[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Late Night Perk

[Dart]

Week 2, Day 2. 

Hot Rod and Dart 


Soft yellow light streamed out of the coffeeshop window outside of Fallon, Nevada. 

Starbucks was one of the two businesses still open at ten PM in the small strip mall.

Then again, it was Starbucks. They never passed up an opportunity to draw more folks
in to spend money. Didn't matter what time of the day it was, someone always needed a cup of coffee. 

Commercial buildings in the outskirts of cities in Nevada tended to all look the same, no matter what small town or city you were in. The storefronts sections were small and squat, plastered in place from thick, tan and buff colored cement. It was an attempt to to reflect as much of the hot overhead sun during the day.. Large overhangs served to both shade and cool the front doors of the buildings from the blazing heat. At night, they were softly lit from underneath by strings of multiple led bulbs.

On the far end of the wide parking lot, the remaining cars were parked as close as possible to the front of the Walmart. A few people were still shopping, but for the most part the parking lot was empty and perfect to get a few screeching vehicle donuts in before the cops might show up.

There were only a few cars parked in front of the Starbucks. One was a non-descript silver sedan, as everyday as all the other cars on the streets. The only thing that was a little out of place was the license plate; it was from California. Probably a rental car then- the tourists shuffled them back and forth between both states as they drove around to see all the sights. Disneyland for the kids, Las Vegas for the bigger ones. The second one was a red Honda with a air freshener shaped like a peace sign hanging from the rear-view mirror. A series of bumper stickers gave every cheerful slogan under the sun. Apparently their other car was a broom, and they visualized whirled peas.

The third car was parked off into the side parking lot, tucked quietly away over a strip of landscaping with a few spindly trees in it. It was an old third generation Trans-Am, a low slung, dark colored car. The black finish was hazed and silvered with thousands of scratches and a soft patina of road dust and dirt; the vehicle hadn't been washed in a long, long time. Well, with soap, anyway. It had spent a lot of time out in the rain and forded a more than a few streams. Even stopped at Lake Mead late at night for a quick dash into the water.

It was perfectly between the white lines, even though there wasn't another car on this side of the building at all. The long, sloping nose nearly touched the warm pavement as it rested there quietly. Once in a while there was a soft chuffing sound; as if the car's engine was still cooling off from a long drive.

Inside, the Starbucks had the layout of nearly every other Starbucks; several small tables and chairs in the front. A few heavy leather seats were comfortably ensconced in front of the windows. There were still a few people in getting coffee. A middle aged couple were waiting, chatting back and forth as they watched the young barista mixing up their drinks. An older man was sunk into one of the thick leather chairs, reading a folded paper while his laptop rested off on a small side table next to him - electronics completely ignored and forsaken for old fashioned ink and newsprint.

The last person in here was sitting at one of the tables, a young woman that looked like most other college students who worked late and was trying to sneak in a bit of free internet and study. Lean and lanky, the girl wore well-washed and faded jeans and an old black t-shirt with the lavender outline logo of a galloping horse on the left hand side. Underneath the horse was a cursive script of faded writing. A cup of coffee rested on the table in front of her.

She sat in one of the plastic, hard-backed chair with one knee bent under her, her worn sneaker toe resting on the floor. Her other leg was stretched to one side, as if she couldn't decide if she was going to get up or stay seated. There were a few books on the table; one was a thick hardback that appeared to be a textbook. The other was a pocket guide to Nevada that was open to a page on the Berlin-Ichthyosaur state park.

On the table was also a postcard and a silver gel pen. The postcard had been half written on in neat, careful silver letters- but the young woman had obviously been distracted by the smart phone in front of her and was thumbing through either a text or a reply, focused on what was being said to her... 

[Hot Rod]

     This area of Nevada was boring with its lack of nightlife, so unlike the areas of California he had driven through before arriving here. There were places everywhere that didn't seem to ever close, as they were open with the crack of dawn and raised hell late into the early morning before the sun even rose, each day like clockwork. This place? At nine it was already the end of the night for most places, many even sooner than that. The party central places he knew from Cybertron definitely didn't exist in these little mom and pop shop places that sprung up in stretch malls that looked like they hadn't gotten a face lift in at least a decade ( probably longer, but who knew ). This was the kind of place that had those Salons and barber shops that serviced grandparents when they were kids and then still did with grandchildren with families of their own and the great grandchildren on the way. 

     Not the kind of place for a party-hard kid like Hot Rod. The war on Cybertron may have been heated up and flaring like the Pits by the time he came online, but there were still those places that his kind went to where they could spare a high grade or two among their comrades and pretend that it may not be their last. Cruel way to live sometimes, but hey, at least it was a party of sorts

     Hot Rod had been driving around for what felt like ages before he had finally come across a shop that looked open in one of those desolate places off the highway that you only really knew existed if you were from the area or just happened to get lost. This wasn't part of Autobot patrol so it was pretty much perfect for him. He pulled into the parking lot and cut the lights and his engine, sitting there in the dark away from the limited light source. There didn't seem to be anything that would give him trouble here but still, having a car with no patron sitting in the lot would have drawn suspicion from anyone. So as the car door opened, Roddy's holoform stepped out and the door shut behind him. As he walked to the starbucks he reached up an adjusted his sweatband slightly then opened the door and stepped inside to look around. It was open, pretty much quiet with the patrons that inhabited this space and he rolled his golden eyes. He went to a corner seat that was only a couple tables down from the girl focused on her phone and had to pass behind her to get to where he was going. 

     As nosy as he was, he turned his head slightly, mostly to make sure he didn't bump her while he was passing, but to take a look at the books she was reading to see if there was anything interesting to peer at. The Berlin-Ichthyosaur state park book was what he paused at and eventually his finger became pressed against as he leaned over her just off to her right side with the index finger of his left fingerless gloved hand tapping the page now. 

     "What's that thing?"

[Dart]

Motion. Abrupt motion off her right side. Dart jumped, she nearly struck her leg on the underside of the solid wood table. The phone she was holding flew out of her hands and skittered across the table before it came to a stop face down, teetering precariously over the edge of the table. The courier winced; oh please don't break, she couldn't afford that right now, not after she just managed to get her hands on a decent used cell phone.

That's why she was in the Starbucks right now with a cup of coffee she couldn't drink and she could sit there and answer her email and poke her nose around Facebook and a few geocaching message boards.

If she had to give the absolute truth, the reason she was sitting here in Nevada mooching off the coffee-chain's wifi, was that she just- she had taken a bit of a detour earlier. She didn't want to go back to the outpost just yet. Pyrotech was up to his optics in work after everything that had happened. Downed ship. Vehicons everywhere. Everyone complaining, and that had left him in a foul, foul mood, but Pyrotech was good at shoving that aside and focusing on work, especially if he was weighing how something could end up in his favor.

