[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Floating an Idea [Starscream]

[Starscream]

“I can’t even imagine.” he chuckled lowly, shaking his helm. “I was aware that Soundwave had been infected, but Knock Out too? Then again with how the thing spread, it was foolish not to assume he was.”

It was odd that Soundwave and Knock Out had been infected, but aside from Soundwave going rogue and crashing the Nemesis? Nothing else had really come from it in terms of violent outbursts. Which was good, all things considered. Soundwave had been rumored to have been a gladiator back on Cybertron, if he snapped and went completely feral? They’d stand no chance - it’d take far too many Vehicons to even slow him down. And Knock Out? Well - he was too valuable in his position of CMO to succumb to something like that.

Even despite everything, the Decepticons as a whole were very lucky. Things could’ve been a lot worse.

A quirk of his brow at the mention of the code download.

“Make sure you keep that thing safe.” he didn’t like the idea of it being basically right there, almost in the open. She had a small area that could be considered ‘quarters’ but with how cramped things were here, all it took was one foolish Vehicon poking around and…

At least it was encrypted. Meaning even if the datapad was misplaced, the likelihood of its contents being released were slim to none.

Still a chance, though.

A bob of his helm as she continued.

“I am sure Soundwave will appreciate the updated copy - as for a specialist to look into the actual code itself, maybe he would be the one to ask about that, too.” he frowned “Or Shockwave. I believe Knock Out gave him the growths to examine, maybe having the raw data as well may help…”

Or end terribly. Then again Shockwave had probably reverse-engineered it somehow from the growths alone at this point.

If Soundwave did indeed have a copy of the code, there was a good chance he’d taken a look at it - but Starscream could only assume. There’d been no follow up reports or updates on anything, but then again? He hadn’t asked. His own background in science had him curious - but he had other and more important things to be dealing with right now.

As she moved her hand to her hip, Starscream would shift his weight some with a gentle flutter of wings, before he looped his arms casually behind his back.

“Of course, understandable. I am sure if you need more space - or quiet - there are plenty of mines that have been stripped bare - Soundwave can no doubt give you a list of them, so you can find one that suits your needs. As for Vega,” he paused, scratching at his thumb in thought “I don’t see why not. With everything being the way it is right now, I do not believe she has been given a set task and would be of more use to you than me.

Will you be requiring Vehicons to try and salvage equipment from the Nemesis? While the majority of it is no doubt waterlogged, some of it may still be usable after some minor repair.”

[Sparkplug]

...yeah, Shockwave would probably find the code useful. Assuming he hadn't engineered a dozen variants of something nastier a long time ago, which he probably had. A natural genius, of course, and she was deeply impressed by his work, but... wandering blindly into his lab seemed a lot like sending a minicon into a turbofox den; it wasn't going to end well.

Soundwave was definitely the better option.

"The funny thing is, I was infected too," Sparkplug offered up. "Hadn't gotten as far along as any weird growths starting up inside my system, but when I checked, my energon stream was absolutely simmering with nanite-manufactured psychotic compounds. By rights, I should have been chewing the plating off the walls, but not a bit of it. Seems like whatever exotic chemical interaction they were targeting against the neural mesh, the susceptibility varied wildly from individual to individual."

Pausing to consider the behaviour of the other mecha she'd known were exposed, she went on, "Knock Out was acting a bit off, but it's hard to know whether he'd have gotten any worse if it had progressed or if that was as much as it was going to achieve. Messy, imprecise bit of kit, overall. I don't think it was finished properly, whatever it was meant to be. I'll keep it under wraps, don't worry."

Of course, all of that - thankfully - was in the past. The future was here, and the future consisted of a cosy little hideaway, just her, Vega, and as many megatons of destructive force as she'd be able to cobble together.

"As for the mine - makes a lot of sense, I can ask Commander Soundwave about available locations when I hand off the annotated drive with the plague code. Unless I can figure out a good candidate first; I'll have a dig through the computers. Don't want to bother him unnecessarily unless I can't make a decent stab of assessing things myself."

