[ti]Ep 2[/ti]Whispers in the Dark [open/Sparkplug]

[Sparkplug]

Sparkplug glanced away from the ceiling towards QLC-972, not sure for a moment which vehicon had spoken - it was hard to tell exactly, when a whole bunch of them were sat together and they didn't have any moving facial structures to indicate the source of the comment. Then one of the other vehicons slapped a hand over QLC's non-existent mouth, which did a lot to narrow things down.

The sight of one trying to muffle another even without lips was so wonderfully absurd that Sparkplug just stared at them for a moment, before her shoulders quivered, and she burst into laughter, a merry peal that rang out in the quiet chamber. "Pffft... hahaha! But he's not even got a - it's fine, it's fine. Totally fine." Shaking her head in amusement, she looked up at the paint again with a fresh optic, trying to see the different angles the paint must have splashed from, before looking back at QLC.

"Darn shame I missed that, sounds like fun," she remarked cheerfully. Tapping her elongated silver arm, she added, "Got a paint sprayer in here, so if there's another one, you better watch out. I give as good as I get! Nice to hear that y'have a bit of fun around here. This place is so darn bleak, you know?"

Gradually, the fact that a few vehicons were alternately staring at her, then past her, then back to her, filtered into her awareness.

Oh. Soundwave. Right.

Spinning around with a disarming grin, her cheerful field emissions met the wall of silence coming from the navy mech and wilted slightly. The tilt of his visor seemed expectant, even if he was still mostly facing the computer terminal in the wall, and so she trotted closer with a faintly chastened look on her faceplate.

"Right, right. You wanted something." After a moment, she belatedly thought to add, "Sir," to the end of her sentence. Neatening up her field a little into something more attentive, she clasped her hands behind her back. Her attention flicked to the terminal, the edges of her green optics rotating slightly as she focused on the screen.

Maybe all he'd wanted was a terminal, and the location that the terminal happened to be in was irrelevant. Did he need the terminal to convey something to her, if he wasn't going to say anything?

[Soundwave]

While Sparkplug chatted and went on about the paint fight and how she would rule the next one with her paint sprayer, the Vehicons seemed to anxiously look between her, and the far wall where the silent mech had walked to a moment prior. They seemed unsure. Where they meant to act like everything was normal and interact? Or were they to remain professional and quiet until the high ranking officer departed? It wasn't exactly commonplace for Soundwave to be in this portion of the ship, and while the eyes and ears of the Decepticon cause knew ALL that went down in here, there was a difference between acting normal in front of security cameras, and acting normal in front of the actual mech.

This left them too nervous to really respond to the femme. The unawakened Vehicons that had sharply saluted before, remained standing and waiting, gaze directed in Soundwave's direction, though their arms did lower from their salutes. The awakened individuals that had also saluted seemed to lax a bit then, hands placing down atop their laps, or resting on the table they sat in... The Vehicon that had dared to pipe up finally pulled away from the other.

Grumbled words, a pouting tone; he muttered something to the other Cybertronian that had blocked him, the back of his hand snapping out to lightly thwack the individuals shoulder in a sort of scolding motion. The mech that was struck turned some to finally look at the noisy Vehicon, muttered hisses of a few words that sounded like warnings to keep quiet and be on good behavior. Picking out specifics of what was said was difficult, for Sparkplug had already turned to follow.

While the Vehicons became background attributes, their helms continued to follow her, unnerved by the cheery and uncaring aura that flowed from her frame.

As Sparkplug approached, Soundwave's gaze followed her, waiting patiently for her to arrive nearby so that she could view what it was he wanted her to see. It was only when she came to rest and spoke to him directly, that a loping arm slowly lifted to pluck a few final keys upon the terminal. Instantly, the screen filled with text, walls and walls of text that stretched on a near painful amount. It seemed organized, bullet points, headers for sections... all with a clear label at the top so that she would know what it was she was looking at.