It was chaos there though. She was surprised that more of them hadn't come to blows with the sheer amount of stress and anger and tempers flaring and the change of command. Pyrotech had sent her out on wide patrols constantly now; even though the perimeter beacons were set, he always ran a patrol as well. He was concerned (and she had to agree) that the influx of mechs would end up with someone tracking them back to the base.

In a way it was nice, it meant that he left her alone. That she could do her job, go on a long patrol, report in, and head right back out. His focus wasn't on every mistake she made, every moment that needed to be accounted for. He still didn't know that she'd had her comm antenna ripped out.

Her data-pad had saved her on that.

The phone rocked but didn't fall. Dart let out an audible sigh of relief, and then realized that a masculine, leather-gloved hand had set itself right on top of her pocket guide. Right into what honestly most people considered personal space. Dart appreciated personal space. Her general bubble was deep in the in the backcountry, with hundreds of miles of woods and mountains and deserts between her and any other mech.

Dart had learned the hard way over the years; the less you got noticed within the war, the better. She warily avoided most mechs.

Humans on the other hand? She enjoyed every single interaction. Even the ones where someone cut you off and then threw the middle finger out their window (though you'd obeyed every traffic law perfectly and he was the one tailgaiting everyone.) Everyday human lives were something she had wistfully watched for years, and when she'd got the hologenerator cobbled in... it opened up a whole world to her. She adored just sitting there and people watching as they moved by her, intent and focused on their own lives. Dart loved walking around as one of them, she loved talking to them about even the most mundane things.

Any human who would come up and start a conversation was downright wonderful to the courier.

"What- what's what?" she echoed. She shifted her weight in her chair, her toe scruffing on the clean tile floor beneath her as she followed where his finger now rested on her open page. "Er, it's a book."

Oh geeze, Dart. Of course he knows what a book is, that can't be what he's asking. Wow, nice. You just failed human 101, yes, that is a book. He's got to be wondering about something else.

The courier shifted in her chair and glanced down at his hand again, where his fingers were resting on the picture in the guide book and then tipped her head and offered up a lopsided, embarrassed smile.

"Oh! The dinosaur, right?  It's an Ichthyosaur, they're fossilized all over Nevada. They dug up the only complete fossilized skeleton of the species ever found in the United States here."

He was a good looking fellow, as far as humans went. Young. She thought he was about her own age- well, okay, the age she used for her hologram. That whole million year old robot thing didn't translate quite well into a human body. Then again, with how many years she could actually remember, if she wanted to be realistic with her hologram, she'd be about five.

Well, that makes me thirty in dog years... 

Dart shook off that thought. She was sure he was college aged though. Athletic looking too, like he played some sport, his broad shoulders framed by a... 

A blaze orange puff vest? Whoa. That was uh, really orange. 

Well, at least he was going to be safe during hunting season. No one would mistake this guy for a deer. Once she could draw her attention off all that loud neon, Dart realized that the young man was dressing absolutely retro. He looked like someone who was just coming home from a costume party. Then again, the eighties had returned with a vengeance lately. He was rocking every bit of it though, from the sweatband that pushed back his thick hairstyle that George Michael and half the guys from Duran Duran would have been jealous of.

Of course her brain followed that trail into the eighties and realized that the guy next to her table was dressed like Marty McFly. Er, a tall, broad shouldered, well-muscled Marty McFly with a bold black tattoo on his forearm that was like one of the tribal style ones that had been the rage years ago here on Earth. His vest was unbuttoned and open, revealing not only the checkered overshirt underneath but a t-shirt. Bright red, with flames that immediately caught her attention because it looked like the Firebird logo at first.

Then she realized what was sitting smack dab in the center of all that yellow.

Is that--

Dart blinked.

There's no human I could think of who'd wear that sigil. Why would they? The humans that know our kind don't want to announce it, not with the Decepticons maybe seeing it and making them into a target.

Eyes widening, the courier lifted her nose towards him. The dishwater blonde fringe of bangs across her forehead flopped over her eyes and she brought up her hand to shove them back. In the parking lot, the Trans-Am stiffened up on all four tires, the vehicle rocking ever so slightly between the white lines. A soft huff of intakes whirred as she sniffed at the air currents, but she'd tucked herself on the far side of the building and the way the wind was blowing, all she could scent right now was the smell of hot parking lot, grease, and a whole lot of humans who'd walked over it throughout the day.

An Autobot. In a holo avatar, like her own. It had to be. It could be nothing else.

The car outside flattened against the ground even as the girl ducked down slightly in her chair. The phone wobbled precariously on the edge of the table, forgotten in the wake of more pressing concerns. As usual all of her thoughts bounced around her head, but first and foremost was - how do I get out of here without being shot at? 

What- what was an Autobot doing here in a coffee shop in nowhere special in Nevada?

[Hot Rod]

     Hot Rod had been on his own on Earth long enough to blend in well enough... as much as a bucket of splattered neon orange paint on a white wall could, at least. Fact was that this style was his that he had thrown together after a series of movies he had seen and he had just fallen for the flamboyant statement it made. He at least carried it well, which wasn't something a lot of people could say. From his dark orange hair to his golden eyes, all the way to his dark orange work boots, he rocked the style that most people the age range of his holomatter and younger would have told him should have stayed buried in the back of the closest with the rest of their parent's deep and dark secrets.

     Outside of the outdated style, Hot Rod had done his best to try and make himself as aware of the culture as possible. There was always something new to learn and study... and none of that ever went well. Usually it was a crash course where he filled in the blanks as he went along. Typical child of the ages, one would suppose, where they just put filter ups and let most of what was deemed useless cycle out
of their brain as to free up all the capacity for other useless knowledge.  That said?

     "I know what a BOOK is," he said, looking at the human with a raised brow and an expression that was definitely one that could be translated to offended. "But yes, I was talking about the dinosaur thing there. Sounds like a fun place to explore." Not really, but it seemed like a location that the human 'Raf' may like. Coming up with ideas to lure the humans out and use it as a cover for escaping from the cramped air of the base with all of the adults and their 'rules and regulations' was a plus. 

     Then again...

     Okay, so this human wasn't so hard on the optics... for an organic, that is. However, she seemed to be less than thrilled by being in his company. That he could take, but the way she sort of shriveled up in the chair she was in made him take a step back just to stay out of swinging range of her in case she was one of those weird humans who did that martial arts ninja stuff to people they wanted to remain outside of their bubble. Bubbles were good, Hot Rod could handle that too.

     What he couldn't handle was the way she was staring at the insignia in the middle of his chest, and he caught onto the look she was giving it. He may have been young, but he has survived as long as he did by noticing things that many other would just shrug off. The expression she had was not one of a human looking at something that was interesting or she may have seen around once or twice ( which he doubted she had ). That was the look of one who was quite familiar with what it was, what it meant, and what it stood for. 

