[ti]Ep 2.5[/ti]Independent Together (Dart/Bandit)

[Dart]

Okay, it must have been the place where they signed the treaty.

Dart shifted the picture-cube in her hand and gently ran her thumb along the edge.

The idea of a neutral base didn't make sense to her, but that did. A designated space that was a neutral point for both Autobots and Decepticons. Also weird, but there had been some cross-faction moments back in Australia, so she could at least see it. Well, if Bandit had run into an Autobot and she'd mentioned it to him...

Maybe-

For a moment, there was a wistful, hopeful look in her optics, but then she shook herself slightly and pulled herself back to his question.

"Really. They're MECH. I um, guess they didn't pick a fancy name because they'd get sued by someone for copywrite infringement," she offered. "I like your ideas better though."

When the Furby made a strange noise, Dart glanced over at where the rough-looking toy sat on one of the rocks. It wasn't like- well, it wasn't like a sound you'd expect from a plaything. Even ones that sang to themselves all sorts of weird things.

This felt like an actual interaction instead of a blurting, burbling string of nonsense words.

As Bandit conversationally responded back to it, she tipped her head back and forth. At the motion of the featherlike finial on his head, her own spoiler twitched up and stayed pricked forward.

Bandit was one of those folks who talked to himself. Dart admitted that she always loved it, because it made her feel a lot less silly for her own conversations she nattered on with in her head. When you lived on the outskirts as much as they had, sometimes the only person you could talk to was yourself.

Yet there was a subtle difference between how he usually talked to himself and how he was talking to the Furby.

Usually, he had a flamboyancy to him. As if the mech was reciting a story that was going to be someday etched onto a great gold disk and tossed into a spaceship to be catapulted into the great galaxy beyond. Here, it was almost as if he was quietly concerned that Chauncey Pilkington was going to be dressing up in sneakers and robes before telling him that the Kool-Aid was perfectly on point this morning.  No swirl of a cape, no fling of his arm. In fact he was actually fairly direct and thoughtful sounding. 

"I dunno," she said. "About the cult thing, I mean, but, er..."

Dart glanced at Chauncey while she formulated the question in her mind. Her focus stayed on the toy, and she drew in a small sniff of the air.

"Did you really have to rescue him from a Homeowner's Association? What happened? Did he uh, not water the lawn or something?" 

[Bandit]

"Dart, you are charmingly naïve sometimes.  All homeowners associations, everywhere, on every planet, are cults."

Bandit looked over at Dart for a long moment.  "So... I left the 'bots.  You can make a whole life for yourself out there, outside of your faction.  You don't need to be defined by it.  You don't need to be complicit.  So I'm going to ask you something, and don't be weird about it."

He paused, usually serious for the moment.  He knew the answer to the question he wanted to ask her, but he had to ask it.  Dart was his friend.

"You want to get out?  I'd help you.  Whatever you needed.  You don't need to take orders from Pyrotech.  Don't need to orders from anyone."

[Dart]

Dart gently set the small photo-box down next to her, careful to place it on a stone and keep it out of the dirt. The hologram of Bandit and his carapaced ex-girlfriend flickered and powered down slightly, but the device remained on; the two were posing in front of some other landmark. It reminded her of all the people who posed in front of roadside attractions... but most people didn't walk out with the World's Largest Ball of Twine under their arms.

The tips of her spoiler pricked forward as Bandit's masked gaze rested on her. His green optics watched her, surrounded by the dark band under his helm, and Dart was struck by how serious he was for the second time tonight. She was used to his sense of humor; teasing, flamboyant, where he said something at it might take her a few seconds to catch up to his sense of humor.

Not here. She caught up fast for once.

At first, she seemed a bit unsure, but as he spoke, her optics widened under the brim of her helm. A thousand scents flickered by the courier as she sat; animals, plants, the faint and patchy trail of humans that had hiked up here earlier. Dry stone and dirt didn't hold the odors well, but they were still there. People just going on living their lives. Doing their things. Hiking up to look at the view on their day off.

Like he said. Out there, making a whole life for themselves. Not defined by a sigil, but by yourself and your choices...