It was the truce documents.

Every Decepticon had access to such things, and was expected to read it and know exactly what could and could not be done during this rather odd time. It had been written by Optimus Prime himself, and sections of it had been edited during negotiations by their Warlord. Because the foundation however was made by the Autobot leader, there were a lot of redundancies and a lot of backtracking to make sure they would be safe from any loopholes and exploits. If there was one thing Optimus could do, it was write a contract if it was expected of him.

Soundwave reached his hand up then, the one that had just tapped the controls a moment later, and now tapped idly at the middle of his faceplate. Immediately a small wireframe scrolled up and materialized in its center. It pulled together quickly, it showing that it was Sparkplug herself with some data and information flicked on the side about her. The information wasn't important, and the time to read it wasn’t given, as it vanished and the wireframe shifted to his right, prompting a plus sign, and a query glyph directly next to it. After this, the two images shifted again, a simple graph representing a terminal showing up in the new empty slot.

This chain of images stayed for a moment, making sure she could see it, before the wireframe of the femme, and the query glyph vanished, leaving the terminal which fractured and peppered over a new wireframe of the entire warship that turned idly on its axis, each terminal marked by a colored dot.

The message was easy to understand. If Sparkplug had other big questions, chances are that she would be able to find what she needs to answer it on one of the numerous terminals that could be found all over the warship. While some things are barred from the generic grid ((Not able to get into Shockwave's records, or the Control Rooms data banks for example)) it would have ample other answers that any trooper could get hold of or possibly need.

[Sparkplug]

Soundwave was showing her the truce documents.

It wasn't what she'd expected. She was sure he'd taken her off to fulfill some intention of his own. But instead, he was actually helping her. Having the text was... really convenient, actually. With access to the full treaty, she could pick out the sections Blackframe had mentioned before he flipped out at her, just to be sure she could quote section and paragraph if she was ever questioned about the work she was doing. Which was ridiculously unlikely; Starscream himself had told her to go on with it. Still, useful.

What was far more interesting was that Soundwave had chosen to personally spend his time leading her to it. That was genuinely nice of him.

Huh.

Her attention was drawn as he indicated his visor, and her optic ridges rose slightly in surprise as schematic drawings flashed across it. So he didn't need a terminal to convey information without speaking; his own faceplate could convey whatever he wished. That was pretty interesting in itself. She read the symbols aloud, finding herself enjoying the effort to follow his meaning.

"Let's see. Okay, that's me..." she immediately began trying to decode the specs that flashed up about herself, but they vanished too quickly for her to grasp their meaning as the next symbol glowed into being. "Me and query... equals terminal. If I want to know something, use a terminal. And there's loads and loads of them, all over the ship. Suppose this terminal itself can tell me where all the others are; I'll download a map. Makes sense."

She smiled at the obsidian visor, relaxing slightly. "Thanks for showing me the treaty, that's really friendly of you. Guess you overheard that little spat with Blackframe; sorry about that. He's pretty rude, but I probably shouldn't fly off the handle like that."

Resting one hand on her hip, she gestured around herself loosely with her long arm. "You know, I've been to some places that have been - well, not as welcoming as they could be. Some Decepticons really don't seem to get that we're all on the same side, here. But y'know, this place has been a lot nicer than I really expected. Someone important like you taking the time to show me where to get at the ship network, Commander Starscream showing me around and introducing me to people, Knock Out being all darn charming at me, Breakdown scooping me out've the desert. Had a decent chat with Flatline, too. Other'n that little tiff back there, which is barely worth the mention, I've been made properly welcome."

Straightening up, she finished cheerfully, "Sorry for being a bit skittish back there - you've kind of got a reputation, you know? Thanks Soundwave, sir. If there's anything I can do to help out around here, well, you know where to find me. If anyone would, you would, I guess."

