little concern. While I cannot take credit for the initial harvest of said spark after the... incident... I am charged with its maintenance and the reconstruction of its body."

He took care not to say a name, uncertain if it would have even meant anything to her, and also uncertain if he should be revealing what he has been so far. She was going to work with Shockwave though right? She may even be incorporated on this project when it came to the parts relating to weaponry? He was probably SAFE to mention more, but he chose and did so with caution.

In some way, he wondered if he was being too open too readily, if her kindness and flaunting over his skills were a means to make him lower his guard. Deep down, Flatline knew it was a very smart tactic for any manipulator to pull, and she was doing it so flawlessly he didn’t know if it was manipulation, or if she was genuinely a kind individual ((which itself was a rare thing in the Decepticon ranks)).

"From what I was told, it was an explosion. Ripped them apart and threw a good few chunks away to be lost. Reconstruction efforts are time consuming and very slow, utilizing Vehicon 'donor' parts from the deceased to try to save time."

Sure, Flatline could make a fuel tank, he could make a spark casing, he could even make a blank processor ready to be fed information to fuel a Cybertronian, but doing so was very time consuming, a fact Sparkplug probably was well aware of. Making something, and then making it RIGHT to last for eons, was a completely different ball game, and as of now the black and red medic was trying to breach hurdles and take shortcuts to avoid some time consuming manufacturing steps. He still improved them mind you, he was still laying down the copper filaments on the outside of the spark casing for example, but that was another story.

"The issue is trying to reverse engineer the transformation points; I don't really have a blueprint to follow."

[Sparkplug]

A small frown of concentration marked Sparkplug's face, her optic ridges drawing together. Garrus-9? She'd heard of it. That was - yes! That was the prison run by the Tyrest Accord, where they dragged captured Decepticons and tossed them into some really deep holes. If they had a prisoner that was dangerous enough, they even extracted their-

And then, she understood. Flatline confirmed it, talking about the hapless vehicon's spark being kept in stasis, just as the really worrying prisoners were kept. They could be kept that way indefinitely, as far as she understood it, and while the spark was gone, the body could be dismantled, rebuilt or replaced exactly as though it was being constructed for the first time. That explained how the obviously dead shell on the workbench could be considered part of a living entity. Though that still raised more questions - who had extracted the spark? She'd thought that technology, semi-mythical as it was, was strictly in the hands of the Accord.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, she didn't consciously notice the easing of Flatline's posture, his smaller limbs re-emerging from their stowed position. Nonetheless, lower-level subroutines caught the change and responded by letting her relax a little further herself. She nodded along as he described trying to rebuild the body from donor parts, a difficult job even with a complete technical breakdown of the frame to hand, and much harder still without it.

"So the tech to suspend a spark got away from Tyrest and his merry band, huh? That's pretty interesting." She glanced at the cabinets with a new thoughtfulness. "Gotta admit, I'm pretty darn curious about what you need to do to keep it stable over time. Got to be some clues to the technology from that alone. Guess if anyone was going to be smart enough to either exfiltrate that data from under their optics or just deduce it from first principles, it'd be Shockwave. That is one fearsome intellect."

Shaking her helm, she turned her gaze back towards the shrouded shape. "We don't have full blueprints for these guys... that's a real shame, considering how many of them there are around here. I'm guessing you've gone over a few of the intact ones, done as much measuring and scanning as you can without disassembling the poor glitches. Hm. But that's not going to give you all the internal structure..."

Her voice trailed off, then she glanced back towards Flatline. "I can see what you're doing, reusing as many components as possible from scrapped chassis. Still, I'm wondering if there's another tack to take, here. I mean, if you completely succeed, you end up with another vehicon, and there's still a lot of those guys around. Seems like a waste of your designing talents, honestly. If you've got a bunch of components and limbs that you do understand fully, might it be easier and more interesting to work up a design that incorporates as much of the equipment as possible, but the main chassis transformation is something you determine? Unless you've been instructed to specifically rebuild the chassis just the way it was, I mean."

[Flatline]

Nodding at Sparkplug's words, Flatline very much agreed with the idea that Shockwave was a brilliant mind that held fearsome intellect, but that was no surprise given how much he revered the scientist. It was his progress and his works, that helped Flatline aspire to do better himself, and the notes that were available to him ((which was merely a scratch on the surface)) helped him catch up after his extended trip in stasis. The unshackled brilliance was impressive beyond words, and Flatline etched and pulled as much information as he could to place atop his own skill set.

As much as he agreed with her first statements however, what she said next though seemed to confuse him.

These guys? What did she mean by that? How many there are? It took only a brief moment for him to realize that she thought he was building a Vehicon, or one of the Eradacon troopers, a fact only confirmed as she continued to talk and lay down some ideas of her own. The ideas would be viable, they would be great actually. The concept that they could slap a trooper's spark inside of a new body and try to save it from burnout or being overloaded at the frame swap could create some great things, but... it wasn’t what was actually happening here.