     Roddy reached out to grab up her phone as it started to tip the wrong way on the edge of the table it, managing to catch it before it made a dangerous descent to eventually meet with the floor. The phone felt odd in his hold and he turned it around, testing its solidity between his fingertips. Part of the holomatter? It had to be. It didn't feel like something he would take off normal humans. 

     "Ya know, you outta be careful with these things. They're expensive to replace." Hot Rod tested it, leaning in close but trying to keep his body language as relaxed as possible. As much as he would have rather blasted this possible Decepticon to smithereens? If it were true, there was a truce that he still cringed over and there were witnesses here... and, if Hot Rod happened to be wrong about this? "I'm bound to a truce, ya know. Non violent wishy-washy crap and all that, so just relax. Hope you're not planning some underhanded move that would make me have to tell my pops that someone isn't playing by the rules, right? And I'm sure your old man is less than cool about things like that. Doubt that would put either of us in a good spot." 

      Hot Rod would invite himself to the table, then, pulling up a chair and dropping himself right into it across from the woman. He would cross his arms and just stare for a moment, studying her before looking elsewhere... and still held onto that silly little phone of hers, just in case she needed it or something.

[Dart]

Dart froze as the man's hand whisked down and deftly plucked her cell-phone off the edge of the table. He leaned in close and she automatically flinched, but caught herself and went absolutely still again as she looked up at him, her eyes wide as she gathered up the words he'd casually set down between them.

He knew what she was. He knew she was a Decepticon. How?

Well, probably because you were staring at him like a complete idiot, for starters. Come on, think, think, if he was just a guy saying hi, you wouldn't stare at him like that. Ugh.

Or- or he's parked nearby and he used his scanners and picked you up. He'd know you weren't an Autobot, of course. Maybe he's out on a patrol too, and just wanted to figure out what you're doing out here for himself.

He's got my phone. My phone.

It was. She'd paid for it. Dart had scrimped and saved every penny she'd managed to come across because she needed one. The library was fine, but Dart had been worried that the more times she stopped somewhere for an hour or two to use the internet, the more chance that sooner or later she'd be discovered. Plus there was something about having access at your fingertips that was incredible; she loved the freedom. Stop at a coffee shop or resturant and nip off their wifi for a half an hour, information on the go.

Also, now she could take pictures in the avatar, and she had been so delighted at the idea. They'd needed a camera; so many missed photos from Vegas had finally set her mind on getting one. It had been simpler than she'd thought. Walk into Walmart, hand them money, and poof, a phone with a phone number. No ID required. As long as it didn't need ID, she was golden.

The ID was the tricky part, and that reminded her once again that it was something to ask Marco about. He had to know a way to get one, and-

The Autobot's avatar reached out, caught a chair, and swept it over. A second later, the mech was sitting across from her, slouched comfortably in his seat as if he didn't have a care in the world.

This close to her, Hot Rod could read what it said under the galloping lavender horse. The words were not written in Cybertronian or anything like that.

It said, 'I run like a girl- Preakness 2009'

The script was cracked and faded, as if this shirt had been washed and worn a thousand times. It had the feel of something lived in and loved for some reason, as comfortable and personal as his own flashy shirt with the bright flames and bright Autobot sigil.

Other than that little equine design on her black t-shirt, her clothing seemed pretty plain. Looking her over, her avatar - if his hunch was right, of course - didn't seem to have a single sigil anywhere. Not even a necklace or a ring or a tattoo to show her allegiance. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties, if he could judge human age, slim and tall. Her dishwater-blond hair was tied back into a high ponytail with a purple elastic band, and little tendrils of it had escaped and framed her ears.

Surprisingly, the phone in his hands had weight and heft. The cover was non-descript basic black, with grippy grooved sides. It had a little crack in the corner as if it had been dropped before to a hard floor and not survived the bounce. As Hot Rod looked down, he'd see it was actually open and connected to the wifi in the Starbucks.The Decepticon had apparently been scrolling through Facebook. There was an open post and she'd been obviously searching through the saved photos on her phone to post one. Most of them looked like desert landscapes, but there were also horses, trees, forests, and deer. Also what appeared to be a snow-dusted mountain. Maybe a volcano? The top certainly looked as if a giant hand had attacked it with a huge ice cream scoop.

Aw, there was a baby wolf in one of the pictures. (Or it was a really weird scruffy looking puppy up in the mountains.)

It was a real, honest smartphone, solid as the table and the chair he had now plopped himself in.

The girl peered out from under her bangs at him and then at the phone cradled comfortably in his hand. She started to lift her fingers as if to reach for her phone and maybe get it back from him. Then she caught herself, drew back, and bit her lip.

The barista glanced over at their table, but only for a moment before he went back to cleaning the metal arm of the milk frother on the espresso machine. It hissed and burbled, and a curl of steam rose up and fogged the thick lenses of the man's glasses, but quickly disappeared as he turned back to scrub at the counter once more.

Human. Human cadences and rhythms to his words, and Dart was surprised at it. A lot of mechs sounded stiff and strange as humans, they didn't use the slang right. This guy rolled through his words as casually as he'd set himself down on her table. She was more surprised that he knew a cell phone was expensive.

Whoa, wait, did he just call Optimus Prime, the Autobot Leader, no, The Prime... pops? Whoa.  Then again, she was blown away that he was calling Lord Megatron her old man, because she couldn't imagine that in any single scenario ever. Maybe the Darth Vader sort of parent where he told you he was your father before you screamed noooo and then let go of a communications tower to fall back into the abyss. She'd pass on that, thank you. 

Then again - this mech's voice, the way he spoke, his body language, was all confident and comfortably casual. He seemed totally relaxed as he waited for her response. 

Dart made a sound as if she was taking a deep breath and then simply sagged in her chair, leaning back against the hard plastic back.

"Truce," she agreed. Her slightly accented voice was low and soft with a bit of relief as she glanced between the humans in the Starbucks. Luckily no one seemed to be paying much attention to them too much.

A couple of college kids in a Starbucks? Normal as weirdly-clothed people at Walmart.

At least the background music as well as the conversation between the older couple was just loud enough to blend their words right into the rest of the sounds. Dart couldn't believe that he'd just out and straightforwardly said all of that, but maybe he just wanted to reassure her.

"I- yeah. I know. Thanks. No. No, no underhanded moves, sir, promise, I wouldn't break the truce, I swear. Honest. I'm okay with the rules, I like the rules."

She swallowed. "I was just surprised, I don't run into anyone often out here. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that. About the book, I mean. Also, uh, y-yes, it's a really neat place to explore. Ah, if you like fossils and stuff."

Her eyes drifted back to the phone and then she looked away without meeting his gaze. "Er, can I have back my phone, sir? Please?" 

[Hot Rod]

     "Only if you stop calling me 'sir'. That makes me sound ancient! I hope I don't look that old." The tone he used sounded like he was actually offended that she had kept using that three-letter word when she was addressing him. "Hot Rod... you can call me Roddy if you want. Doesn't matter to me really. You?" He was busy looking at her phone, turning it over in his hand as he studied the weight of it. A real cellular device! Seemed kinda odd that a Decepticon would take advantage of such a human commodity. This one was certainly proving to be interesting.

