[ti]Ep 3[/ti]Second Star to the Right [Jetfire || Raf || Closed]

[Jetfire]

Episode 3 - Week 3 - Day 3

It was about how he was expecting, given that his expectations were low. It was smaller than the control room, but on the plus side, it had a single terminal with two monitors. Given that Jetfire had spent most of his time on a salvaged garbage barge after leaving Cybertron, this small room looked more appealing to him than it should have normally. It was his 'lab' for the most part, his first one anyway. It'd been empty when he'd found it, and to Jetfire that meant for the taking. Granted, as things were often with covert and resource-scarce bases of operations, he may be shuffled around at any moment depending on what some logistician had in mind for the space. He wasn't a fan of the leftover Human elements of the room, small catwalks, sparkling-sized terminals. Jetfire had left them alone for now, however. He had more pressing matters to attend to than a little redecorating.

While he was occupied on the terminal before him, a vast, magnificent holographic projection of known space was gracefully spinning in the air behind him, propped up by a small floating disc-like object. One thing that Jetfire originally hadn't anticipated he'd be doing after he left home was to be a mapmaker. He was a mapmaker by circumstance, really. He'd simply intended to 'get lost' after the war, and it hadn't occurred to him how long the trip would be or how far it might take him. Only now, with his star chart hovering behind him, downloading into his terminal, did he finally realize the sheer magnitude of the trip he'd been on. Considering the distance between Earth and Cybertron though, it was visually apparent that Jetfire had done his fair share of sightseeing.

While the star charts he'd created might be useful for some future endeavor, it was the exploration logs that Jetfire truly felt most enthusiastic about. It was one thing to be in a place, notice it, and jot it down on a map, but it was much more engaging to actually explore it, to analyze it. Jetfire was positive that he'd found deep space phenomena that even the archives of Iacon couldn't fully explain. Space exploration had been a job relegated to the Seekers once the shortages began, and they'd only been sent to worlds that might've harbored energon. How close-minded the council had been, he thought. Searching the cosmos strictly for fuel and resources was like trying to see the outside world through a pinprick in the wall. It left one with a narrow view, and a distinct sadness that one could not search for even more.

Bless that damn garbage hauler for getting him so far.

And damn Megatron and the Decepticons, he thought. Once the blasted war was finally over, Jetfire had resolved himself to acquire a ship, plug in his charts, and get right back out there.

He stopped on the last line of his most recent log, servo hovering over the submission button on his keyboard. He swiveled around to face the map projection behind him, raising a finger to Cybertron. Jetfire wanted to remember it again, or rather visualize it. From Cybertron, his servo slowly traced along the zigzagging path he had taken, small holographic tooltips popping up over every interesting stellar object or phenomenon he'd found at its corresponding location.

This was going to take a while.

[Raf Esquivel]

I’m not here I’m not here I’m not here.

Raf mentally chanted that mantra over and over as he made his way down the hallway inside the base.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to be on the floor. The kids had been told that many, many times. And he was better than the other two for listening. He certainly didn’t want to be walked on.

But every now and then, he needed to go to a place that he’d been to before, or that didn’t have the safety of catwalks.

Like right now.

Raf was trying to cross the outpost, hoping to get down to where he knew they stored scrap metal, both Earth and old Cybertronian. He’d been almost asleep last night, thinking about something, and suddenly, there right before his eyes, an idea popped up about how to wire his old Game boy so that it might be able to detect Energon.

He knew that the Autobots always needed more, and that they often went on patrols to try and find new sources. But they couldn’t go everywhere on Earth. They couldn’t go into a shopping mall, for instance.

Well, they could, but they tried not to do that a lot.

So what if there were traces of Energon on something in one of the stores? They’d miss it! But if Raf could put together a small detector that he could take everywhere, maybe....just maybe....he might get a hit on something. He didn’t know how strong the Autobot Energon detectors were, but it wouldn’t hurt to have another one, right?

