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Post by Spinister on Mar 25, 2010 23:15:38 GMT -5
Singe grumbles, "Couldja at least put me on your shoulder? Or will Recoil get jealous?"
Spinister doesn't find anything too interesting in the dumpster, so he straightens, and away the gloves go. He loosely follows Kup, looking up the fire escape and pondering the roofs.
Okay, the bit about saving makes more sense now, but... Pritie gave Kup those clippings that Kup is saying Spinister should read. He reports, voice dull and dubious, "The 'waitress' that gave me the," probably poisoned, "mug wasn't there all morning. An ambulance is taking her away now. A lot of blood. Looks like arterial spray. She gave me a number." He holds up the napkin with the heart and the number, and he studies Kup for responses closely, but he doesn't give his own opinion.
Spinister thinks this is rather peculiar. If she really was a waitress working there, how would she have ended up outside and injured? She should have been inside, working. So she probably doesn't work there, and she was probably specifically sent to deliver that datastick.
She's out front. The note wanted him to take the back door. So he shouldn't be seeing this, or... he was supposed to defy the note and should be seeing this.
Hairsplitter stands on the bench, and he has a choice to make - try to jump and snag a ride on the ambulance's bumper. He's little and light. They probably won't notice him.
But maybe they want him split apart from Spinister, whoever they are. And it could just plain be dangerous.
Explaining what he's doing here would be somewhat difficult to the other Decepticons, but there's just a moment to make a choice. Hairsplitter pulls out his helmet, slips it on, and he makes a leap of faith.
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Post by Kup on Mar 26, 2010 7:44:48 GMT -5
"Who?" Kup asks Singe, confused. He was pulled from just a bit too early to know who Recoil is, after all. Still, he places the little man on his shoulder as requested.
He crouches to pick up the scrap of paper, but stops as Spinister holds up the napkin and looks up at it, scowling at the number.
"I don't like this," he mutters. "How did this manage to be a cold case for so long? The problem ain't lack of leads - if anything, it's too many." Then, finally he looks down at the scrap of paper and that scowl deepens. Since Singe is on his shoulder, the Nebulan can probably already see what's written there, but Kup shows Spinister what's on it any way. Then he gestures towards the floor.
"Dust's been disturbed, too, but I can't help but thinkin' alla this back here is a distraction. We're being toyed with." He hands Spinister back the datastick and says, "Check and see if the same number of files are open."
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 26, 2010 19:45:51 GMT -5
It looks as if Hairsplitter will make that jump. At least, until someone grabs him by the collar mid-leap and plops him back down on the bench, hard. It's the plainclothes cop that Hairsplitter noted earlier, an older guy with a lionesque head, hair (mane?) gray. It's obvious he's a career detective. He scowls down at the Nebulan. "Leave it. It's above your- all three a ya's- paygrade." He sits down next to Hairsplitter and grumbles, "Now I imagine I got less then five minutes before your partners come barreling over to see who grabbed you. That's fine. Got some advice for him, anyway." "Forty years on the force, and I still hate these things. Never could stomach it." He gives a toothy and feral grin, "But noone'll try anything on you while I'm here." If Spinister checks the files per Kup's suggestion, he will find that yes, all the files are still there, though no new ones have unlocked. Checking the original text file, however, will reveal something very different from the original note. ******* I admire a man who uses all his resources, so you get a free pass. But keep your pets in check from here on out. If the old man wasn't there, you'd be short one partner- and not through any fault of mine.
And the case has stayed cold, Kup, because they wanted it to stay cold.
You've got plenty of time to poke around before Dawson's opens. Do have fun.
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Post by Spinister on Mar 26, 2010 20:57:48 GMT -5
Singe smirks and doesn't explain. Either Kup doesn't have a Targetmaster partner yet, or he's named something different. Seems more likely Kup just doesn't have one yet.
Hmm. Yes, rookies are. Spinister is a Decepticon. Factory fresh are cannon fodder. But what's this guy trying to get him to feel? Anger? Sloppy, clouded thinking? Fear? Quavering, cringing, but still clouded thinking? Spinister shows no outward response to the note, and really, he doesn't have an emotional response to it to speak of, just an analytical one.
He does check the files, and he shows Kup the message. Yup. They're being screwed with. Spinister had already figured that out.
Hairsplitter is really not thrilled to be grabbed by the scruff of his collar, but he's depressingly used to being manhandled. He's a gun, after all. Hairsplitter debates pointing out that Spinister can see and hear the older plainclothes just fine from here. But does this guy really need to know that? No, no, he doesn't.
No one will try anything on him? Yeah, right. The Survivors certainly would try something on him, as would any number of the more aggressive Autobots. Also not something the guy needs to know. So Hairsplitter just sighs and replies, "Thank you, sir. How do you take your coffee? And how much do you need to talk to Officer Spinister?"
Because Spinister might really walk off without Hairsplitter. Decepticons are jerks, and Hairsplitter's legs work.
