[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]There's no such thing as GoBots [Currently Closed]

[Petrichor]

Episode 3.5 | Week 1 | Day 2 | Afternoon
Location: Omega Outpost One - Control Room

---

Something about assessing geographical data charts was just so therapeutic and relaxing. At least Petrichor thought so. Sure it was tedious and often boring, but there were always just enough outliers to keep things interesting - that and the ever-looming threat over the Autobots’ steadily depleting supply of energon. Between those two things, there was plenty to keep Petra motivated as she flipped between data and the geological maps where the points had been sampled from. She’d been feverishly picking away at the files available to her for the past several weeks during most of her off hours.

It was difficult trying to figure out what could be a promising energon lead from human data since she had no real idea how energon actually reacted over geological periods of time in Earth environments. Varying soils, mineral deposits, water, even pH could change how the crust moved and formed around the long-ago planted raw energy source.

But Petrichor had a theory.

She just needed to conduct some field studies to prove if she was right or not. There were a few target locations she had selected that looked promising - if her theory was correct. One was in northern Siberia and the other was in Australia. Either location would of course require clearance from one of her higher-ups, not to mention Agent Fowler since she would effectively be excavating on foreign soil. She might as well be attempting to make a presentation to convince a board to provide a grant towards research for a dissertation. She had barely even finished her thesis back on Cybertron before she left the sciences for the war… Regardless, she did not have enough to create a compelling argument. Yet.

Stretching her arms above her head, Petra sighed and stood to her peds, shaking out her limbs before leaving her quarters. She absently scanned through the data pad she took with her as she headed towards the control center to help out with her afternoon rotation of duties. It wasn’t until she was halfway down one of the main halls that she saw the tiny, bright orange sign reading, “Caution Wet Floor”.

She blinked. Optics slowly scanned the polished, wet concrete towards the source where a woman was…mopping? Petrichor knew Miko got assigned mopping a lot - often as a form of punishment and/or to keep her busy (something she usually abandoned as soon as whoever was her taskmaster turned their back). But this woman was definitely not Miko, with her taller, more mature figure, reddish-blonde hair, and the fact that she was actively mopping. She also seemed…familiar…somehow. Petra’s optics narrowed.

Wait a minute…

“Oh scrap!”



(Permission from Ren for implied Miko behavior.)

[Cassandra Cassidy]

If Petrichor was surprised to see Butch there, then Butch was just as surprised as she was. The cleaner had just finished a missed spot on the Control Room floor, left after her hasty departure hours earlier. The embarrassment at making one of the flying Autobots - Crescent - reminisce over sadder times had made her flee the room. She hadn't wanted to trigger anything else upsetting, and thus, she made haste to other rooms to clean. That meant her inspection of the Control Room to make sure she'd cleaned everything hadn't happened as she liked.

Butch now stared up at the baby blue Autobot, an uncertain, "Uh..." on her lips. In her hands were a pair of headphones just removed from her ears, Butch having listened to a documentary as she worked. It was to get her mind off of her earlier faux-pas, but also had the side-effect of blocking out footsteps she should've been listening for. Now she eyed Petrichor with another look of embarrassment, clearing her throat and straightening herself to try and brush off the awkwardness.

So you weren't a hallucination after all....

"Hello," Butch said. "I, uh...didn't hear you come in. I'm just doing some cleaning here. Name's Cassidy - Cassandra Cassidy. People call me Butch. You, uh...you need something?"

[Petrichor]

Petrichor was somewhere stuck between one: acting casual like this was totally normal and she hadn’t left this woman - this Cassandra/Butch - at the scene of a crime potentially thinking she was losing her mind, two: shrieking and retreating to her room like a little glitch, and three: just continue to stand there staring stupidly. It was looking like option three was going to win out before she finally kicked herself back into gear and went with option four: apologize.

And perhaps an introduction - a proper introduction. Is option two is still on the table?