All he needed would be a small piece of Cybertronian tech to put it, something that would already be primed towards using Energon.

So now he found himself taking an unexpected trip into a part of base he never really went. He was being as careful as possible, sticking to the walls in the hallways. It didn’t help when at one point he glanced up to discover there were catwalks here – he just didn’t know how to get to them. He only hoped if someone found him would believe him.

Raf had gone skittering across the hall, passing an open doorway like a small mouse – when the corner of his eye was caught by a sudden burst of color and sound.

He slowed to a stop, looking into the room.

A very tall Cybertronian stood there, looking up at what Raf could only assume was some sort of star chart. There were planets of all shapes and sizes and color there. His eyes took in the patterns they hung in, which ones were close to each other, and which were far. The names were completely unknown to him....all save one.

Cybertron.

“Whoa.....”

[Jetfire]

It seemed so infinitely small, now. What felt like years now passed with the swipe of a servo as Jetfire slowly traced his route across the galaxy. He'd traced the route several times within the past hour alone, and he'd likely continue to do so while the projection occupied the room's vacant air. It was likely all he had now, and all he'd have for a while. The Last Adventure had truly lived up to its name, having carried him so far, only to now be drifting lifelessly in the Sol System's comet belt. He couldn't go back out there without it. Jetfire was capable of breaching orbit yes, but without a built-in quantum drive he'd simply be stuck cruising at sub-light for eons at a time. Though the idea was romantic, Jetfire very quickly surmised that he'd find himself bored very quickly.

All of that was moot however, given his responsibilities planetside. One day though, perhaps.

There was also the problem of finding a new ship, what with Earth's technological development being so far behind Cybertron's. Jetfire would be confident in wagering his ability to build a new ship out of whatever the humans had lying around. Again, moot. But then again, who knows? Maybe the war would go on longer on Earth, and humanity might just pop out a vessel capable of breaching c in his lifetime.

Maybe, but waiting didn't interest the old Seeker.

“Whoa.....”

Halfway between Rhi Orionis and Ixchel, Jetfire's servo stopped tracing his journey. His audials had given a slight twitch as something else pierced the silence, previously occupied solely by the projector's faint humming. Jetfire's optics refocused, bringing his attention to the space behind the hologram in front of him. He searched for a source, as there wasn't a blatantly obvious Cybertronian sitting in the doorway. Still confused, Jetfire was about to give up the search when his gaze drifted over a rather small spec standing at the far wall of the hallway opposite to the entrance to his little lab space.

He slowly craned his head out from behind the holoprojection in front of him, brow raised. It was certainly a human, he thought. The only two humans Jetfire had seen had been clad in full flight suits, and he hadn't been quite able to get an estimate on their heights. Inductive reasoning would suggest that all humans were as short as the one in front of him now, although there wasn't a way to completely prove that statement.

"Oh. Hello there...!" he began, though his tone didn't quite carry enough energy to suggest he was fascinated by meeting the human, it still carried enough of a charge to indicate that their presence wasn't a nuisance. "Apologies, did you need this room for something?" Jetfire asked, his intonation betraying his genuine curiosity. For all he knew, this average-sized human had required the space for some average-human task. This was a human-built facility, after all.

[Raf Esquivel]

Raf’s attention was still taken by the star map, not entirely aware that Jetfire had noticed him. He was still looking at the planet marked Cybertron and looking around to see if there were any other planets that he could identify – or even any other features, like novas, or star clusters. It suddenly struck Raf that it was extremely unlikely that whatever name Humans had given the stars and planets that they knew about, would be the same name an alien race would give it. Besides, he had been told often enough that Cybertron was very very far away from Earth. Earth telescopes probably couldn’t even see out to where these planets were.

His brain zeroed back in on the fact Jetfire had spoken to him, and he gave a metal shake of his head to bring him back to the here and now, back to focus.

“Oh, no. I was just looking for some scrap metal when I glanced in and saw your...um...star map. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt or anything...”