Which was a wonderful, amazing thing.

Dart took a deep pull of the air and held it deep within her systems.

Then, there was a small, side-to-side motion behind her shoulder as the courier looked over at her friend.

"Thank you. Oh geeze, Bandit. Thank you."

She meant it. From the bottom of her soul. It was an amazing, incredible offer; come with me, get out, I'll help. And like the other one she'd had back in Australia, it was given with no strings. He didn't want anything from her. He didn't expect her to help with heists (haha, oh man, no) or now work for him in return for his help. Whatever she needed. He had his own problems to deal with too, and yet-

"It's weird," Dart admitted, as she slowly let the air trickle out of the corner of her lips. "Er, I'm not being weird, cross my heart. It's just weird. I think that Australia was one of the lowest points of our lives, on so many levels, right? But it was also the best thing that ever happened to us, you know."

A lopsided little smile as she looked over at Bandit.

"So yes. I want it," she said, and her voice was surprisingly earnest, but level and firm. 

She did. For so many reasons.

"I just- I can't go yet," she admitted. She brought up her hand and rubbed at the side of her nose, smearing dirt down her cheek. "I've got to finish up some work here first. There's people who depend on me right now, and I'm not letting him- them- down."

She hesitated. "No one's orders, just my choices. Promise. Swear. Cross my heart."

[Bandit]

Bandit watched his fidgety friend stop fidgeting long enough to see her thinking about the question.

He frowned inwardly -- this shouldn’t be a terribly complicated question, he would think. He could imagine her doing the math, doing the calculations, analyzing the simple inquiry to formulate a way of saying ‘no, I can’t for reasons’.

So the thief’s surprise and honest delight when the answer was a ‘yes, but…’ was palpable. “Really? Well, then, maybe there’s hope for you yet. It’s an open offer, there whenever you need it, yeah?”

Bandit tucked the holo-projector back away.  "I was honestly expecting you to say 'no'.  You've been through some stuff yourself, haven't you?"

[Dart]

In the distance, the lights of the Vegas strip flickered, a constant, shifting mass of color. The heavy band of light pollution snaked across the horizon, contrasting sharp with the dark sky above and behind them.

There was a short twitch of motion behind Dart's shoulders in the silence. Her spoiler had fallen back in increments while she spoke. Now the strip of metal was both quirked and flattened at the same time. The courier tilted her head and peeked over at her friend from under the brim of her helm. Slanted blue optics met Bandit's bright green ones.

He was surprised. Not in a bad way, not at all. In a good one.

Honestly? So was she. Not at what she'd said because these were the thoughts she'd been alone with on a thousand miles of patrols, but that it felt downright wonderful to admit it to someone who wasn't directly involved in the situation. It was if she'd caught a far off scent of all the things she loved rolled in together, like coffee and pine and the smell of the ocean.

Well, not the ocean at low tide, that was a mid-section lurching mess of decaying kelp and worse. High tide with incoming rain, when everything was fresh and bright and touched with a light mist of salt.

A small huff of air escaped her, sounding like a cross between a snort and a chortle.

"I will take the maybe," Dart admitted. She raised a hand and gestured, showing Bandit the tiny space between her thumb and forefinger. "Maybe. A little bit. Just a smidge of hope."

Hope had always been something she held close and tucked tight. It kept you going when nothing else did, for sure.

"Thank you," she found herself saying again, utterly grateful. "Open offer. I'll remember, I promise."

The courier made a crossing motion in the air over her badly burned and ruined sigil before dropping her hands back to her side.

"Aw, a year ago or so, you would have been right, honest. I- I would have said no, but-- I feel silly, I really do, but with all the empty space up here..." Dart trailed off, laughed and gently tapped the side of her helm. Her voice held a light, teasing note before she grew serious again.

"I just didn't quite grasp there was anything else out there but Autobots and Decepticons. That you could pick something else and not be one or the other, you know?"

"As for stuff, yeah. I guess some stuff is the way to put it. Oh geeze... so much stuff that I'm not even sure where to start."

[Bandit]

Bandit cocked his head, confusedly. "... You didn't know that? That you can just pick something else?"