     Hot Rod leaned back in the chair just enough that he could prop his knee up and rest it against the side of the table so that his foot was in the chair against his inner thigh. He was too busy to really notice the look from the barista earlier, or this time when he came dangerously close to putting his FOOT on the table- probably silently threatening him not to dirty up the table she cleaned before their arrival, or to scold his poor manners. The dirty expression she had shot him went completely over his head, being that he was completely focused on scrolling through the pictures she had in her phone.

     Okay, that dog thing was weird looking. Some of the stuff looked pretty cool, though.

     "Surprised your old man let you out of the tombs." Hot Rod huffed some and slid her phone across the top of the table towards her. "Or does he not have rules about going off alone? Not afraid that some big bad Autobot may knock his people outta the sky, or that creepy humans critters may turn them into spare parts? Guess the old mop bucket still has a spark of cold steel." It was a little bit of a punch to the rules that were around Autobase, ones that he thought were pretty silly given that they were GIANT ROBOTS versus TINY ORGANICS. He didn't see the danger they posed, but he also hadn't seen the damage that had been done.

     Matters for later. Right now Hot Rod had other things to focus on.

     "So, is this a place you're wanting to check out? Bet it'd be a lot cooler to see without all the humans walking around there at this hour. Unless you're just interested in sitting here and drinking your cup of joe..." He motioned to the coffee on the table, clearly with a tone of sarcasm there as if daring her to even try and sip the liquid with that holoform of hers.

[Dart]

"Hot Rod?" Dart echoed, and wondered if the mech was pulling her leg about that. Then again, she'd met a mech named Buffalo Dump, so the probable answer to that question was no.

Maybe it was more of a Cybertronian to English translation issue; that this was as close as it got for a name that meant extra power and speed.

The courier shifted in her chair. Okay, she was used to all sorts of weird names. Her own included, when it came right down to it. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that he'd be joking about, either. Especially after he mentioned to call him that or Roddy.

He seemed rather comfortable ensconced in that chair next to her. So comfortable in fact that he brought up his leg as if he was going to rock back on the two legs and balance himself like a bored student attending a lecture.

Or a guy who was totally engrossed at looking at someone else's pictures hoping for something a bit more risque to pop up.

Luckily, hers were of the pretty boring variety. Places and things and natural wonders. There was a shot though of her and a bearded man in a grey-green flannel shirt. They were both leaning against a buff colored stone wall that seemed to be way high up in a series of red hills. Power lines crisscrossed one corner, and in the distance there was a high, huge bridge. Seemed like a pretty typical touristy moment.

Dart glanced around the relative quiet of the coffee shop and then back over at the man who was cheerfully thumbing through her phone. Once again she made a little gesture as if she was going to reach for it and then drew back instead to start neatly stacking up all of her books into a rather grabable pile.

"Rachel, si- er, Roddy," she told him, and echoed her nervous stammer with a tiny tip of her head that indicated the people in the store. Frankly, Dart didn't feel like saying one more weird name because the last thing she needed was someone thinking they were some odd codenamed car cult that met in clandestine Starbucks across Nevada. "I'm Rachel."

A little pause hung in the air between them as she mulled over his words. 

"No, no rules about going out alone?" she said, and inclined her head. "We don't have that, I guess, but it's more because if you're out on your own and you get knocked out of- uh, you get downed or caught, it's your own fault. You fail, no one comes to help you or save you."

Her nose wrinkled slightly. "Humans aren't something to be taken lightly," she told him quietly, keeping her voice low. "They're as equally smart as we are, and while most people are wonderful and friendly and would totally help anyone, there's the ones that have no problems tearing someone apart to see what makes you tick. They see folks like us as a means to money or power, and they're dangerous."

The courier looked at the young man across from her, and shook her head. She had slid her hand over to the postcard and the silver pen. She picked up the postcard and quickly tucked it away into one of her books.

"Er, wait. So if you have rules about going out alone, why are you... uh, out alone?"

The girl eyed him with obvious puzzlement and then seemed to catch herself.

Dart knew not to ask questions. She was careful about drawing much attention to herself at any time. The more you asked questions, the more someone started to answer, and they'd remember your questions, and remember you asking them.

So instead, the courier quickly and gratefully took the opportunity to answer his other question, even as she warily watched him play with her phone.

"Huh? The park? Oh, I've been there. Long time ago, but I've been there. It's a neat park, it's got a ghost town from the eighteen hundreds, but honestly it's a ways from here. Like hours, driving, and uh, besides the fossils are protected.

"They built a building over them, it's super neat, but it's locked up at night. Keeps people from stealing or vandalizing things."

Her eyes fell to the coffee cup. "Well, I- I was just kind of hanging out for a little bit," she admitted, and reached for her cup. Her fingers folded carefully around it. She hesitated and then lifted it up, pretended to take a sip and set it back down carefully, as if she was afraid it might slip out of her fingers.

She was. It might. Her avatar still glitched, and there was no way right now she could ask anyone to look at it or fine tune it. She wasn't supposed to have one in the first place; anyone poking around in there would realize it didn't quite fit with the rest of her systems.

Dart had gotten better with it though. She used it every chance she got, even just driving from one place to another felt better with someone in the car that a human might see at a glimpse. The more she used it, the more natural it felt. Yet it was so much easier when she didn't think about it, and didn't concentrate on the fact she was using it.

Of course that was what she was doing right now. Concentrating. Not how she'd intended to spend an hour or two of time mooching off of Starbucks wifi. Of course he still had her phone and even if she gathered up all of her books and scooted out of here, she wasn't getting back that phone until he gave it back...

"Er, my phone?" she ventured once more.

[Hot Rod]

     "Generally when I ask for a name, I mean their designation. Not whatever they come up with for," he paused to do an up and down sweeping motion with his left hand at her holoform, "this..." He paused to bring his hand down over his face starting at the forehead and ending at the chin before dropping down to the table. "But fine, 'Rachel' it is. Could of come up with a cooler code name or something."

     For someone who was supposed to be in disguise, he had a tendency to stop after the holoform. To him, hiding in plain sight was the easiest and since he could usually lie his way out of anything? Piece of cake. No one would really pay attention to the one who was the loudest, most flamboyant thing in a crowd of people unless it was to cuss him out under their breaths- or aloud, for those who were less than filtered.

     "I'm out alone cause usually everyone is off in la la land doing their own thing when I want to go out or they just don't want to. I can't help it that I'm young, restless and unchained with a considerable need for speed." He slid her her phone face down across the table now that he was finished with it then folded his hands behind his head and leaned back slightly in the chair just so he could briefly look at the ceiling. "All these rules are new to me. I spent my entire life on my own, then I finally find where a fraction of these groupies are holed up at and all they can do is lay the 4-11 on me. It's a real drag."