Raf’s attention moved back to the starmap again. Almost as if hypnotized, the young man walked forward to get closer, craning his neck to look up at the projection.

“Is that....are all those planets places you’ve been? Are they all inhabited? How far away from Earth are they? Are there any other planets with mechanized people on it, like you guys? Are there any other planets out there that have air on them, like oxygen I mean?”

Raf stopped, catching his breath, eyes big behind oversized glasses.

[Jetfire]

Jetfire dismissed the young man's concern with a smile and a gentle wave of his hand. "Oh, it's quite alright. I've been subject to less polite intrusions than this in my day."  It was true, and he was simply relieved his guest wasn't someone coming to rob him of his newly-coveted lab space. However, this rather polite intrusion could be spun as a learning opportunity, if Jetfire was careful. For both himself, as well as the human. He took notice as the young man stepped forward and unleashed a barrage of curiosity on the taller mech.

Ah, he thought. A disciple.

From what he'd gathered, spaceflight and extrasolar life were two relatively new concepts to the whole of humanity. Astronomy was a treasured science back on Cybertron, but as time went on it had become less and less prominent, especially after the Expansion. It had been a science on Earth for quite some time, although only recently did humans discover the means to free themselves of their orbit.

Before he was able to answer the boy's questions in earnest however, Jetfire made a quick adjustment to his holoprojector. He reached out and cupped one side of the disk, thumbing a series of buttons set into one edge of the device. As it gave a small, affirmative beep, he gave the object a gentle downward shove. The projector, as well as the projection, both hovered down closer to the floor for the human to see, having had their minimum operational height reduced.

In all its glory, Jetfire's mess of a star map had been made more accessible, although now it was a tad difficult for him to point to things. He knelt down beside it, shoving the projector aside slightly as to not obscure his view of Raf.

He waited until Raf had fired off his last question before beginning. Actually, he waited a full moment before flashing a grin through the silence.

"Well, you're certainly among the more curious and friendly humans I've met on Earth, so far. You being the first, after all." Not an untruth, considering the interaction he'd had as he originally scanned his altmode. "Call me Jetfire, and yes, the majority of these little dots are either planets or systems I've surveyed after I departed Cybertron."

Saying 'Cybertron', Jetfire raised a digit to point to one shiny dot on the right side of the projection, relative to him. "They aren't all inhabited by sentient life, but don't let that fool you. Your galaxy's host to thousands of civilizations, and innumerable forms of life."

"I've been to more than a few worlds I could consider to be analogous to Earth, as it happens. Similar hydrospheres, atmospheric composition, biodiversity. Some were even friendly to me, believe it or not." Ha, joke. Though, not really. "There are also plenty of different mechanical societies like Cybertron out there, such as the Vestials and the Catharsians. Granted, we've historically never gotten along together. Though, as far as the ratio is concerned, carbon-based life still comes out on top. Plenty of organics to go around."

"Cybertronians aren't well-liked by the greater galactic community, as perhaps you can imagine. Larger lifeforms wage larger wars, so it goes. Still, I took every opportunity to interact with organics when I could do safely. Fairly certain my current avatar is still a Povian, for that matter."

Jetfire raised two digits toward the projection, enhancing the zoom a few degrees. "For every planet I've explored, every system I've ventured to, and every civilization I've interacted with, nothing compelled me more than discovering something odd, or out of place; something I couldn't explain."

"And as I'm sure you know, space is an awfully large place. The secrets it holds, both in number and complexity, are unfathomable." It also had a tendency to remind Jetfire of how small it all was.

[Raf Esquivel]

Raf’s eyes slid back to the starmap of their own accord even though he tried hard to be polite and look at the one talking. It was as if the starmap had it’s own gravity, and was pulling all Raf’s awareness into it. It only became more powerful when Jetfire put the holoprojector down low so the youth could see it better.