He brought up a hand to rub at his chin thoughtfully. "That.... explains a lot, honestly. It's like how sometimes there's things you take for granted that you know that others don't, you know? Sometimes it's good to make sure everyone's on the same page."

Bandit held up his hand and started ticking off fingers. "Okay, here's a few examples. One: 'Complimentary' means 'free'. Two: If you're quick, clever and charming, you can get away with anything, or at least fake it long enough to get away. Three: No one can actually own another person, and you should stab anyone who insists otherwise. Four: Most human eateries have a 'secret menu' that contains treasures. Five: The most successful people in the Universe aren't actually good at anything besides administration and that's awful."

Bandit nodded at her. "As far as where to start, I usually like to start at 'least stuff' and work my way up."

[Dart]

The courier inclined her head as Bandit began to tick off his list.

Right. Complimentary meant free to folks. Maybe that's why so many people took handfuls of sauce packets from places like Arby's. His second one she actually cracked a small smile at. Three... no, no they should not, and she'd met an awful lot of people lately who felt it was all right to do. The fourth made her wonder just how much time he was spending trying to find a substitute for the Double Down, and five-?

Five just made an awful lot of sense. Dart tucked that one away for later.

Slowly, Dart tipped her weight back so she could look up at the dark sky.

"I guess it does explain an awful lot, doesn't it? That's I guess the least stuff and where a lot of this all starts. I'd never known anyone before Australia who wasn't an Autobot or a Decepticon, you know? Like- I just thought that was the choice you got. One side of the war or another."

She quickly lifted a hand, palm up. A puff of dirt smoked off Dart's slim, pale grey fingers. "Er, don't get me wrong, I respect an awful lot of the Autobots, honest. The good ones are good people, but..."

Dart trailed off and then glanced back at Bandit. "You know?"

[Bandit]

"Dart, ol' buddy ol' pal, there are two types of people in this universe. Good people and bad people. The funny little face you wear on your chestplate or wherever rarely has anything to do with which group you fall into."

Bandit's green optics fell on the worn, ragged, deep-fried Decepticon sigil on her chest. "... that is a face, right? I've always assumed it was a face. The Autobot symbol is a face with a little olfactory ridge and mouth and all. You ever wonder if someone modeled for those?" Bandit inquired, pointing at Dart's emblem. "I mean, the Decepticon symbol just looks like a little angry face, it doesn't look like Megatron at all. If I recall from the holos correctly, Megatron had a mouth."

"I sold my sigil on Vantax Prime. I think there's a fellow using it as a hood ornament on his hoverchariot. I told him it was as image of the founder of the Autobots, Frederick Zapminster Autobot. The buyer either believed me or didn't care." Bandit shrugged and let this strange conversational tangent fall directly to the dirt where it would bury itself and die.

He shook his head. Sometimes Bandit's train of thought was more of a roller coaster. "Anyway. It's just the way it is. Even if, say, Pyrotech was an Autobot for some reason, he'd still be a dick." Bandit picked up that bit of human slang years ago, and it became his favorite Earth word the moment he learned what it meant. There were so many uses for that word, so many people that wronged him could be described by it!

One day, in the far future, far away from here, Bandit would actually sit down and think halfway self-reflectively about why there were so many people that Bandit considered people that wronged him, and that wanted Bandit dead.

This was not that day, though. Not even close.

"That's not to say that one side or another doesn't attract one type of person or the other, mind you. But the Autobots you met in Australia weren't great."

[Dart]

Dart glanced down at her mangled and burned sigil.

"I dunno," she offered. "I always thought it was some sort of weird predatory bird-thing, but... uh, no. I never thought about that. Someone modeling, I man. I guess it could be the case, and whoa, really?"

He sold his sigil to someone to use as a hood ornament? Well that's one way to do it. Dart just hoped that whomever bought that didn't end up one day being shot at by Decepticons. Then again, she knew the wide universe out there likely knew about the Cybertronian war. Possibly far more than she ever did. Maybe the guy who bought it really wanted a piece of Transformer history. She was pretty darn sure that the great and powerful Fredrick Zapmaster would have approved.