     "'Sides- they can't say I'm alone anyway even if I get caught out, cause I'm here with you. They didn't clarify that I had to be hanging out with another Autobot- I just got told 'be in pairs'. So I'm not really breaking any rules."

     Roddy huffed some and looked back at the holoform sitting beside him. He didn't know how much older than her she was- had to be a decent amount considering how much more laid back and timid she was- and he didn't really care. She was going to be his company for the evening for however long that was so he'd have to make the best of it, whether she was a Decepticon or not.

     Only now he was getting bored and he wanted something to do. Park seemed like a good idea.

     Roddy got to his feet, not bothering to push his chair in and touched the page again, this time with a tapping gesture from his index finger and he paired this with a half sly grin on his face that could only spell trouble.

     "How about we go see it? Right now. Unless you're too scared of getting your pretty little face dirty or makin' your old man even more grumpy than he already is."

[Dart]

Behind them, the waiting couple was chattering to themselves as the barista prepared their coffee. There was the rumbling hiss of the steamer frothing milk in counterpoint to the low, mellow guitar music drifting through hidden speakers. The man in the chair ruffled his paper, shook it out, and folded it back to read the next page.

All human, doing human things. Not one inkling that there were giant transforming robot aliens here among their double shot Americanos and Caramel Frappuccinos.

The girl in front of Hot Rod had quietly finished stacking most of her books up into a pile on the table. Open to the park page, the guidebook remained where it sat; it was too close to him to lift away without Dart feeling like she was snatching it. She really didn't want to draw any more attention to them if at all possible.

Instead, she concentrated on tucking the silver pen back into her worn black shoulder purse, stuffing it down past a pink clutch purse, several receipts, and a tube of raspberry lip gloss before she looked back over at the avatar across from her.

A tiny frown settled across the corner of her lips. Dart's shoulders slanted as she drew herself up slightly in the chair. She ducked her chin and peered at Hot Rod from under her wind-tangled bangs.

"I like my name," she offered after he finished. "Er, as for my designation, I uh, I'm a courier, si-"

She caught herself. "Just a courier."

Dart had been truly confused as to why a strange Autobot would drop right down in the chair beside a Decepticon. Sure. There was a truce on. He was confident and cocky enough that Dart was pretty sure he'd either survived an awful lot, or that he simply hadn't run into a situation that had nearly killed him.

Then he continued to talk.

The girl tilted her head and simply listened to him. She quietly folded her wrists on the smooth surface in front of her.

She was honestly surprised when in mid-chat, he slid the phone across the table to her.

Unsure, Dart watched him settle back and leave the device face down on the table. Around her own faction, a thing you showed any concern about was often a reason for someone to toss it blithely from hand to hand, and use your worry to get them what they wanted.

Carefully, cautiously, she reached out her arm. Gingerly, she brushed her fingertips down on the back of the sleek metal case. There was a nervous shift of her weight as if she was ready for him to reach over and pin it back down again to the table and spell out the list of demands.

He did no such thing. Dart was grateful. She pulled the phone to her and held it for a second in her hand as if she'd been given back a lifeline. Her thumb brushed the sleek case before she turned and tucked it into her purse as well as he finished speaking.

Dart empathized with what Hot Rod had been talking about though.

When you spent a lot of time on your own, to be suddenly confined into a small spot among so many mechs was hard. Freedom and speed, those things she knew and appreciated. Dart loved wide-open spaces, and she certainly didn't like being penned in at all.

"Well, lots of folks don't feel comfortable here," she finally offered in an attempt to be as diplomatic as possible without touching on anything to do with Decepticon patrols or humans themselves.

"Maybe that's why they don't want to go out too much...?"

By then he was standing up, pushing his chair back as easily as he'd flopped into it.

She followed the motion of his finger as he tapped the page, and then looked up into a sloping grin as he rose to his feet.

Was she scared?

Yes.

It wasn't of the mech in front of her though. Not right at this moment. His avatar's body language was comfortable and in control, and he wasn't looming over her. Instead, he'd politely backed a bit out of her personal space even more, and Dart appreciated that.

Certainly she was scared of the Warlord himself. The smell of Dark Energon made her honestly want to spin and run as far away from him as possible. The less they crossed paths, the better it was for Dart, and she certainly didn't want to give Lord Megatron any reasons to call her in front of him again.

She was also scared of other things.

They were of her own doing and her own decisions, and in that respect she did not shirk under the weight of those fears. When you were in dangerous terrain there was often no way to turn back; once you picked a trail with treacherous footing, you were committed.

Dart swallowed back a small noise that was trying to creep out of her throat as she glanced up at Hot Rod. He'd pushed the chair back and was standing there, golden eyes focused entirely on her.

Tap tap tap.

His finger brushed on the page, his avatar as solid as her own.

"Huh?" she echoed, and blinked up at him.

A memory of words. They caught her off guard here in this coffee shop and at this moment. Maybe it shouldn't have.

Just wanted to see what you look like underneath the dust...

Dart set her teeth into her lower lip.

"Aw, well... dirt's just- it's just dirt," she murmured after a moment. Then she quietly reached over, edged the book out from Hot Rod's tapping finger, and set it on top of her pile of textbooks.

With that, Dart's fear ebbed away into to honest concern. The Autobot had some  sense about how the human world worked, but he had no problem being a flashy presence among them.  It wasn't just dangerous for him. It was dangerous for every single Cybertronian on the planet if MECH picked him up and cut him into unrecognizable pieces. Autobots. Decepticons.

Neutrals.

She knew what MECH would do to this Autobot if they caught him out by himself. Starscream had led her down that dark tunnel in the Kamchatka Peninsula. Memories of that moment rose again. The scent of Breakdown's fuel and pain. A gruesome slab that they'd started to vivisect the other Decepticon on. He had been lucky to escape with his life out of that mechanical abattoir. MECH had torn into a living being and pried out parts of him for themselves.

Dart understood that there were reasons to take apart alien technology. To protect yourself from a threat, sure. She could respect that; find what makes the dangerous thing tick and use it against itself.

Yet she had a bad, bad feeling that MECH was after weapons and systems for a different reason. Sure, they wanted to kill them. Yet then they would perhaps take what they discovered from Cybertronians and sell them to to the highest bidder. Not all of it of course, but enough of it. 

The damage it would possibly do to the people- to this planet she considered to be her home... ugh.

"It's hours away," she told him again, "and it's locked and it's against the law to break in to places here. Besides, I'm sure they have cameras and alarms, honest."

Dart eyed her cup of coffee. She hated to waste it, it felt stupid to blow four dollars on something she wasn't going to drink. Usually she brought it to someone else who could use it; back home in Portland there was always someone down on their luck out on the street who gratefully accepted a full cup of coffee from a stranger, even if it was lukewarm.