“U-uhm. N-no. I don't need anything. Uhm...Y-You’re that cleaning lady, right? From before? I…I am so, so sorry about all that. Ahah. I kind of…panicked? And well, you see, there was this neutral mech? And…and…”

She sighed and palmed her face, feeling the heat behind the metal growing to alarming levels. Her fans had even kicked on. This was getting her nowhere.

Get it together, Petra!

Sheepishly, she raised her head and gave a wavering, incredibly unsure smile that probably looked more like a pathetic wince.

“I’m Petrichor. Cassandra, you said, right? Or Butch? Umm, you are not…you-you are unharmed from those events, right? You are okay?”

She started to lean forward to get a closer look, cyan optics flickering with concern behind her lightly tinted amber visor before she caught herself and returned to a less intimidating stance. Primus, she was so nervous! She hoped Cassandra was alright. She hadn’t meant to cause her physical harm, just…doubt her sanity…temporarily… Primus, she was such a bad person.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

" ... I kind of…panicked? And well, you see, there was this neutral mech? And…and…”

"And you have nothing to worry about. It's fine," Butch said, holding up her good hand with the palm out towards the robot. "You're a giant robot. You probably needed to maintain cover. All is forgiven."

She felt bad for the Autobot. It was probably just as horrifying to be found near a crime scene with police on the way while trying to keep secret. The "neutral mech" she mentioned Butch had a few questions about, but didn't voice them. It seemed this 'Bot was of a good, apologetic sort, and was clearly sorry for any discomfort she had caused the cleaner. Butch wasn't going to hold anything against her for what had transpired.

"You can call me either," Butch clarified. "'Butch' is just a nickname. Cassandra is what my mother and father called me. Whatever you're more comfortable with is fine. And no, I'm not hurt. A good drink and a good sleep fixed that for me."

She smiled encouragingly up at Petrichor. She was going to leave out the part where she was nearly-blackout drunk from drinking a horrible cocktail and had to be driven home by a sentient truck. As long as Petrichor's fears were assuaged, that was good enough for Butch.

"What do you do on base, Petrichor?" Butch asked, trying to change the subject. "That is, if you don't mind me asking.... I have a habit of being too curious, at times."

[Petrichor]

She wasn’t totally convinced, but if Butch said she was fine, then Petra wouldn’t push her. She allowed herself to relax a tiny bit and settled into a more comfortable stance. She still felt pretty awkward though - shifting from ped to ped, not quite making eye contact before flickering over to a wall or a crack in the cement.

“Oh, no, not at all. You’re fine. I uhm - well, I’m a scout. More of an energon scout, really. I don’t do a whole lot of reconnaissance work - I mean, I do - but it’s different here kind of? Since we’re technically always doing reconnaissance when we leave the base pretty much? That's why I was near that farm house you were at; I was following an energon signature and it turns out it was another Cybertronian, and then you showed up and I turned into a car and he turned into a plane and...I'm getting off topic.”

She wasn’t really sure what to do with her servos. Should she have them clasped behind her back all professional like? Or servos on hips? No, that didn’t feel right… Fidgeting with them, cycling through a few different positions before just crossing her arms, datapad clasped to her chassis.

“I mostly just do what’s asked of me.”

A brief, uncomfortable pause before she blurted, “what about you?”

Stupid! You know what she does!

“I mean, you do custodial work right?InVegas?Forthatonecompany?That’scool.”

Petra scrambled to recover, the last bit coming out in a messy rush.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

"Energon scout, huh?" Butch asked, laughing gently. "That must lead you to a lot of interesting places. No, you weren't getting off-topic."

Petrichor was a nervous one, that was for sure. Butch felt a little bad for her. Perhaps it was better if Butch didn't mention that she had reported Petrichor's appearance and license plate to the police. At the time, it was only proper procedure to report a suspicious vehicle at the site of a body being found. Who was to blame her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, only doing her job?

"Yeah, I work for a cleaning company. What Stays In Vegas Cleaning," Butch confirmed. "We do a lot of hoarding situations and biological cleanup. What you stumbled across was supposed to be a routine job of the former. Trust me, I was just as shocked as you were that there was someone dead there. Usually it's after they've been found is when I and my colleagues are called in to work."

