Arcee
Minor
Token Girl-Bot
Posts: 330
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Post by Arcee on Jul 13, 2007 22:55:01 GMT -5
Arcee, fortunately, has plenty of practice in understanding Perceptor-ese. In fact, just about all the Autobots stationed at Autobot City except for Ultra Magnus had acquired that skill at one point or another.
Magnus, on the other hand, couldn't even always be called on to pronounce Perceptor's name correctly.
Giving it a little gas, she pulls into the lead, just in case Swerve didn't speak geek.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Jul 13, 2007 23:02:00 GMT -5
Nightbeat continues to follow, adjusting his course when necessary. And if he knew that Xaaron had just let slip to Perceptor the bit about Piz-azz, he'd be throwing a fit.
Things like that tended to ruin his rep.
"Maybe somebody ought to go on ahead, check things out in case it's dangerous."
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Synapse
Minor
Do not touch...please
Posts: 380
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Post by Synapse on Jul 13, 2007 23:13:42 GMT -5
"Already covered, Nightbeat."
Synapse coasts on ahead of the group, not for any particular reason other than to perform his present, self-imposed function of scout. Something that he can't really do quite up to par as he'd like as the trans-atmosphere traveling and not-quite-so-regular refuel takes its toll on his efficiency. The spy has called his nodes in to a closer radius to maintain satisfactory control and communication, but that's at a cost to what and when he can see things approaching in the distance. Oh well, Synapse can make up for it by moving forward just a bit more.
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Post by Swerve on Jul 14, 2007 14:36:03 GMT -5
Okay, yeah, most of what Perceptor rattled off went in one audial and right out the other. A mechanic Swerve may be, but that was a completely different system. He gets 'target' and 'structure' and one might say that's the important gist of it. Arcee taking the lead makes the point moot, though; she must speak geek. More power to her, Swerve decides before falling into line.
Yes, he's going along with it. Swerve, cooperating! Don't say anything, now, you might spook the little bugger.
"…What're we looking for, exactly?" He's sure someone told him at some point why they were out here, but over the past three days, he has managed to forget what it was. It's annoying to have to ask, but he'd rather know than not.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jul 15, 2007 6:51:14 GMT -5
Cannonball ...well, to say he was lost was an understatement. He'd wandered far beyond the maps Dead End had transmitted him, and wasn't sure where he was. It'd been some days since he left the swamp, and good riddance to it! By now, though, he was running on about a quarter tank's worth of energy. There was some vehicles far off, and what looked like one near the front. Cannonball clears his vocaliser, changing his dialect functions to be less piratey, and more...Britishy? Is that word? Cannonball decides that it is. There's no one around to argue.
(Well, Perceptor is, but Cannonball isn't gonna ask him.)
Cannonball fires up a short-range, local frequency. "Ah...excuse me...? Who goes there up ahead?"
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Post by SceneMod on Jul 15, 2007 11:27:24 GMT -5
As Synapse gains altitude and moves closer, he can see more of the power station. Though most (but not all) entrances are scaled to something close to human sized, the building itself is massive. The whole thing is made of very pale red metal that gleams in the sunlight. There is a large central tower that curves inward, making it very wide at the base but narrower as it climbs upward. On the top of this tower is a very massive, deactivated satellite dish of some sort. This tower stands over twice as tall as your typical gestalt in merged form. From either side of the central tower two large building wings extend, both many stories high. They are curved, and very faintly resemble, well, wings. Bird wings. The curves both reach a sudden point, and suddenly bend inward as they start to curve more widely, as though trying to protectively circle around the inner courtyard. After the sharp point, however, the roof slants downward fast, and the "points" of both wings end well in front of the main tower and facing each other in an opening wide enough to let the various vehicles that used to come and go from the building in and out. Inside the courtyard formed by the tower and curved walls is a much smaller building, one that resembles a pyramid with a chopped off point. This building stands about three-quarters as tall as your typical gestalt in merged form, and is made of much darker material. Unlike the rest of the building, it's not as reflective, either, and is more a dark, slate grey. Around the tower and "bird wings" are large fields of black. This is not the earth, but what looks to be very obviously solar power receiving devices. There are several distinct roads through these, including the one that the Autobots are currently on. Outside of the solar power collectors is a thinner band of plants of some sort. Four feet tall plants, with knobbly green stalks and large blossoms with smooth concave mirror faces and stringy, veinous backings. A green bulb protrudes from each center. The mirrors are currently focusing light on the bulbs in the center of each plant, but the ones nearest Synapse seem to be starting to shift... OOC: Currently, only Synapse is high enough or near enough to see all of this, but this is what the rest of the party will see when they drive far enough up the plataue to spot it.
