Those Dam Tourists

[Blurr]

OOC: Month 5, Week 1, Day 3. Hoover Dam. Open.

---

Blurr stops at the car park-slash-observation point on the road down to the dam itself to let Haywire out so the Nebulan can raid the gift shop for a snack and a drink. While Haywire disappears indoors, Blurr transforms to get a better view of the gorge and the bustling two-lane affair crossing the top of the dam. He looks up to the bridge that redirects non-tourist traffic, as well, one hand on his hip, the other lifted to shade his eyes from the sun. He makes a noise like an appreciative whistle at the grand scale of the span.

"Sure is something," he says – and doesn't continue on an evaluation only because Haywire yoo-hoos from the old-fashioned 2x4 porch of the gift shop.

"Hey!" he calls, grinning, bottle of soda in one hand and bag of snacks hanging from his elbow. "They have a machine up here that imprints pennies as souvenirs!" It's so RETRO! "I'm gonna get us a few!" At this, Blurr blinks and tilts his head.

"But that doesn't make much sense," he says, "since it'll cost more to make the souvenir from the penny than the penny is worth so you lose money paying for the penny and if you're paying for a souvenir why not get a bigger souvenir because that would make more sense don't you think? You think so don't you?" He turns slightly, peering upward and over his shoulder at his other tour buddy.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme wonders how he was roped into a mission to... be a tourist at the Hoover Dam. What are they even trying to accomplish here? (No, he does not know what he's just a diversion. Plausible deniablility is a good thing.)

Privately, he suspects that they just want to keep him away from Hook. His claws clench at the thought.

He has his Earth mode by now. Omega Supreme thinks it is bizarre, and he yearns for the day when disguises were for lesser Autobots.

Even Blurr is still Cybertronian, right?

He looks down at the gorge, mostly because Blurr seems to be doing it, too. Something? Something where Decepticons might attack.

Then Haywire completely baffles Omega Supreme. He stares blankly at the Nebulan and then finally rumbles, "Value: sentimental."

Something he only understands in theory, not practise.

[Blurr]

Blurr tried on an Earth car mode, very very briefly. (It was still an age by his standards.) As it turns out, the friction of wheels on the roadway was just too much for him to stand. He can't imagine how anybody likes the way it drags on them and slows them down.

"Oh," he says of the penny issue. "I suppose that makes a little more sense than it did before but it still seems kind of silly to me because pennies are so small and they're too small for me even really but–"

"It's sentimental," Haywire bellows over Blurr's chatter rather than try to shut him up, "like Omega Supreme said! Just go with it, huh?" He is quite conscious of the attention his Autobot friends are garnering, as well as the stares he receives for just hollering at them as he does. He has to try hard not to bask in it or gloat, because it sure is nice to look awesome. "I'll get a few more for some of the others! I'll catch you two up, okay?"

[Omega Supreme]

"Decoration: interior?" Omega Supreme suggests dubiously. You know, tape the penny to his control panel inside or hang it off Blurr's rear-view mirror or something.

Haywire is sort of reminding him of Scavenger, before Scavenger went bad, at least in the sense that Haywire is way too excited over... junk.

[Blurr]

"Okay okay," Blurr says, waving at his partner, then turning to look down at the dam again, one hand shading his eyes. For a long moment – that is, a whole three seconds – his gaze drifts to the bleached stone above the waterline on the reservoir side. It's sort of sad to see how the water level has dropped.

Then he turns back to the pedestrian-crowded roadway atop the dam and squints speculatively.

"Looks like we should both be able to head down there and check it out so let's go check it out because it isn't every day we get to check out Hoover Dam and it isn't every day both of us can go somewhere right?" He grins at Omega Supreme. "Haywire can't get into too much trouble while we go on ahead." And if he does get into trouble, Blurr will be there in a blink.

[Omega Supreme]

Omega Supreme turns a dubious look at Haywire when Blurr says that Haywire can't get into too much trouble. Dourly, he expects Dr. Arkeville, Surgeon General, will feed Haywire a mind control Ding-Dong while Blurr and Omega Supreme are away or something.

He just moves to follow Blurr to go check out the dam, somewhat watchful of the surroundings around him.

Perhaps he should say something, but Omega Supreme fails hard at this conversation business.

[Blurr]

That's fine, Omega; Blurr can make enough conversation for ten Autobots! And be in enough places for ten Autobots while he does it, as he zips from one spot to another around his lumbering companion while chattering unceasingly about his observations and what he's read of this particular Hoover Dam and its history. More than one fellow tourist, considerably less capable of following Blurr than even most Autobots, appears to get dizzy or motion-sick trying to watch him dart back and forth. One observant child even makes a comparison to her mother of a hummingbird.

Blurr slows down a little after that.