Usually she'd buy a bit of food to go along with it and give that away too.

Tucking the books against her chest, Dart wrapped her left arm around them and held them close as she rose to her feet. She rocked her weight back and forth, lifted her toe, and then settled her heels back to the floor. There was the faintest blue flicker from her forearm before it steadied again. The strappy, small black purse over her shoulder bumped gently against the slight curve of her hip as she straightened fully and nudged the chair she'd been sitting in neatly back under the table with her foot.

"Hey, ah- I was going up to Red Rock. After I finished here, I mean."

A pause.

"Backcountry. It's about forty minutes out of town. but there's a route, a paved tour road you might like. No one will be on it, they have a gate at the park that closes at night. You can just- well, drive." 

[Hot Rod]

     Comfort? Somehow Hot Rod didn't think that was the only reason their type didn't go do much in the way of exploring. He knew some of them loved to be around the open air, taking in the sights, while others seemed to enjoy it in secret and only went out just as far as their leashes would allow before scampering back home in the safety of their walls. He'd seen it before, and the Autobot base reeked of it. It was part of why he was always so damn anxious to get the hell outta dodge whenever he could- even if he wasn't permitted to do so.

     "You're givin' all these 'adults' far too much credit. It's fear, too... mostly that. Doesn't matter if they admit it out loud or just wander around the safety of their four walls, pretending that it doesn't exist if they don't acknowledge it. Both sides are too busy running scared from being cracked open like a tin can or wondering what trail then next day will bring that they don't see they're letting it get the best of 'em. Fear of losing a member of the team, fear of just losing, being bested, whatever. It's there. Way too many mechs with their screws cranked too tight that you can pretty much suffocate on the air they carry around'em. I've never been one to be able to wallow in that sort of nonsense."

     The holoform gave a shrug then smirked. He was done thinking of all this MECH nonsense. He snuck out to have a bit of fun, not to talk about the things that he was trying to get away from for a while, and the suggestion of not being able to go somewhere because it was 'against the law' did pull him from his former thoughts. Ah, the hook of temptation was always a dangerous thing to dangle infront of Hot Rod.

     "Isn't it against the law to break into anywhere?" Oh, how he wanted to bite that, but somehow he felt that if he was going to impress this femme he was going to need to lean more towards responsibility than recklessness... 

     Frag.

     "So, Red Rock it is. If we were home I could think of much more romantic places, but if spinnin' my tires will impress ya, I'm all for it."

[Dart]

Dart was quiet as he spoke. She held her books to her chest. Her weight shifted softly from foot to foot. There was a soft hiss from over by the coffee counter; the barista was cleaning the stainless steel milk frother wand with damp cloth and a blast of steam. The music piped in from the overhead speakers had shifted to another soft folk-rock song with just enough guitar to be trendy.

Dart knew all about fear. It was a healthy emotion to have when you spent a lot of time on your own, especially with a rather glitchy comm system. The courier was firmly planted in the school of- if you smell or hear something strange, run like heck.

What he was saying though...

Adults? Did he just call everyone else adults - hey now, I'm...

Not as old as he probably is, haha, she admitted to herself.  

Huh, she'd never heard any Cybertronian describe someone as an adult. Then again he had called the Prime "Pops." The mech apparently had settled comfortably right into the Earth slang he'd picked up. He sounded pretty natural with how he used it too. That was pretty impressive; lots of folks she knew tossed those words and phrases in awkward, out of place ways.   

The Autobot- er, Roddy - was right. Fear could kill you as easily as anything else. Freeze in the wrong spot over thin ice, panic and mis-step down the side of a mountain, and you were just as likely to die as being blasted by the mechs on the other side of this war. There was a lot of dangerous situations going on; you lived with it day in and day out.

Of course, right now Dart was up to her optics in something else with far more reach than the immediate danger of the war on Earth. She was afraid, yes, but you'd be absolutely foolish not to be afraid.

Wait, hold on, he wasn't talking about what was going on with the truce at all. This wasn't the situation about MECH that he was referring to. It was the Autobots and Decepticons alike. Too busy in the safety of their war. In the safety of a conflict they had been throwing at each other longer than there had been life on Earth. They would rather throw all that was left of their resources into beating the heck out of each other so someone would walk away victorious, and Earth just happened to be that lucky point where they had all landed to make that happen.

Oh. That wasn't what he was talking about either.

"Aw well... it's- it's tough on everyone for a whole lot of reasons, I guess," she offered quietly, sidestepping cautiously around his comment. She hitched her books and then reached for the coffee cup on the table. The liquid sloshed as she carefully picked it up.

She eyed him where he was still kicked back comfortably in the chair. Dishwater blond bangs flopped over her blue eyes. One long strand had worked itself out of her high ponytail. There was a slight flash of pixelated blue where the hair touched the bottom of her jawline.

Then the girl gave him a sheepish, lopsided  grin that quirked up the corner of her mouth. 

"Er, you're right though- about that it's against the law to break into anywhere," she admitted.

He was. Dart knew she'd broken into a lot of places. She might have disliked it, but in the end, she wasn't about to argue with Pyrotech. Orders were orders. Okay, she'd even stolen fuel and other things she'd needed to survive. Also cat food out of a donation bin in Australia, but that had not been for her.

If she could have eaten it, she might have tried when she was hungry enough though. Had to be better than oil tank sludge, and she'd have the added benefit of a shiny coat and bright eyes, right?

"Park roads aren't someone's private business or residence, though," she explained. "Honest. No vandalizing, not hurting the environment, it's okay. It's safe up there."

Her head cocked slightly, and her brow furrowed with a touch of confusion. "Aw, no, you don't have to do anything impressive for me, honest. It's just, well, you sounded like you could use some space. To get out and drive with no one else around for a bit. Sometimes it's hard to find that place in the cities."

Dart tucked her belongings up a bit tighter and started to walk towards the door. The barista called out a friendly good night to her, and she smiled and nodded, still carefully balancing her armful of stuff. Her worn black purse bumped against her hip as she attempted to nudge the door with her elbow to open it.

Out in the parking lot, the black car shifted her wheels gently back and forth in a tiny vehicular stretch.

[Hot Rod]

     Roddy watched her as she rose from her seat and gathered her things, for once silent as he listened to her reply to him. Tough on everyone? Yeah, he supposed she was right. Everyone had their own reasoning behind why they did what they did, but he didn't understand the 'blind leading the blind' mentality. Maybe his idolization was falling on a false prophet after all...

     Pieces to a puzzle were slowly coming into place for Hot Rod, but he chose not to linger on those thoughts for long. The femme was leaving and he was about to be left behind because he wasn't keeping focused.