That made the most sense, she decided. Dig out the rough details of the abandoned mining operations, if she had the access to do so, then narrow down to the promising few, and bug some miner-variant mecha about which would be the most promising. Maybe present her conclusion to Soundwave for approval. She didn't know him that well, but he gave the impression of a mech that liked others to have done their research before they bothered him.

"The equipment, though... yeah, without that, there's not much that can be done. Can't make a system monitor or a circuit tester out of rocks. If you can get some vehicons on the job, I can probably fix up anything hauled out of the Nemesis and get it working again."

Sparkplug's gaze focused into the distance, picturing the best places to salvage equipment from. With the entire ship at the bottom of the ocean, and structurally unsound too, retrieving items that would themselves allow manufacture of more equipment was the best place to start. She could make a list, and start prepping whatever mine ended up being selected while the vehicons headed out with cutting torches.

Shaking her helm once, she put the problem to one side, and looked up at the dagger-edged mech again. Never mind her disappointment that she couldn't immediately try to start fishing the Nemesis out of the ocean; Lord Starscream had given her a new project, and all the pieces needed to begin work on it. Her field swirling with friendly appreciation, she said brightly and completely sincerely, "Thank you, I really do appreciate the effort you put into the mecha like me that serve under you. We're lucky to have you, Lord Starscream."

[Starscream]

There was a gentle hum of what was probably mild concern at the revelation that Sparkplug had been infected too. Even though she would’ve been long-since cured, the fact it’d spread so far and remained mostly undetected in almost everyone until Flatline had snapped was concerning. Yet even despite the numbers of infected, Starscream had, somehow, not been one of them.

“As far as I’m aware, the growths themselves were only found in Soundwave and Flatline - both of whom had the most severe reaction. Whether this was because of a mutation in the virus itself, or simply because they were among the first infected and were seeing the later effects of it remains to be seen, but I am sure Shockwave will have answers before too long.”

He chuckled.

“Not that it matters anymore. It is fascinating though how it varied, do you have any ideas as to when you were infected - or by who?”

If Knock Out had been infected, the chances of him spreading it to the majority were probably high, given his line of work and how many he saw in a day.

With his background in science, he would always be intrigued by this kind of thing, even if he no longer had the time to dedicate to exploring that side of things. Regardless, whatever results Shockwave found out from it all he would read over with genuine interest - and not just because he was their Lord.

At the mention of her keeping it under wraps, he would nod. The last thing they needed was that thing getting out again, even with the cure they currently had in their possession - they’d lost many Vehicons in the wreckage of the Nemesis, and here at Blackridge where it was considerably more confined? It’d be far worse.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate you taking the initiative.” he smirked, “Narrow it down, and I’m sure he can help you from there.”

He wasn’t sure if Soundwave had any sort of plans for any of their long-since abandoned mines, but it was always good to check in with him, knowing that the Spymaster would pass along any details that were important.

“As for the equipment, I’ll do what I can. Saltwater has the unfortunate habit of ruining things rather quickly, but I’m sure we can find some things of use. If not, well, plenty of human scrapyards on this planet to cobble something together.”

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and sometimes you just had to make do with what you could find.

The shift in her field made him quirk a brow, only for his expression to immediately soften as she began speaking, wings fluttering some behind himself at the- rather genuine but unexpected praise.

“Ah, I do what I can.” he purred, smiling. “Given our former Warlord abandoned us most in our time of need, I am more than happy to set the Decepticons onto the right path once more, even despite our current circumstances.”

His reign had started with disaster, but for once it had not been his doing - and he was going to try his absolute damnedest to pull them up from this mess and into the glorious days they deserved.

All hail Starscream indeed.