For mechs without articulated faceplates, it was quite hard to give the impression of slack-jawed, uncomprehending staring. Nonetheless, several of the vehicons were managing it.

[Soundwave]

What was going on? Was she being social and friendly to Soundwave? Was she actually conversing with him with no fear or terror in her voice!? So many of the Vehicons were watching in disbelief, somehow gawking through their emotionless faceplates and plain red visors. They didn't need projected images like the navy mech that could convey anything to express this emotion, something simply felt in their posture and angles they carried themselves.

As far as they were concerned, there was reason that Soundwave carried such a reputation. Unlike so many Decepticons, his actions were not formed by just rumor or over inflated threats of what could happen; instead his rank was framed by straight up facts and the truth that he knew far more than should be possible. Things simply happened around him, and he got results that could never be contested.

This fear made a huge barrier between him and others, an extensive void that separated him from the common workers as far as they were concerned. Traversing this empty space to try to approach was suicide, and not many would ever try, or tend to survive the ordeal if they did so in a way that was derogatory or overly antagonistic. Put back in place... put back on their side of the line... yet this femme, she was tromping right through that barrier to try to reach the other side with a wave of a hand and a smile, and it confused them all.

The held ventilations in the room could almost be felt, so many individuals snapping their gaze between the two. Would Soundwave react poorly to put her in line? Or would he be accepting of the kind words? She wasn’t trying to get close for rank, it appeared like she was just being friendly! Which was weird!

Soundwave stared down at her intently while she spoke and relayed some of her experiences aboard the ship. He did not shift his weight, he did not move. None of the long spines along his back so much as twitched while she explained her side of the situation. It was simply a black mask that shined softly with the overhead lights, casting reflections from the surrounding visors that peered intently.

It seems she had undergone very favorable experiences thus far. It was lucky, not catching people in bad times, managing to incur favor from Starscream. Much of it could be boiled down to her weaponry skills, probably wanting to manipulate her for those talents, but with Starscream the truth behind that statement is a grand unknown.

After she had finished her thanks, an acknowledgment noise formed then, a sound commonly heard on terminals and datapads and other similar tools to show the user that its input was registered and saved. The noise was all that was made, a slight acknowledgment, before he fluidly turned and started to walk back in the direction of the entrance to the room.

[Sparkplug]

There were legends about Soundwave. That he was secretly far older than anyone realised, merely the most recent incarnation of some ancient, silent keeper of history. There were stories that he had seeded the galaxy with his own hyperwave-linked extremities, so that no matter what happened, or where it happened, he knew, instantly. There were swirling rumours that the ghostly, silent machine was telepathic, capable of stripping the thoughts from a mech's cranial case with a glance.

If the last were true, he'd have been aware that Sparkplug had actually had the temerity to find his little 'data uploaded' sound cute.

It was probably best for everyone that she didn't indicate this aloud. Instead, she nodded understandingly at the acknowledgement tone, and waved a farewell as the mech strode out of the door. "See you later, sir!" she called after him, then turned back to the terminal. Frowning thoughtfully at it, she began tapping the keys.

A few inputs were sufficient to get a grip for how the Nemesis's internal data structures were configured. A few more saved the treaty text, and a fusillade of quick key-presses brought up the search function and retrieved the map of terminal locations. There didn't seem to be a wireless access network she could easily tap into; perhaps due to the ship's age, perhaps due to the desire for onboard security. That was a bit exasperating, and it meant she'd have to plumb a data terminal into her workspace, but she could probably hook up a little short-range data transceiver to it once it was settled.

Extracting a cable from her elbow, Sparkplug plugged herself into the terminal and copied the initial data over to her internal systems, then disconnected. Humming to herself, she wandered over to the energon dispenser in an absent-minded kind of fashion, and settled down at a mostly vacant table, bringing the cube to her lips.

Into the vast, echoing quiet of dozens of mecha not quite daring to say anything, she remarked cheerfully, "Well, that wasn't so bad, was it."