Flatline could understand how she came to such a conclusion however. The arm of the Vehicon that had been dismantled earlier, had been on display as she came into the room, setting the theme for the rest of the parts that were visible. Due to this, he let out a low hum in thought, his pointer and thumb talons scissoring against one another for a brief moment while he considered what he should or should not say.

"Oh. No. This isn’t a Vehicon. I think if one of those was deemed valuable enough to save like this, we would have just slapped it in a dead husk and sent it back to work..."

Flatline glanced over at the mangled husk again, red eyes dimming slightly as he considered what lay below, and its ultimate value.

"No... no... It is someone else. You may be brought onto the project at some point when I get to weapons, I do not know, but it is a long ways away..."

The black and red medic likes to boast, he liked to preen his own ego a lot. He was a master of his craft, and he was not above grinding it in other's faces. That said, sometimes some projects really needed a lot of work, and no matter how much effort you put into it, it can still not be enough. This was one of those that kept him up at night, and challenged him. It drove him insane and he dedicated so much to it, even when he was 'off the clock'. This job was important and held high value to him, and admitting some of its difficulties was simply a part of it.

"None aboard the ship hold the same frame or transformation points, so I am working entirely from experience, and the mangled bits and clues that remain. It is NOT fun, yet... oddly is. I am sure you can understand this dilemma."

An odd sort of forced laugh slipped out at this, finding it weird to converse freely with another that had such similar past experiences as him. While they worked on vastly different frame types and different sciences to current day, they had enough overlap that there was familiarity to be found. He would still be threatened by her until he learned more though, hoping she stuck over in her little corner of guns and lasers and other excessive nonsense!

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug glanced towards the shrouded shape with fresh interest. It wasn't one of the mass-produced models? As tragic and even distasteful as the idea was, it was pretty plausible that they'd have at least one or two sparkless chassis lying around in various states of disrepair that could have been refitted for a spark transfer. But if the damaged mecha was an entirely novel frame structure, it was no wonder Flatline was having a heck of a job even trying to figure out the basic frame layout from whatever blasted bits and pieces were left.

"Right, I get you. It's like trying to figure out a construction kit after someone's poured a barrel of acid over it; just a few half-ruined bits of a whole to extrapolate from and no clear idea what the total outcome was meant to look like, exactly. Only massively more complex." She scuffed a ped lightly against the floor - now she was really itching to have another look at the blasted chassis fragment, with a fresh optic. "I totally get what you mean. That sounds like a fantastic, absorbing challenge that's going to get so darn frustrating you'd want to put a fist through a bulkhead sometimes. It's the sort of thing you can't persuade yourself to put down, and you end up thinking about it all through your rest cycle."

Drumming her digits lightly against her thigh, she added after a moment, "They used to bring battlefield dead to the labs, sometimes. Usually pretty intact - long sparkless, obviously - but still good enough to do weapons tests against different grades of armour. I've seen more than a few blasted apart mechs, some in some really exciting ways." A wry little smile tugged at her lips. "We got points for it, unofficially. Who made the most interesting mess. We had a scoreboard. But we surely never tried to fit any of them back together again afterwards. That seems like a different magnitude of problem altogether."

She cocked her head, optics drifting over the surrounding cabinets once again as she wondered where the captive spark was being kept. "Still, as long as the spark can be kept stable long-term, you've got the time to work on it. When the time comes to rebuild or work up some new weapons systems for the chassis, I'd be more than glad to help. Sounds interesting, you know? And if there's anything else I can do to help, you let me know. Collaboration is a real force multiplier when it comes to research."

Her bright green optics met his smouldering red ones once again, and she straightened up a little. "I should probably let you get back to it, I suppose," she added. "Distracted you a fair bit from your work as it is."

[Flatline]

At first, Sparkplugs chatty nature was grating and appalling. He had been interrupted from his work and forced into a social situation, without any sort of proper warning to mentally disengage himself from the project. It had made him understandably irritable, and her overabundance of words and stories had irked him a great deal. He had wanted nothing more than for her to get to the point, so he could shoo her away so he could try to find where he left off so he could continue. However, as time progressed and he relaxed, it was no longer as irksome, especially when he got a chance to actually boast and dangle a bit of information in front of her to pad up his importance and inflate his ego.

Flatline was not going to be able to focus back on his project anytime soon. He lost his place, his momentum was abolished, and as such the need to get back to it was no longer a timed event. It left him more relaxed, actually considering what was said more. Every word, every tangent of a story, it filled in the void of silence that could be so crippling, his jaw twisting a bit while he considered the game of explosions she played against corpses.

"I would think blast shielding would give more repeatable outcomes for scientific testing, but I can see how mutilating the deceased could be potentially... therapeutic..."

The word 'therapeutic' was spoken at a different pitch, uncertain if it was the proper phrase to use for such a thing. All he knew was that frames came in so many different parameters, that you could get a failure of a weapon against one; while to another the individual could pop like a can of confetti. After this though, the subject seemed to shift, and with it, he rolled his weight over to his other ped, lifting his left prong like hoof so that he could roll the joints and stretch the cables within them slightly. It seemed like an uncomfortable action, like stretching a stiff shoulder.