Then she laughed at Bandit's use of Earth slang before she caught herself. "That would be something, that's for sure, my commander being an Autobot, but you're right. He'd still absolutely be a, er - uh, a jerk. As far as Autobots go though? I really do know the ones in Australia weren't great, yeah..."

Her gaze softened as she stretched her hands behind her and leaned back slightly to look up at the stars.

"But- I met someone else there who was. Is."

A lopsided, utterly affectionate smile settled across Dart's features. She angled her head to glance down at Vegas in the distance. Light and color, as bright and busy as the alien spaceports and worlds that he had shared with her. Sitting on that dock in Australia, looking out over the water with him, his arm quickly sliding across her shoulders as he pulled her close and rested the warmth of his helm against her own. All the odors that she'd pulled in; the scents of Earth. A touch of old buildings, creosote and tar. Yet those had faded into the background.

Air and sky, rain and dust. The grounding touch of plantlife in a distant rainforest only a swift gallop away into the hills. A whiff of something sharp and sweet that reminded her of the tang of ozone. Dart had wanted nothing more than to bury her nose into the hollow between the grey jet mech's neck and shoulder and draw it deep within her systems. His scent was unique, like every other living thing on the planet. She'd know him instantly.

Tell your boss it was only a headlock, he'd murmured.

She'd never told her boss a darn thing. In fact, she'd never said anything to anyone.

Bandit was a friend though, a good friend. One she trusted with her life. Also, he was now the second one she'd known who'd stripped off his faction sigil. First Max, then Bandit. For kind of... well, maybe similar reasons. Perhaps not.

"That's kinda where all the stuff starts," she admitted to him, bringing up one hand to rub at the side of her nose. Red dirt smeared across her cheek and jaw as she let a touch of air trickle out of the corner of her lips. "A friend. Er, two friends, actually, but I only knew one as a voice on a camera then, not a mech. Floating little camera. I know, sounds weird."

Then she glanced over at the Furby and back at Bandit before she chuckled. "Maybe not to you, huh?"

[Bandit]

Chauncey Pilkington seemed to refuse to make eye contact with Dart, but Bandit nodded as he watched his friend get all twitterpated as she remembered these people she apparently met back in Australia.  

Wait.  Did she have a crush or something?  Someone clearly had made an impression on her.  Well, good.  

"So where are these friends now?  And one of them was a camera, did I hear that right?"  Did she have a crush on the camera?  Bandit definitely wasn't one to judge, but he did have to wonder how it would work.  What kind of camera?  Did she gaze longingly into the camera's lens?

"I just want you to know that you are my friend and I support any romantic entanglements you might wish to pursue with hopefully sapient recording devices."

[Dart]

Dart could feel that bubble of apprehension somewhere deep within her chest.

It wasn't fear. Really, it wasn't, she knew that feeling like she knew the smell of rain. The courier was used to being terrified on a regular basis. Explosions. Guns. Mechs with giant swords who had every intention of killing you if they could catch you. Folks that wanted to turn you into something you weren't as they cheerfully experimented on you, bent your brain to their will and forced you to serve their schemes.

Plastic bags you caught out of the corner of your optic, tangled up on barbed-wire fences in the middle of nowhere.

Even though Bandit was one of her favorite friends out there - er, not that she had many, but she'd put him on the top of her list - Dart held personal things close and tight. Among the Decepticons, anything could and would be used against you by someone else, and this? She knew, if Pyrotech ever caught a whiff of what she'd done?

It was bad enough she'd failed her post and allowed the Autobots get past her in Australia to sabotage the weapon. If he even thought she had any sort of relationship with a certain reporter...

Dart tipped her head back a smidge to look up at the stars.

It felt darn good to just say it out loud. To share this with her friend was amazing somehow. A normal conversation between old friends who hadn't seen each other for a while about the state of their lives.

Then she chortled, and it was a silly noise. Delighted and then embarrassed all at once. "Oh good, thank you for supporting my good entanglements," she said before she laughed again. The sound bounced along the rugged rocks and red desert soil. From where Bandit was sitting, the beam of light from the Luxor shone upwards and vanished somewhere among the dark depths of the Nevada sky.