     Roddy got up from his seat and pushed it back in, though he wasn't very neat about it and ended up with it halfway tucked under in a rather askew position that would probably be corrected by the cafe workers when they made their rounds to tidy up. He made his way behind Dart, making sure not to just stand behind her and give her the heebies about being boxed in in case that was a trigger for her, and instead turned sideways to face her and scooted himself between her and the door. He pushed it open, careful to wait for her to be balanced on her feet so that he didn't open it as she was nudging at it and risk her falling outside. 

     Not that he would let her fall, of course! A chivalrous mech like him was at the ready to catch her in the case he had miscalculated... just to ensure she didn't take a tumble. Otherwise he stood there with his back against the door, holding it open for her and staying out of her path to allow her clearance to step past with barely the need to brush against him.

     "You're not wrong when you say space is something you can't get much off around here, but I've been on my own for a while and I wouldn't mind some attractive company that isn't trying to get me to remove my brand or scold me for being reckless. That, and... well, lets face it. This truce isn't gonna last forever because of one thing or another, and we may as well take advantage of it while we can. Next time I see ya I'll probably be dodging your bullets."

     Roddy grinned some then made a soft snort noise, as if he were making fun of a silent joke running through his head. 

     "Plus, I don't know the way and you apparently do, so I'd rather not get lost in the middle of nowhere. I'd be found out for sure cause I'd have to call home to get directions back and I REALLY don't wanna have my ass handed to me."

[Dart]

Is- is he actually going to follow me?

Dart turned her head just enough to peek over the curve of her shoulder. Her bangs flopped over her left eye, brushing against the side of her nose.

The mech's avatar unfolded casually from the plastic molded seat and nudged it somewhere back in the general vicinity of he table.

The knot in her mid-section loosened ever so slightly. Not because she was comfortable with trotting out into the dark with strange mechs. (Well, okay, when she was in Australia that had happened and it had worked out. That had been mostly sitting though. Some standing. Also getting rained on an awful lot.)

It was because Dart worried. So far this Autobot didn't seem as if he was a nasty mech. He certainly didn't give off the air of the cop with the dog. More of a frustrated one about base policy and politics. If he got picked up by MECH and no one knew he was out his own...

Dart knew. He'd be stripped down to his components, and anything they couldn't figure out a use for would be likely put into a box and sold out on the curb during their corporation's yearly scratch and dent sale.

One of the books she was holding chose that moment to try and wiggle out of her grip, and Dart focused quickly back on the door. The tip of her tongue poked out of the corner of her lips as her brow furrowed in concentration.

Door. Books. Ugh, I am so nervous that I'm going to glitch through this door or through these books. Or drop this coffee. Just hang on until we get out in the parking lot, avatar. Okay, please don't glitch please don't glitch, please don't-

She'd been concentrating so hard on not having everything just mess up that it was with some surprised that she realized that the mech had stepped up beside her and was now politely and carefully pushing back the door.

Dart's slim frame froze, her eyes wide and unsure. The femme seemed to recognize how close Roddy was to her; she sidestepped nervously and then raised her left foot off the floor a few inches. Then she seemed to catch herself, and quickly set it down. Instinctively, the courier lifted her chin and angled her nose towards the puff-jacketed avatar. She made a noise; a small, nervous snort-huff that sounded as if she was drawing in a breath of air.

No scent.

Dart was a creature that depended on scent almost more than anything else. Her avatar did not have the ability to process any of it. There was an awkward moment where she quickly lowered her nose and flashed a small apologetic smile to the mech.

Then she gingerly slid past him with half an inch to spare and ducked out the door.

Parked carefully between the lines, the Trans Am's intakes whuffled softly.

Immediately, her processor was flooded with odors. No Autobot still, but she could smell hot, greasy stench of the asphalt, and the dregs of spoiled milk and coffee from the dumpster behind the building. Well, all right, she could tell that there were rats too. Not surprising. She'd read once that human beings spent their entire lives less than two hundred feet from a rat.

Dart would attest that this statistic was pretty spot on in urban sprawl. Anywhere there was food, there were rodents.

Outside of the coffee shop the parking lot had finally become somewhat bearable after the blazing heat of the day. A slight breeze was blowing in from the north; the scrubby bushes that were planted in the medians rustled and rattled against each other. The courier stepped out onto the sidewalk and breathed a small sigh of relief that her books and coffee hadn't phased through her and fallen on her feet.

At least there was a trash bin right out front. She quickly ducked over a few feet and then dropped the cup in. Then she read the small sign on the can and immediately felt guilty. Oh. Huh. Compostable cups.

While she was debating on fishing her cup back out, he continued to speak. Dart listened. There as an odd little look on her face as she turned to look at him again.

"Remove your-?" she echoed, and her gaze came to rest on the center of his broad chest. Couldn't miss that, no, not with the flame t-shirt and the way he was dressed. Stark against the yellow, his sigil rested there, unmarred and bold. It was giving her that particular Autobot face of disapproval that it always seemed to do.

"No," Dart said firmly, even as she shook her head. "I'd never ask anyone to remove their sigil. That's a personal decision. No one else's. Yours and yours alone, and... oh."

It was automatic. "I don't have a gun," she blurted, and promptly forgot all about her coffee cup as she took a step back. "I- I don't carry one, I'm not going to shoot at you, promise."

Then she noticed he was grinning a bit and realized that he was probably just teasing her as he continued on. Oh, that had gone right over her head, but-

Something else didn't.

For some guy who totally oozed confidence and called the Prime "Pops" before he breezily poked fun at Lord Megatron? It almost sounded to her as if Roddy faltered for a second. That he truly was uncomfortable about getting lost and getting found out...

Earth was no Cybertron. An utterly alien world, one that he possibly didn't quite have his footing on yet.

"You won't get lost," she reassured him. "Promise, it's an easy drive. I do it a lot. It's a straight shot down the highway. The road signs are really well laid out here in Nevada. I can point out the exits you need to take on the way back, too."

"Are- are you parked close?"

[Hot Rod]

     "I thought it was a personal choice myself unless you do somethin' really stupid and get your ass kicked outta the family. I guess I was wrong." The sour tone in his voice hinted to just how bitter he still was about that whole mess. "I'm get that I'm still getting used to the whole 'in disguise' thing," he made a quotation mark gesture with the index and middle fingers of his hands, "but I really wish they wouldn't talk at me. I'm young, not stupid, and not inexperienced." Hot Rod got that most of the others on base were substantially older than him but he really didn't like being reminded of it in the way he was treated. Treatment, not just in action, but in the words they used and the way they spoke.

     The inexperienced part? Okay, he pretty much was when it came to actual fighting, but he had done his share of insurgent work as well as... other things he was less than proud of. Combat, maybe he could use some help. Not like he was going to ask for it with everyone already treating him like he didn't know his helm from his aft. Telling everyone that he needed training because he had spent most of his Autobot career marooned on a peaceful planet away from the war would only make them baby him more and probably tell him he wasn't allowed to leave base ever.

