Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2013 7:47:44 GMT -5
The youthful female voice replied without hesitation. ‘Yep.’
‘And you’ve been given this number along with my name as the direct contact between the US military and the Autobots.’ His voice was military clear and professionally calm, but every single hair on the agent’s body was standing on end.
‘That’s right. Well, not given as per se,’ A gloved servo twirled around the phone cord absentmindedly as she spoke. A kerfuffle made her look up, but it was a group of gently swaying men hollering ‘Why was he born so beautiful?’ as they walked back down to their office block after lunch. Electrocap relaxed her grip on the cord. Primus, she loved Canadians.
‘I kinda rescued it from their computers myself, 'bout three weeks back.’ And now for the carrot. ‘Along with all this other neat stuff too.’
There was a pause from his end. ‘…What other kind of ‘neat stuff’?’
‘Oh, just some stuff. Not much on their tech specs, I didn’t get that far –’ Twirl, twirl, twirl the cord... ‘ – but there’s a lot of information here on certain MECH personnel taking certain working holidays in certain departments of the US military.’
Fowler looked up sharply. Everyone was wearing the same goggle-eyed expression he had right now. ‘What do you want.’ He managed to finally, shakily say, gripping the phone until his whole hand ached with the pressure of it. ‘If you think you can use this information to threaten, or blackmail, the United –’
‘Oh no no no!’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s not what I want at all. All I want is to be put through to the Autobots direct.’
‘And why,’ started Fowler, a warning note in his tone, ‘On Earth do you think I’d just patch you through to – to the “Autobots”, IF they even existed, mind you.’
‘Because I am an Autobot. Like…’ she paused, to consider if she was going to be taking this too far…but then, at this stage, a bit of name-dropping wouldn’t hurt much more. If he knew, he knew. If he didn't, this alone wouldn't help much.
‘…Like Optimus Prime. Ironhide. Jazz.’ Who else was in Prime’s inner circle? ‘…Proooowl. Red Alert? Definitely Blaster. There’s a few. I don’t know who else might’ve made it here.’
Fowler's eyes were as wide as saucers. ‘Uhhhh-huh.’
'And Laserbeak too. I know hir's here,' she growled, rubbing a helpfully-remembered pang of pain near her aft plate. It'd been a party at MECH's base, but no one had been invited. That particular non-invitation from the buzzard had come way too close to irrepairably damaging her dignity.
The agent straightened up a little at the mention of Laserbeak, his own memories not pleasant ones either. Goddamn bird did exactly what it said on the motherfrakking goddamn tin.
‘And I’ve got the identity codes to prove it too.’
‘Okay, well –’ He gathered his resolve at the peak of his inhale, and clicked his pen. ‘Give it to me here, and I’ll see if they stack up against any records our mutual friends might have.’
‘Okay. It’s kinda long though,’ she warned.
A technician walked to the front of Fowler’s desk and showed him the latitude and longitude they’d managed to triangulate so far. Fowler nodded his thanks and turned his attention back to the phone. ‘I don’t mind. Take allllll the time you need.’
‘Alrighty then. Six, four, nine, seven, one…’
He scratched the list of numbers down as they came, keeping an eye on his boys as they zeroed in on the mystery caller.
‘…Four, eight, two, ageipgh–’
‘Wait, what?’
‘Ageipgh. It’s – well, okay, it’s Cybertronian, obviously…'
Obviously.
‘Aaand it looks a little like a…’ There was a pause on the other end. ‘Okay. Draw an alpha sign, the Greek one.’
He scrawled the letter. ‘Go on.’
‘Now turn it about seventy-five degrees to the right.’ The agent rolled his eyes, but turned the page.
‘Then at the top you draw a little triangle, and draw a line from the tip of the top-most tail DOWN towards the bottom of the page – got that? Then you need to draw a small line from that point forty-five degrees to the left – nonono wait, forty-five degrees to the right, sorry, and then draw a line up to connect with the alpha –’
‘Woah woah woah wait.’ Fowler cut in. He’d never been any good in art class, and the baleful scribble his first Cybertronian glyph had devolved into was testament to that. ‘How…just, how many more of these…things are there going to be exactly?’
‘Uh…’ She twirled the cord a little faster through her servos. ‘Around a hundred and fifty. But, there’s more numbers than that too.’
Fowler was quiet. He was quiet for a long while. Finally, he picked up the phone again. ‘…I’m going to have to put you on hold.’
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‘PRIME!!’ The good agent bellowed, his familiar and beloved greeting rolling off the control room walls.
‘There’s just been a MAJOR security breach. Someone’s on the direct line at my office RIGHT NOW, has mentioned myself and some of your bots by NAME and, just to top the icing on this delicious military-wide scandal of a cake, claims to have ‘rescued’ this highly classified top-secret information from MECH no longer than three weeks ago! The only potential saving grace in this entire mess is that they’re claiming to be one of YOURS –’ The word was spat out in a way that was anything but pleased, and Fowler continued on to explain why. ‘– BUT they’re refusing to disclose any further useful information they say they have on MECH unless they speak to someone on your end and recite this RIDICULOUSLY long ident code or something-or-other.’
A loud exhale could be heard. Leaning forward, Fowler massaged the building pressure at his temples with his free hand.
‘Listen. I don’t care if this person is an Autobot, Decepticon or even a crazy conspiracy nut-case at this point. All I want to know is whether or not they’ve got what they say they do on MECH, how soon they'll give it over, and how they know even this much already. What I'm asking is, are you ready to take this call?’