Below is a very rough sketch of the building. In the wrong colors. Oh, and the glowy stuff going on at the top? That's not happening here.
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Post by Perceptor on Jul 15, 2007 11:38:19 GMT -5
"Please be cautious, Synapse," Perceptor warns as the green mech slips ahead. "Given the nature of the facility's use, it is possible that it may possess some sort of defense capabilities."
Although Swerve wouldn't know it, it's as much a subtle not to their intelligence as it is simple habit and absent-mindedness that Perceptor doesn't adjust his speech patterns. He's not making an effort to be obscure and indecipherable - "geek" just happens to be his natural language. He only ever bothers making an effort to speak in exceptionally small terms when he's certain that the mech(s) in question will be unable to understand anything more complex.
And, well, he mostly forgets that not everyone has quite his excedingly large vocabulary.
"We are seeking out a facility used to transmit energy over long distances via satellite. Long Haul, Emirate Xaaron and I located a receiving station for such a system in the settlement we initially passed through three days ago. A steady supply of the energy we require may be possible if the transmission facility can be repaired, or recalibrated if it is currently operable. With fuel concerns adequately addressed, more in depth work can be prefromed to determine to what purpose and mechanism we were all brought to this place - and how to reverse the process."
We're going to go find someplace to get a steady meal, Swerve. Then maybe we can all figure out how to get home. Honest, Swerve, he's really not trying to annoy you. Perceptor just assumes that you're clever enough to keep up.
Someone may want to whip out their Geek-to-Normal translator protocol, just in case, though.
Perceptor is getting used to unknown transmissions now, however, this close to their goal, the likelihood that they may blunder into a Decepticon on the same mission is steadily increasing.
// Synapse, can you obtain an adequate visual on the unidentified mech without endangering yourself? // he asks, sending the transmission to Arcee, Swerve, and Nightbeat as well so that they will all be on the same page.
"My designation is Perceptor. May I inquire as to your name, planet of origin, and most recent time-stamp?" he replies politely to the unidentified mech.
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Arcee
Minor
Token Girl-Bot
Posts: 330
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Post by Arcee on Jul 16, 2007 0:12:41 GMT -5
"You wanna run that one by me again?" Nightbeat says, snark dripping from his every word.
"Power station, remember? And I thought you were supposed to be a detective," Arcee shot back.
"Listen, dollface..."
"No, you listen, you reject from a Bogart film festival..."
"Who?"
Fortunately, the other transmission cuts off any further arguments between the two of them.
"No one I recognize," Nightbeat says.
"Me neither," Arcee add.
***
((OOC: for reasons of banter, consider this post to be both Arcee and Nightbeat.))
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Synapse
Minor
Do not touch...please
Posts: 380
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Post by Synapse on Jul 16, 2007 10:28:19 GMT -5
The sight that Synapse encounters nearly pauses his air intake. What a structure, nothing like he has ever seen before back on Cybertron. The band of green around the structure surprises him and he sends in one nodule to get in for a closer sweep.
// Ah, sure thing, Perceptor //
He sets off on a different vector, taking him closer to the new mech up ahead. His second node zipping forwards to note and transmit more of the stranger's details. Where those some sort of plans covering the new mech's paint job?
"Eh, Synapse here. Who're you?"
He makes a brief circle in the air above the stranger before transforming a dozen meters away, his node hovering erratically overhead. Slowly, Synapse makes note of the Autobot insignia. One thing's for sure, he's never seen an Autobot quite like this before. // He's an Autobot, no one that I know. //
Back at the tower...are those things moving?
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Post by Swerve on Jul 16, 2007 16:15:21 GMT -5
"No-one I know," Swerve adds to the chorus of denial. His automatic question is what sort of racer is this other mech, but he stifles it.
He stifles a lot, in fact, looking at the road up the plateau. Roads stringing across a wide expanse of empty desert is an all too familiar setting for him. There aren't nearly enough roads and the colours are all wrong, but it's enough like home that he feels a little more at ease than he did before they left the settlement.