"I believe Starscream has requested I assist you with your room. I specifically recall him saying-"

Flatline held up both of his primary hands with his next words, pointer and middle fingers crooked into hooks to quote the Second in command, pitching his own voice in a slight attempt to mimic.

"-I will be back to check on your progress soon."

His arms then dropped, looping down to fold idly at his lower back, helm rising up a bit.

"I do not intend to add any further black marks to my first impressions to him..."

[Starscream]

It'd been... Ah, a decent amount of time since the Second in Command had left the newcomer with Flatline. Enough time at least to have gone over and had a tour of Flatline's little laboratory for some ideas, at any rate. By now, he assumed she would be back in her quarters, her processor awash and buzzing with inspiration for what to do and where to start with her own area. She seemed motivated enough, maybe she would've made some progress already!

He'd fully intended on coming back to check on her to see how things were going; which was why he found himself back in the previously-flooded corridor and outside her new quarters.

He wouldn't announce himself, nor would he let her know that he was checking in – and a long, clawed digit typed the access code on the doorway which slid open... and got stuck halfway, just like before - and just like he'd done before? He would pin his wings in tight and sidle on through.

“Mm, may I suggest fixing this thing first before you do anything el-” his voice trailed off as he realized he was speaking to an empty room, and he'd narrow his optics in thought. Could she still be with Flatline? What was taking so long?

No matter, it wasn't a long walk – this time he didn't have anyone following and so could go directly there.

With a growl, he'd sidle through the gap in the doorway – not bothering to take the time to close the useless thing behind him. He moved with purpose, taking long deliberate strides – a couple of Vehicons throwing up sharp salutes as he passed. He'd make his way directly to the Science wing of the ship, namely Flatline's laboratory...

...And his timing was impeccable.

No announcement was made; surprise visits were always the best visits – and unlike when he'd arrived here earlier and politely asked to enter? This time an access code would be entered and the door would slide open with no warning at all.

Just in time for him to hear, and see, Flatline doing some attempt of mimicry.

He'd stand quietly, letting Flatline finish. It would be rude to interrupt him, after all! Only once Flatline's arms dropped to fold at his lower back and he finished speaking would the Second in Command step further into the room, using his index digit to swipe along the top of a cabinet before rubbing it with his thumb, almost like he was inspecting for dust and was so very unimpressed at what he'd found.

“Ah yes, about that...” He purred, finally speaking up then as his own arms would loop behind his back, gaze shifting to Flatline - the look on the Commander's faceplate hinted that Flatline had, ah... three seconds to explain himself.

And that was being generous.

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug shrugged at Flatline, her narrow shoulders moving easily. It was pretty hard to make a static armour plate that reacted realistically to being shot at; real mecha armour was curved, layered, anchored in unexpected places, and with odd hollows and gaps beneath that made apparently impenetrable metal surprisingly compressible. If you really wanted to know how a mecha would react to being shot, your best bet was just shooting them.

Still, he wasn't wrong about some of her co-workers taking inappropriate delight in blasting apart corpses. Particularly the Autobots. Especially if they actually recognised the Autobot in question, which happened occasionally. As far as she was personally concerned, the corpses didn't provoke much reaction; they were just another class of test targets.

About to expand on this point of view, she was distracted by watching him move and stretch. Something definitely didn't seem quite right in those interestingly cantilevered legs. It probably wasn't polite to ask about that, though, not after she'd handled his secondary limbs and talked about the faceplate wound. Maybe later. Nodding as he changed the subject, she grinned at his impression of the Commander. It would be nice to start working on that space with a little company.

Then Commander Starscream's voice came from right behind her.

She jerked in obvious surprise - on the rare occasions when she'd actually been run through some attempt at formal battle training, she'd always been criticised for her lack of situational awareness - and spun on her heel. "Commander!" she greeted him, looking up at the tall, sharp-edged mech. "Wasn't expecting you back so soon. Sorry; not started on the renovations yet. Got wrapped up in talking to Flatline."

Honestly, when he said he'd be checking on her soon, she'd been thinking the next planetary cycle or so. Obviously, when he said soon, he meant soon. And that had meant that he walked in at exactly the wrong time for Flatline. Oops. "Y'see, I was asking him about the kind of work he does here, what it's like to work on the same ship as the Warlord and all his command staff," she went on, trying to make it sound more like information gathering than chatting. "There's some really interesting stuff underway, it'd be nice if I could end up contributing to it. Guess we'll see if there's any call for me to be involved, if my talents fit in."

She scuffed one foot against the deck plates lightly, feeling a little like she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't, even though she was mainly working to defuse the Commander's displeasure at Flatline's impression. "Anyway, I was just saying that I should go and get on with the room - didn't want to interrupt him any further, he's doing some seriously complicated and delicate work for Shockwave - but he wouldn't hear of it. You gave him an order to help me out, which I surely do appreciate, and he was reminding me that even though he's got all this work to do, he wouldn't dream of going against your orders. We were just going to go and get started! Sir."

She nodded twice, her field tinged with a little nervousness, as she ran out of words and her voice wound down.