The fact that Jetfire had been to so many of those little dots was astounding. Considering the distances they must be from each other, the amount of time needed to travel there would be impressive. It was just another way, Raf realized, that Cybertronians and Humans were so different from each other.

He couldn’t help but feel a sudden surge of hope, however, when the mech started talking about plants similar to Earth, at least in environment. Hydrospheres, atmospheres....did that mean they had air? Oxygen-based air that someone could breathe? Someone like him?

Tearing his eyes away from the starmap and looking back up at Jetfire, Raf cleared his throat, and attempted to not look like a complete moron in front of what was starting to seem like a Cybertronian.....biologist? Would that be the right word, he wondered. Planetary scientist?

“If...if you don’t mind, would it be ok if I asked you some questions about the planets and things?” Raf had already forgotten he had blurted a series of questions at Jetfire like a small machine gun, without asking if it were ok. “I...I have a lot of questions about space and planets and the species there....but I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re busy, sir. I could come back later, if you’d rather?”

He studied Jetfire silently, eyes and tone of voice hopeful.

[Jetfire]

Jetfire marveled at the entirety of the star map for several moments, quietly processing the boy's sudden request. For but a instant, Raf was gone, as was Omega, the war, and even the Earth itself. He was back home on Cybertron, but in a different time. Or... no, perhaps it was the present. A vast lecture hall stretched out before the professor's gaze, well used albeit empty at the moment. The professor had been in the process of compiling several charts from previous expeditions, whole new worlds and peoples that had been discovered.

Then, he would be approached. A young scholar, not even several cycles past their sparking, already eager to pierce the unknown there among the stars. 

The war was gone. Had there ever been one?

The professor would do for his new protégé what his own teacher had done for him. An interest in exobiology and astronomy would be fostered, the both of them journeying to lands yet undiscovered, skies unknown.

But just as instantly, the mirror darkened.

Its loss did not fill Jetfire with nostalgia or sadness, for it was not the past he had lost. It was but a glimpse of what could still be found, and he had seen it here, in the human.

"Of course." He cheerfully answered. There was always time for questions. "Ask whatever you'd like, and I'll do my best to answer."

Before the questioning would begin in earnest however, the seeker brought up something that first required addressing. "Before we get to that however, I'd like you to preface by introducing yourself." Jetfire smirked, only the slightest bit of smugness in his expression. He knew the feeling all too well. Discovery first, names later.

[Raf Esquivel]

Raf hadn’t really thought that Jetfire would agree to answer his questions. He had certainly been hopeful, had thought that maybe if he were really lucky, he might get one or two answered in a loose, roundabout way, before he was politely and kindly told to be on his way, go back to doing whatever it was he had been doing before, and let Jetfire get back to his work.

He certainly hadn’t expected the Cybertronian to actually agree to it.

“Ask whatever you like,” he said said.

Whatever I’d like? Raf thought, almost speechless in the sudden, open world of questions he found himself, Where do I start?

Oh, my...right.

Flushing slightly with embarrassment, Raf self-consciously readjusted his glasses, a nervous tic he had developed over the years, smiling sheepishly up at Jetfire.

“Sorry. I’m Raphael. Everyone calls me Raf.”

Raf didn’t add to that – he didn’t really know what Jetfire would want to know about him. He was a very boring and unexciting kid – he doubted this Cybertronian would want to know what school he went to, or how many sisters he had.

“Are you a scientist? You said surveyed, but you also mentioned biodiversity and hydro spheres. Were you looking for something in particular, or were you just there to record what was there?”

The youth suddenly realized there was a lot he needed to know about space, and the technology that was out there. It was like he was thirsty, and there was so much to drink suddenly offered to him.

[Jetfire]

"Hello, Raf," Jetfire formally returned, businesslike yet friendly.

He processed the boy's words quietly, detecting a fair bit of polite reservation on the human's part. Many questions were bouncing around in his little head. Jetfire knew that look as if it were his own, as it had been his own, upon meeting a certain future medical officer back on Cybertron. To honor his old teacher, or perhaps to one-up him, Jetfire committed to answering each and every one of the boy's questions with full-throated enthusiasm.