"Could be a worse drive," he mutters eventually, sounding remarkably neutral. So for a tractable Swerve, just add desert. Take notes, Autobots.
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Cannonball
Minor
Me, I'm dishonest. And a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest.
Posts: 470
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Post by Cannonball on Jul 16, 2007 16:40:57 GMT -5
Well, here comes the first test of whether the pirate is good at undercover work...
Cannonball transforms, glancing around, then looking to the strange blue and green Autobot before him, and smiles. "Ah...most jus' call me Hardwire, lads. I come from Cybertron." he replies to both Synapse and Perceptor, resting his one hand on his hip. Luckily, there was no one here he recognized.
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Wreckage
Major
One of the Quiet Ones
Posts: 554
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Post by Wreckage on Jul 16, 2007 17:50:26 GMT -5
All his sensors give him the wrong data. Wrong temperature, wrong lumen values, wrong ambient sounds, wrong humidity, wrong air pressure. He is in the wrong position, for that matter; it feels like he is on a short, steep grade. What is this, then? He last recollects receiving the call to mobilise and readying his response, and it was much colder then. There is apparently a gap in his memory and his chronometer is out of synch. Was he spontaneously deactivated?
Cautiously, he listens for any others who might be nearby, human or otherwise. When he finds no indication of activity in the immediate vicinity, he engages his drive and churns his way up the grade to right himself, the sound of his engine seeming to ring off the nearby rock face. It startles a small organic thing that scurries away and vanishes into a deep crack in the parched soil. What a wise creature, Wreckage muses privately. It got away before he could transform.
If his engine was loud, his transformation is riotous. The cacophony of clanking, clanging, whirring metal parts fills the air for the duration of the shift to robot mode; noisier than he would have liked considering the situation. Anyone nearby – they would have to be outside his immediate sensor range, but he would not refute the possibility – could have heard. But would they be friend or foe? A fine question. One easily dealt with no matter the answer, of course. He readies his swords and starts carefully around one side of the outcropping, staying low and alert. In all directions lies a vast expanse of the same arid black soil that grinds beneath his feet. There are other outcroppings similar to this one, and in a way, he is glad for what cover this one provides; his white plating would be glaringly visible were he in the sun.
He follows the terrain with a calculating gaze, zooming in should something merit the action. Aside from the outcroppings, there is little to draw his interest; the shimmer of heat waves rising off the dark earth obscures things at ground level. To the direction he presumes is south, the sky is discoloured, darker than it is overhead. Little else is visible from here.
// Starscream, sir, // he begins over the radio, taking the same careful consideration with which he has acted to this point, // I have been… displaced from my post. // He would not presume to lead on the lieutenant commander by suggesting a course of action; Starscream is often more tractable when left to his own considerations. Instead, Wreckage's query is a simple one. // Your orders? //
OOC: Wreckage is actually a fair distance from the Autobot party, off in the Desert, but as it's most likely he'll interact with them before anyone else rolls along, here he is.
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Post by SceneMod on Jul 16, 2007 18:52:16 GMT -5
The strange flower-plant-things nearest to the node that Synapse sends to investigate them flare even brighter, then fire thin beams of concentrated sunlight, intense, deadly heat in the direction of Synapse's node.
OOC: No other scene-related changes.
Extra note: Perceptor's player has requested that we skip him for now, as he is not up for posting. Therefore, it is now Arcee's turn. Perceptor may post back in at any time he wants to, and that will be his new position in the rotation.
Finally, though it may be a bit late: Names, log in Nightbeat.
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Arcee
Minor
Token Girl-Bot
Posts: 330
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Post by Arcee on Jul 16, 2007 20:42:33 GMT -5
Arcee takes a moment to commit the new Autobot's design to memory, something she does with relative ease.
"Another one," she says. "I wonder if there's any correlation between arrivals and anything else. Otherwise, it's just random..."
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on Jul 16, 2007 20:46:31 GMT -5
Dames, Nightbeat had decided, were nothing but a major distraction. And that was coming from someone who really didn't get the big deal about gender. All he knew was that he'd spent a lot more time fighting with Arcee than thinking about their situation.
Including the details of the new Autobot. Something was... off, about him. Nothing he could but a finger on, but call it a detective's ninth sense (Cybertronians did have eight senses, after all)... He'd keep an eye on this one.
And then, of course, there was the landscape.
"...Somethin' wrong," he says, after a moment.
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