Haywire, meanwhile, pocket full of souvenir pennies to be distributed later, trails after the two Autobots at a lazy amble so he can get in some snacking on this slice of quiet time. He still listens to Blurr's side of the conversation – possibly the only side, Haywire thinks privately, since Omega sure doesn't seem the chatty sort – with half a mind, and chuckles at the nearly uninterrupted stream.

[Omega Supreme]

After a long moment, Omega Supreme simply judges, "Construction: adequate."

Look, the Constructibots would have totally done a better job, and they rather spoiled Omega Supreme. How could the Hoover Dam live up to their work?

One of the tourists jeers, "Hey, look at the fruit salad!"

[Blurr]

It's a good thing Blurr doesn't know enough about construction to debate the merits of the dam's design with Omega. It could get a little frustrating for the speedster.

"Well consider how small humans are since they're pretty small compared to us and compared to the dam which is big even for us so that's pretty big and then you consider the scale they had to work at and what a phenomenal scale it is and they did all this building before they had the kind of tools they have to build with now and it's even more impressive," he says. It really is incredible what they achieved those decades ago in constructing this modern wonder.

Little guys like us have that sort of knack for ingenuity, Haywire says wryly, more amused with the inadvertent condescension than anything else. Blurr pulls an abashed face his partner can't see. Haywire does have to admit, though, that he's impressed by the enormity of it – and it's even bigger for him than for Blurr, who comes to a full stop in befuddlement when he hears "fruit salad".

[Omega Supreme]

"Context," Omega Supreme mutters, almost dismissively. Context is important, but he doesn't want to care about it. Of course the Constructibots can build a better dam than humans. They have better tools and more experience. Context diminishes what they did, and he doesn't want that.

He also doesn't understand the context of 'fruit salad'. Omega Supreme was deployed on Earth for a long time, but unlike, say, Tracks, he never learned much about the natives.

The tourist continues, "That looks so neon and Playskool."

[Blurr]

"Neon?" Blurr echoes, spotting the heckler and still looking rather baffled. He's more in with human culture than Omega, but even he isn't quite connecting the references. Then again, he never had much cause to mind commercials for Playskool sets. "But neither of us is wearing neon and I don't think we'd need to wear neon since we stick out pretty well without it and adding neon would just be tacky." Imagine Blurr with futuristic neon highlights.

…Okay, so maybe that could look sort of cool after all.

Why don't we just get you a lightcycle alt mode then? Haywire muses. Blurr is aghast at the thought.

No way no way no way am I wearing anything with wheels ever again ever! Haywire just muffles a laugh at his partner's expense as he finally catches them up.

[Omega Supreme]

"Gogdamn Jegus," whines the tourist, who is quite possibly named Henry Masterson, "of course you're neon," totally schooling the robot and showing him what's what, he thinks. "It's so unrealistic! You aren't even good colours, like black and grey. And why are you dweebs so blocky? Can't you even put effort into looking real like those other ones?"

Omega Supreme stares, completely baffled and mystified.

[Blurr]

Blurr looks at Omega with a similarly mystified air, one brow low over his eye, the other arched nearly to the seam of his helmet. It's like this human just can't stand their colours at all, and that's a shame. Blue and lavender is a pretty nice scheme if one asks Blurr, and Omega does look… rather more festive than he used to, but it doesn't seem all that bad. Blurr may also be biased; he comes from the reality of fuchsia helicopters and magenta RVs.

"Blocky and black and grey?" he asks, crouching to get a closer look at this rather pithy fellow. "I don't know," he goes on, "I can't really just make myself less blocky since that sounds like a rebuild and I'm no engineer so I can't really rebuild myself or anybody else for that matter. Can you change your body to make it less short?" While the inappropriate questions are flying. Haywire takes in the scene with a grimace.

[Omega Supreme]

Henry Masterson is a nerdy, disreputable-looking fellow with indigo hair that may or may not be natural and the pale skin of someone who spends way too much time playing video games. His nose is sharply hooked and may or may not have been broken at some point. He says smugly, "I am a master of haxx, you overclocked luser."

The 'friends' he is with on the tour seem to be desperately trying to pretend they don't know him.

Omega Supreme's expression sours, and the Guardian finally reaches a verdict, "Conversation: pointless." He tries to grab Blurr by the elbow to go... dunno, to the other end of the dam, he supposes.

[Blurr]

Blurr is the sort of guy who's frustratingly, maddeningly difficult to catch or hit when he can see it coming. He just moves too fast. But he's staring at the heckler in such consternation that the next thing he knows, there is a very large hand belonging to a very large Autobot named Omega Supreme taking hold of him by his elbow.

"But he says he can hack himself apart!" Blurr protests, somewhat sarcastically, as he's led away. He's heard of superhumans, but they're normally impervious to injury as he understands it. Wilfully dismembering themselves is something he's never heard of from humans, super or not. Haywire follows the robots, pausing only long enough to fix Henry with a roll of the eyes. He might be talking nonsense, but he's using an obnoxious tone and Blurr's irritation with it is bleeding over to his partner, who's annoyed with it in his own right.