A small puff of air escaped her nose in mirth. "No no no, uh, no he's not the camera, honest. I mean the camera is an amazing guy too, I adore him. He's a wonderful photographer. He used that remote camera back in Australia to do his work."

Also, she'd learned recently he was a medic, but Dart left that out for the moment.

"Aw, he's actually a reporter," she told Bandit with a lopsided smile. Her tone was fond, affectionate and warm. She shifted her weight, drew her knees up towards her chest, crossed her arms, and leaned her weight forward. Her spoiler tips flicked and then splayed slightly.

"He's an amazing writer. Traveled all over the galaxy, working. Also, he totally gets a lot of my weird Earthisms. Er, is Earthisms a word? I guess so, huh? He has the best grin..." 

Dart trailed off, laughed at herself before she grew suddenly solemn and shook her head.

"I- I don't know," she said to Bandit, her voice filling abruptly with concern. "That's the thing. I don't know where he is now."

[Bandit]

Bandit nodded, showing a small amount of less-than-polite relief at learning that his friend was not in a serious long-distance relationship with a camera. He stopped at her last comment, though, his expression sobering.

"I- I don't know," she said to Bandit, her voice filling abruptly with concern. "That's the thing. I don't know where he is now."

"Well, that's not great. Is this an 'he's a long way from here and he travels so much that I don't know where he is at any given moment' type thing, or a genuine 'I don't know where he is and we've been out of contact for a long time' thing?"

Bandit knew it was probably the latter, as Dart didn't strike him as the type to get so worried about a galaxy-trotting beau going about his business, but it never hurt to be sure.

"How long has it been since you spoke to him last?"

[Dart]

"Genuine," she told him, with a soft draw of air. "The last time we spoke was in Australia. Right before my commander got sent back to the States. Almost a year now? Like-- after I spoke to you last, though."

She ducked her helm and rubbed the side of her hand against her nose. There was a soft rasp of metal on metal as she scrubbed at her grimy cheek. "He had things he had to finish up back there. Work. Stuff to take care of he was dealing with privately. But we were going to meet back here, when we could."

"He loaned me his datapad and everything," she admitted with a little smile.

"But, seriously. I know he's here on Earth, I know it for a fact. I know he had a run in with an Autobot or two, but... speaking to him? Talking to him? Not since I came back to the States. I just didn't dare even message or call at this point, I can't get him in more trouble or have anyone find out, there's too much going on that's at stake..."

Dart's spoiler twitched. "So much."

Restlessly, she rolled to her hip and then rose to her feet. A quick shake of her frame sent dust swirling into the air. "It's way bigger than me and him, for sure. I- I think it's bigger than the fighting down here."

She lifted her foot and pawed at the ground, nervous and tight.

"Have you ever heard that there were places back on Cybertron that reprogrammed people?" she blurted suddenly.

[Bandit]

Bandit thought about it for a long moment.  "There's always rumors and such.  And I figure there's not a government in the universe that doesn't have some departmental extremity whose job it is to mess with folks and try and make them more useful, more loyal, or better."  

The thief practically spat this last word -- Bandit had some strong feelings about the inherent corruptibility of any large organization, but Dart didn't need to hear his manifesto at the moment.  

"Not had any direct dealings with any such mental chopshops or black ops puppet shows, though.  ...why?"  

[Dart]

His obvious distaste made Dart hesitate, even though she knew it was in no way directed at her. Oof, the last time he'd sounded like this was... well, back in Australia.

Then the courier nodded. Bandit had traveled so much more of the universe than she likely ever would. She'd heard similar things from other people, too. In all places, there was someone who took a living being and turned them into something they were not.

Even in the grey area of mind and memory, spaces that felt so real and yet were all in your head.

Hers had an extra special wormhole in it. Not something she liked to think about, but hey, it was what it was.

"I don't think there is either," she agreed.

"I've been running into those rumors," she said after a moment. "They're real, Bandit. They're real, they still have resources back on Cybertron, and they're dangerous. Very dangerous. At the moment, they're sort of... sniffing around for people they can use. Now they've started looking here, on Earth."