The cleaner frowned a little. "Would it make you more comfortable if I found a catwalk to speak from?" Butch asked. "I must seem very small and hard to look at, from up there."

[Petrichor]

Petrichor nodded. Yes, her work had allowed her to travel to some pretty fantastic locales – areas where no one had been to in a long time, if ever. That had always been special for her, wondering if perhaps she had been the first to a particular spot. The chances were low of course. Their planet was old and their race long-lived. If an area hadn’t been set ped upon, then it had at least been scanned from space more than likely. It was still a cool thought though.

“Oh, um, no, I can see you fine. If anything, I feel like I’m looming and don’t want to make you uncomfortable. But it would probably be better to move out of the hallway where we are less likely to block traffic. And I don’t want you to get accidentally squished. It’s never happened, but why take chances right? We could go to the rec room – maybe not there actually. There can be a bit of a crowd - as much of a crowd as we get with our numbers anyway - in there this time of day. We could go to the control room instead…or my room is right down that way,” Petra turned slightly and pointed back down the hall from the direction she had come. “Wherever you’d prefer is alright for me.”

She paused, looking from Butch to her mop and wheeled bucket then back to her.

“That is, if you aren’t still working? I can help you finish if you want…?”

There was definitely more cleaning supplies in one of the makeshift storage closets close by. Petrichor had had to grab some stuff from there to occasionally sweep up the dirt that inevitably accumulated on the floor of her quarters. Now that Unit 74 was on base, Petra could always ask him, but felt like she was responsible for her own room and didn’t want to impose on the minicon. It just didn’t seem right to have someone else cleaning her space. Communal spaces, sure, but her room? Nah. Besides, she needed something to help her pass the time while she was stuck at base. Granted, hopefully that would change after she presented her proposal to the higher ups.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

Petrichor had a point. Though she hadn't seen much traffic that particular afternoon, she had noticed the amount of dirt and tracks left on the control room floor. It was another nail hammered home that she was in an active military base, and was practically an ant compared to the robots. Talking in a main area in the base would only hold up people, and the rec room didn't sound like a good idea, either.

Butch was about to accept the offer of going back to Petrichor's quarters when the robot mentioned cleaning. Butch blinked, looking down at her mop. "Oh, sure," she said. "I could use the help. I'm almost done in here, but maybe you could help cover what I haven't mopped yet? It's less than half of the room left. If you have a mop in your size, that would do the trick...."

Where did Cybertronians even get mops in their size? Or brooms? Or other cleaning supplies? Well, that last one could be barrels of industrial cleaner, given they were a military base. The other tools, though? Butch had to wonder if they were specially-made, whether by the Autobots' human allies or themselves. What would they be made of? Wires and pipe instead of wood and bristles for the brooms? Plastic and strips of tarp instead of yarn for mops?

[Petrichor]

"No problem!"

Petrichor was more than happy to busy herself by helping out. Having something else to focus on made her feel less awkward in most situations. She turned and walked a few paces down the hall to the storage closet and pulled out what could only be described as a Cybertronian-sized mop. Someone – Petra wasn't sure if it was Fowler's team or one of their own – had at one point rigged together a long pipe and some kind of shredded foam and nylon material to create a handle and mop head. It looked like half of the end of an automatic car wash brush arm. Heck, maybe that's what it was. Petra had no idea. The "bucket," on the other hand, was just a big old oil drum on wheels with a squeeze lever to wring out the excess water. The stupid thing never seemed to roll properly and always sloshed water, but it got the job done.

Quickly filling the 'bucket,' Petrichor added a splash of detergent and swirled the 'mop' around to mix the solution, before wrestling it out of the closet and squeaking it over. Water inevitably pooled on the floor when the lame wheel caught, making the whole thing jerk, but Petra simply rotated it so it rolled a different way and kept moving like she'd done this plenty of times. Which at this point, she had.