[Sparkplug]

The specifics of the nanite plague were as confusing as they were intriguing; Sparkplug's brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. She really had expected to find at least some evidence of plague growths in other mecha as the examinations went forward - surely Flatline and Soundwave were merely the most prominent, obvious examples. And yet, apparently the results of the widespread testing were in, and no other cases had shown. Why was it just those two mechs who exhibited growths?

Of course, to their best of their knowledge, Flatline was the source, so he was an outlier, but Soundwave...

Well. As intriguing a puzzle as it was, if Shockwave was looking into it, it would be cracked in short order.

"Impossible to say where my particular infection came from," she responded after a moment's pause. "Knock Out examined me, Flatline was helping me clear out the storeroom for me to set up shop, and given how widespread it became, the possible transmission sources are uncountable. If the disease had had a predictable onset time and symptoms, I could have worked backwards to make a best guess at my time of exposure, but given it's variability..."

She shrugged. "Even one corrupt nanite is enough to start exponential conversion. Horrible disease; we're lucky to have shut it down in time. I'm glad they pulled me in when they did."

As for the idea of sourcing materials from scrapyards - well, Flatline had suggested as much to her before, but there were other ways to get the human industrial society to work for them. "Not just scrap," she suggested, "but if Soundwave - err, Commander Soundwave - can hack into a financial institution, he could allocate native funds into a holding account. I can't imagine he'd have much trouble. Then all we need is to order what we want to supplement our current stores, and get someone with a decent holo to accept shipment delivery at some decrepit dead warehouse. I'd be happy to pursue it if you find that line of inquiry convincing."

Bowing her helm, her processing substrate already humming with possibilities and plans for a new installation, she looked up at the tall flier and said respectfully, "I hope you will bear my plans in mind when the time comes to recover the Nemesis: thank you for allowing me to present them. Will that be all for now, Lord Starscream?"

[Starscream]

As Sparkplug spoke of her own infection source, Starscream would nod. He had his own ideas about how the majority of their forces would’ve been infected - their very own CMO. Not through any fault of Knock Out, though, which was why he wouldn’t voice these thoughts aloud.

After all, if the reports were to be believed, the cherry-red mech didn’t even realize he had the virus until fairly recently. An unknown - possibly asymptomatic - carrier, infecting others merely by doing his job.

It was scary to think about just how quickly this thing had probably spread via day to day means alone, even without Knock Out speeding things along. They were just so, so lucky that it seemed to react differently in everyone and they caught it in time.

Well, not that the loss of the Nemesis was a good thing, but it could’ve been worse.

“I suppose we’ll never know for sure.” he vented out a gentle ex-vent at this, shaking his helm and folding his arms across his chassis, idly tapping a claw against one of the missile mountings.

“Probably best not to dwell, though. The main thing is that it’s been eradicated from our forces. Well, save for the copies of code.” there was the faintest trace of a smirk on his lips as he spoke.

Another nod, followed by an inquisitive hum as she continued on- talking about Soundwave hacking into a financial institution.

The idle tapping would stop abruptly, and he’d lower his arms.

“That would be a question for Soundwave, if- and only if- you cannot salvage or scavenge what you need and get it in some sort of working order.”

As long as the equipment in question turned on and did what it was supposed to do? It didn’t have to be pristine or brand new. The monitors behind him had been salvaged, and while they were apparently working, they’d been damaged by seawater- as had nearly everything they’d brought with them.

“Exhaust other means, then look into… using more human methods of acquisition.” he sneered at the word, gently shaking his helm.

The thought of relying on humans and- online shopping was almost insulting, although any real annoyance on the subject would remain subdued for the moment as she bowed her helm.

“Of course, as of right now they are the only plans that are even remotely viable. I will keep them in mind, and thank you again for your suggestion.”

There was a gentle shifting of his weight as he stood up a little straighter, tilting his helm some as he peered down at her.

“I do believe that is all, yes. Should you think up anything to add to your idea, you know where to find me.

Also, ah- be sure to close the tarp on your way out, if you could.” he sighed.

Oh how he longed for an actual door.