A moment passed between question and answer.

"Am I a scientist?" he repeated. He knew the answer to that. Too easy, Raf. Jetfire folded his servos together over his knee, happily settling in for a quick lesson. "Anyone who approaches their curiosities with a passionate soul and an empirical eye is a scientist." This was no safe answer he'd spontaneously manufactured for the boy, by any means. The conviction in Jetfire's voice belied no half-truths or convenient lies. He truly believed this, without any doubt.

He reached up to poke his chest with a digit. "I am a scientist." Then, Jetfire leveled that same servo toward the human. "As are you, if your line of questioning serves as any indication," he added with a wink.

Now for part two, however. The old Seeker straightened his posture as he knelt down, wings and ailerons flexing in conjunction with each other. "I left Cybertron without any true purpose," Jetfire began. "I wasn't truly looking for anything in particular. However, when you're aware of the sheer scale of the universe, it seems almost absurd to try and limit yourself to such a small component of it."

Jetfire's gaze had wandered as he spoke, drawn away by the inherent romance he'd felt with massive, empty space. "I wasn't searching for anything in particular, you could say."

"I was searching for everything in particular."

He soon directed his gaze back to Raf and the projection, though mostly the projection for the moment. "I catalogued everything I could find; everything I could explain, and even what I couldn't."

[Raf Esquivel]

Raf drank in Jetfire’s words.

This was a real scientist, he thought. A real one. Not just a junior high school teacher who unlocked the chemistry lab in the afternoons and tried to guide kids through that day’s lesson without blowing themselves up. Or the ones who worked in the places where his teachers took him on field trips, where if you asked questions they either answered in an insultingly simple way as if he was five years old, or else answered his questions with a bored, bland, almost dead look in their eyes. The look that said they weren’t really interested in what they were doing – it was just a paycheck, and they were mentally already home thinking about what to cook for supper.

That was worse than when they talked down to him. It was like they didn’t really have a right to call themselves scientists. Raf used to feel almost betrayed when he first encountered those adults, and would shock himself by testily thinking “If you don’t find what you’re doing fascinating, why are you doing it? Go work in a grocery store or something. You have an amazing job and you don’t even care!”

But that was a very nasty, mean thought, and Raf always felt bad he had thought it after.

Looking up at Jetfire, Raf felt another explosion of questions rising up, “How did you decide where to start? Did you just pick the closest planet, or was there a specific place you wanted to start at? Was it very far away from Cybertron? How far away is the closest planet to Cybertron, anyway? Can you see them from the surface? Is it like in the science fiction tv shows where you look up at the sky and you can actually see all these different colored planets? How can they be that close without affecting the gravity?”

Raf took a whooping breath, filling starved lungs.

[Jetfire]

Human blood needed to be oxygenated at some point, Jetfire had read. In spite of his relative newness to the planet, that otherwise obscure fact became increasingly important as Raf appeared to spill out his intellectual insides without so much as pausing to take a breath. His optics had grown incrementally with each new question the boy tacked on to the query train, finding himself increasingly astonished at just how ravenous for knowledge Raf truly was.

So worried was he that Jetfire cautiously raised a hand as if to stop the poor human before he asphyxiated himself accidentally. He was worried, but impressed.

"Alright then," Jetfire remarked, grinning slightly, relieved that the science train in Raf's brain had reached a terminal.

Now, there were plenty of ways Jetfire could address each and every question. But, they were rather mundane questions. In fact, each could very well have been its own discussion or lecture. No doubt Raf would get his answers from Jetfire in due time, but for now, he had another idea. His smile widened ever so slightly as he decided how he was going to blow Raf away.

For several moments, Jetfire simply sat and smiled.

Then several moments more, as if trying to mentally prepare the boy telepathically.