"Right! Umm, where all do you have left? Maybe I can start from one end, and you can start from the other, and we can meet in the middle? Unless there's a different way you go about it? You are the professional, after all. I'm just a cleaner by hobby. Ha!"

She snorted at her own joke, but then covered her mouth.

That was a stupid joke.

Glancing down at Butch, Petra tried to gauge her reaction. Petra was never very good at humor. Most of the things she thought were funny, others just looked at her weird. At least, that's what it felt like when she tried to be funny anyway, but maybe she was assuming what others were thinking too much. Great, now she was overthinking everything.

[Cassandra Cassidy]

Petrichor's joke raised no eyebrows nor brought forth any groans of displeasure. In fact, Butch didn't seem to react much to it all. She simply said, "Sure, we can meet in the middle," and got to work, starting at where she had left off in cleaning. It was close to the middle already, meaning that between her and Petra, there wouldn't be much left to mop at all.

Butch worked in a comfortable silence, allowing Petrichor the chance to talk. Any conversation would be met with mm-hms and uh-huhs, the cleaner focused on the task at hand. She worked with practiced skill, carefully soaking up any grease spots or dusty patches in a minute. There were a few stubborn spots that had to be worked over, but Butch got them cleaned and sparkling all the same.

"So tell me about yourself, Petrichor," Butch said when they finally met in the middle. "Have any hobbies? What's a Cybertronian like yourself do in your spare time, if you have any?"

[Petrichor]

The silence while they worked was uncomfortable; at least, it felt that way for Petrichor. Should she be striking up conversation, or did Butch prefer working in silence? Should she ask? But then, wouldn’t that be interrupting the silence that the human woman might prefer to work in?

Stars, why is this so hard?! Why do I have to overthink everything?!

A few times she opened her mouth to speak, only to close it and chide herself on whatever dumb question she had been about to ask before her thoughts circled back around to another question she wouldn’t ask, stuck in a terrible cycle. An ex-vent of relief left her when she realized she had spent the whole time cleaning, worrying about chatting only to find themselves done and Cassandra breaking the silence for her.

“Oh! Uh, not much to know really. Um, I-well, I think your planet is really cool - super fascinating. I haven’t gotten to see a whole lot of it yet, but I’m hoping that changes soon after my presentation. Oh! Yeah! I’m working on a little side project you could say, so I guess that counts as a hobby? And…I do a lot of reading?”

Petra intentionally tried to not go down the rabbit hole that was her brain on Earth’s geology. She didn’t want to put Butch to sleep before they even got chatting. Speaking of chatting, they were still standing in the middle of the hall. Thankfully, no one else had needed to squeeze by yet, but that could change at any moment.

“Would you…err, I mean I don’t want to assume, but…would…would you like a lift?” She quickly tacked on a, “don’t worry I’ve transported a person before,” to assuage any potential concerns Butch may have towards Petra being capable of handling humans.

Right. Cause that totally didn’t sound weird after saying it out loud; and hanging out with Sgt. Walker one afternoon totally counts as being experienced. 

[Cassandra Cassidy]

The Autobot's nervousness didn't faze Butch. In fact, the cleaner kept cleaning, nodding along as Petra talked. "Reading is good," she commented, dunking her mop into its bucket and swirling it around. "There's a lot on Earth to read about and read of. Hundreds of thousands of books in different languages to keep you busy. If there's something you're interested in, there's bound to be a book about it. I myself am quite fond of National Geographic - it's an excellent magazine to read."

Petrichor then asked, with no small amount of stuttering, if Butch needed a lift. How thoughtful of her, even though the two didn't know each other very well yet. "If you want to go on a drive after, sure, why not?" Butch said, smiling up at Petrichor. "For lifts in general, don't worry. Commander Avalanche has agreed to ferry me back and forth between the base and my apartment. It's still kind of you to offer, however."

The cleaner began to wheel the barrel of water away from the main floor. "I'm just going to dump this and we can go on from there!" she called back to Petrichor. "Do you see anything we might've missed? Your eyes are higher up than mine!"

((Mention of Avalanche approved by Wintermist.))