     Hot Rod scoffed slightly as he thought that over and tucked his hands into his jean pockets as he followed the Decepticon's avatar. She went on with talking and that dragged him out of his current train of thought.

     "I'm less worried about the 'getting lost'- been cross country and never took a wrong turn unless I meant to- and more of the reprimand I'd get if I was found to have snuck outta base. Not so much the punishment, more of the chit-chat." He'd sat through his fair share of 'do this not that' sit downs, none by choice, and on more than one occasion he had been practically cuffed to the chair to keep him in place so he didn't wander out in the middle of them. He had a bad habit of not listening to his peers, but he scored high and performed in the advanced categories at the Academy. Hot Rod was well aware that was probably the ONLY reason he wasn't kicked out. "Morale speeches and rule books aren't really my thing. As much as I respect Pops and what he does for the team, I just can't stand to be forced to listen to his pep talks. I mean, I guess you've heard one or two of them, right? Great messages, but it kinda takes him a while to get to the point, ya know? Lots of filler..." 

     Enough talk about all that, though. He had company to focus on. 

     "Yeah, I'm parked pretty close. You can't see that sexy ride over there? I'm hurt." Roddy smirked and removed one hand from his pocket to point across the way at the brightly colored Koenigsegg One that was slowly driving towards them from the shadows across the lot where there were no street lights. Even in the dark the vehicle could be seen, moving as a solid mass with hints of tinted warm hues cutting through the blue hues of the night. It zig-zagged in and out of the parking lot spotlights, not wanting to be directly spotted at the moment. Roddy took a look around to make sure no one was outside while inside his alt mode he was performing a scan for signatures of the same nature. He had spotted the Trans Am already and that was where he was headed while his holoform acted as natural as possible. 

     As far as scent went? It may have been a strange one. It would be a constant smell of what could best be described as the smell that comes from heater vents when the heating unit inside a building first kicks on. Just... warmth and heat, not quite at the level of char or burning. Most definitely wasn't caused by a hyperactive engine.

     "After you, m'lady. I'm your humble servant for the night, so take the lead."

[Dart]

With a mental apology to no one in particular for wasting a cup of coffee, Dart dropped it carefully into the garbage can. Once her hand was free, she immediately brought it up so that she was holding her books more securely against her chest with both arms. The purse strap over her left shoulder slid and threatened to slip off, but she quickly shrugged it back over her shoulder with a practiced gesture.

I wish people wouldn't talk at me.

That was the second time she'd heard that sort of feeling from an Autobot. The first time had been back in the Canyon, with Maximus. He'd rounded on her angrily about not getting patient with him and Dart had realized in an instant how she'd sounded and honestly apologized to him for it. Not because she'd been scared into a response but because she simply understood and didn't like it herself.

It happened to her a lot of the time among her fellow Dececeptions.
Yet it was one thing to be among her side of the war, where that was just how things went.

Another to be within the Autobot ranks.

Not exactly the same words and certainly not the same reasons, but... it made Dart wonder what all was going on among their command right now. Something was certainly uncomfortable for them.

The note in Roddy's voice absolutely relayed his unhappiness.

Of course, what he probably wasn't thinking about though was how he was setting himself up to make it worse by taking off and leaving base on his own after he'd been told not to go.

Not that Dart was in any position to talk to anyone about obeying orders to the letter. She sure wasn't supposed to be anywhere near here tonight. Or wandering off with a member of the opposite faction. Couldn't forget about that tiny awkward detail.

"I don't think anyone likes being talked at," she said as she glanced over at him. The girl's high ponytail jounced softly, wispy strands falling around her pale neck.

"Also... yeah. We get an awful lot of speeches." she admitted.

Most of the ones she had attended weren't uplifting pep ones. She would have been fine with the ones the Autobot was describing. No, Decepticon speeches usually went the 'if you screw up this, there will be consequences' way, or the 'I am now the one leading you, don't forget it.'

Or the ones that pertained to destroying every Autobot before conquering the universe.

At the young man's gesture, the girl hesitated. Her jaw tipped slightly, cocking her head as she followed the gesture of his hand where he pointed out at the dark parking lot.

The Trans Am's headlights popped up an another inch, even as the girl's eyes widened. Her fingers curled on the edges of the textbooks as she focused on the car coming towards them, then back at the man, and then back at the car.

Holy moly.

She'd thought his avatar was flashy. Even though she couldn't quite make out the model of car just yet, she sure could see that it was something sleek and low slung, with bold sweeping lines. Even as shadowed as it was, the car's mirror finish tried to catch every bit of the ambient light and reflect it back.

Oh gosh, his tires alone probably cost more than my whole darn alt mode did when it was brand new.

Dart for the life of her couldn't figure it out; the Autobots were worried about being discovered, and yet so many of them were cars that cost more than most people's houses around here. You could buy an awfully nice residence in Nevada for that price.

It was only a matter of time before MECH just started tailing all those very expensive sports cars around Nevada.

How did I miss him.

Probably because she'd been focused on reading and the wind was blowing the wrong way. Now he'd moved into it though and a strange touch smoked along the air currents. The dark car in the parking lot rocked slightly, her left front tire lifting an inch off the ground. A soft, low whuffling noise drifted out from underneath the Trans Am as her intakes pulled another gulp of air within.

What's that?

Dart couldn't place the scent to any one she knew The car in the lot fidgeted, the tire now back on the ground and twisting back and forth on the warm concrete beneath her.

Then the femme was reminded of something. Dart automatically tried not to flinch as she threw her focus around her with a touch of rising panic. No, Pyrotech was busy with that massive mess at their base, with all of the strangers within it. He wouldn't be within a hundred miles of here, that was for sure.

This was not the sharp, metallic burn of her commander. It was certainly part of the odors that made up Roddy's scent but it was more subtle and warm; like the touch of hot sand baking in the desert.

Or how short-coated cats smelled after they'd been curled up and snoozing in a warm window for hours. Sunshine and dust.

"Oh!" she replied, even as she regained her stride and headed for her own vehicle's driver's side door. She actually set her books down on the top of the scruffy, road-grimed car before she levered up the handle on the driver's door. Even as it swung open, Dart was gathering up her books to toss them into the front passenger seat.

The interior of the Am didn't quite match the road-worn outside. Inside, the cab was tidy and neat except for a smattering of dusty footprints on both driver and passenger side. Several extra books were on the small bench back seat. The covers peeked out from within a white shopping bag printed in bold black letters that read "Powell's City of Books,' accompanied by a handful of crumpled parking receipts Dart hadn't got around to tossing yet.

There was also half-empty bottle of water.

Quickly, the courier swung her purse off her shoulder. It ended up in the front seat as well.

"Okay," she said with a nod, and eyed the car sliding through the lot before she looked at the man nearby one more time.

"I'm er- I'm pretty sure you're probably faster than I am, but... hey, I'll do my best, okay? Just follow me and stay close. Worst part is getting to the highway but after that, it's an easy drive."