"Raf, have you ever spoken to dark matter?" Jetfire asked, his expression only slightly smug, knowing damn well what the little scientist's answer would be. He truly wasn't trying to be mean to the boy, however. There was a story to go along with the question, one that would broaden Raf's horizons without a doubt.

[Raf Esquivel]

When Jetfire asked his question, though, Raf fell silent for a moment, trying to figure out what the other was up to. It wasn’t what he had been expecting. The gentle admonishment to calm down was normally followed by someone trying to explain how the answers were difficult, or would be “over his head”. Instead, Jetfire had asked a very strange question.

Had be ever spoken to Dark Matter?

Well...no. He didn’t understand why anyone would talk to dark matter. He didn’t think it was alive....certainly there hadn’t been any news lately indicating they thought it was alive.

“Well...no,” Raf said slowly, carefully. “I know that dark matter is all around us all the time, we just can’t see it because it doesn’t interact with light. But I don’t think anyone has discovered it’s alive, or can hear us...”

Raf paused for a second, then spoke again, looking up at Jetfire, adjusting his oversized glasses.

“I know people sometimes talk to things that aren’t alive or can’t hear them. My papa talks to the television all the time, and Mama sometimes talks to the radio as if the radio hosts could hear what she was saying, but I don’t think that’s what you asking me. So...the answer is no. I haven’t talked to dark matter that I can remember, anyway.”

[Jetfire]

This was even better. Raf thought him crazy for even suggesting the possibility that an obscure, poorly-understood phenomenon could be capable of processing and producing speech. He didn't fault the boy. There was a point in his life that Jetfire would've thought much the same thing. How blessed he was, that nature had gone out of its way to prove his sanity. Raf's entire world was about to be blown, something Jetfire anticipated eagerly.

Still smiling, he turned to his momentarily neglected terminal, beginning to sift through a monumental mountain of astrological data, research notes, and travel logs. Jetfire silently cursed himself for being so judicious with his notation and filing. It would take an uninitiated mind a week or two to find what he needed.

The star chart shifted several times, flashing different sections of what were presumably the Milky Way. They were each labeled with names, albeit in Cybertronian. With a few keystrokes, Jetfire applied an English language program, highlighting the central star with characters he believed Raf could understand.

HD 131399.

A bland name, but one appropriate for cataloguing the nigh infinite.

"I was here when I found it." He pointed towards the system, which grew in detail to encompass most of the available room. It wasn't very much to look at -- a few gas giants, a star, a massive exoplanet. Then, next to one of the gas giants, a blip appeared: [JETFIRE]. That was Jetfire, presumably. There was still no indication of what it was, yet.

"I was performing a cartographic survey of the system when my vessel was struck with... what I later determined to be a sterile neutrino burst. My sensors were damaged and rendered inoperable, leaving me blind while I attempted repairs over the following week."

Jetfire stepped around the projector display, stopping just next to Raf. He crossed his arms across his chest, optics glued to the little dot that had been his ship.

"I don't need to tell you that sterile neutrinos don't occur naturally at such intensities, so of course, I decided to remain and investigate." Did he need to tell him that? Jetfire wasn't all that sure, but he moved on nonetheless. He spread his digits out around the projection of his ship, indicating a pattern stretching outwards in all directions. "I repaired my ship and proceeded with a system-wide full spectrum sweep, and I identified several more neutrino bursts, originating from a point roughly ten-point-six-four solar lengths from the star."

"Given that I could detect nothing on optics, or with x-ray or radio, I tracked it through an analysis of the local... what Human science refers to as the Higgs Field, in addition to neutrino emissions."

A spark lit up in Jetfire optics, coupled with a smile stretching across his face.

"And there I found it -- not by virtue of seeing it, but by virtue of detecting its indirect presence."

He spread his arms out, welcoming the little purple blob that suddenly appeared just beyond the last planet in the system, before the comet belt.

"A dark matter intelligence."