Spinister had been speaking the Galstandard-equivalent that is the lingua franca of Pz-Zazz, which would be conveniently translated into English on any cartoon. The Decepticons know no one seems to have heard of Transformers here and that energon is not a valid currency. Time for a gamble on the planet of casinos. Spinister switches to modern mainstream Cybertronian, rather than a Decepticon dialect, his voice quiet, and his regional accent hard to place, if he has one at all, "We are being monitored." This is obvious, but sometimes the obvious needs saying. "Video-audio, possibly also thermal, electro, magnetic, gravitic, baryonic..." ...gee, Spinister knows a lot of monitoring techniques off the top of his head, and he visibly has to catch and stop himself before he goes on too long. "Remote editing capacity on the datastick, but the bugging extends to at least the shop front. We need to get off the map and away from the datastick."
This is, of course, all Spinister's opinion. This is Kup's case. Spinister is just babysitting. Spinister would offer to have one of his Nebulans wander off with the datastick while Kup and Spinister look for somewhere more private. Spinister would even suggest one of the construction sites that he and Barricade scoped out a few days ago. However, he doesn't want to step on Kup's authority here. In another setting, Kup would be an Autobot, and Spinister a Decepticon, and Spinister would do whatever he could to thwart Kup. Right now, Spinister's more useful to the Decepticons as a Pz-Zazzian cop, and that means doing a passable job of babysitting Kup.
Spinister would really like to sit down and look at some semi-verifiable facts, rather than haring off down random dark staircases, just because they're there. However, the articles Kup has read were given to him by Pritie, who may well be lying by omission. He's not sure how much time they have, or they could consult a library or perhaps buy Plan'chard a cup of coffee, or...
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Post by Kup on Mar 27, 2010 0:13:53 GMT -5
Kup scowls at the words on the datapad. He listens to Spinister's Cybertronian words and ejects the datadisk from the datapd, holding it before his optics as he examines it.
He answers, also in Cybertronian, "A life's hanging in the balance here. I'll explain the details later, but a reporter went missing, and considering when she went missing... well, she's still alive."
"What's on this thing, it could maybe tell us where she is. But... we're being lead around on a leash. Someone's playing games with us."
He opens the fingers of his hands and lets the datastick fall from it. "And there's no way we'll win if we keep following that person's rules."
He returns Spinister's datapad to him and removes his own from subspace, the one he had used earlier to inspect the datastick. A thumb to a button, and he triggers the erasure of everything on the datapad. Then he turns and smashes the device against the wall, destroying it (and damaging the wall a little, given his strength). He gestures to the datapad that Spinister himself is holding. "Might want to ditch that, too," he says in Cybertronian.
"So. A place to talk, not here, and stick to Cybertronian when we don't need to speak to one of the locals?"
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 27, 2010 10:47:47 GMT -5
"I don't drink coffee, son. Makes you jittery. You get jittery, you don't pay attention so good. And on Pz-Zazz, you damn well better pay attention," the leonine cop answers Hairsplitter, tone fairly pleasant, if a bit gravelly, "Nor do I particularly need to talk to your linchpin in person. I could just talk to you, but I kinda like having everyone in front of me for these things. Call me old-fashioned, but eh." He shrugs. "Played too many games of Telephone, back in the day." Nothing spectacular happens when Kup drops the datastick or smashes his datapad. ********** What's a good crime show without the ubiquitous cut scene to give the viewers a hint, eh?Somewhere far across the city, in a darkened room, lit only by the flickering of a few computer monitors, a man smiles before turning away. "Good boys. I like them," he says quietly. He reaches out to someone in the dark, strokes a barely visible cheek. "And you're strong. I bet you can give them an extra day or two, if need be, can't you?" The quiet is broken by a woman's fearful sobs.
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Post by Spinister on Mar 27, 2010 11:23:44 GMT -5
Hairspitter gets himself a little bit back together, standing up on the bench. He observes, "I do have to wonder, sir. Why, exactly, would someone at your paygrade bother to read the file on a rookie and be able to able to recognise all of him, by sight, out of uniform?"
Hairsplitter's not in his armour right now, after all, and he's certainly not in any uniform. Just a weedy accountant outfit. He spreads his hands. No, really. Doesn't this guy have something better to be doing? Or does Pz-Zazz have some reality show called 'Punk the Rookie' going on?
Spinister is not going to object to getting rid of a monitoring device. He can't say he really cares if the reporter lives or dies. She isn't a Decepticon, and even if she was, Decepticons really aren't that big on rescues. Decepticons prefer to see their men escape on their own or rot and die. That, and Pz-Zazz also doesn't seem to put a very big price on life. You can't make a killing killing, here - the work's too cheap.
As far as Spinister is concerned, his duties currently consist of a) follow Kup around and make sure he doesn't do anything horrendously illegal without first bribing the appropriate authorities and b) see that the killer ends up dead before he gets to the station. Spinister doesn't need the reporter alive for either of those duties, so if the killer offs her because Kup doesn't want to play games, that's fine by Spinister.
Spinister is fairly confident that this guy can be found without all these jetslag 'clues'. So fine. Ditch the datastick and the datapads.
Spinister usually sets things on fire when he needs to dispose of them quickly. What's a little dumpster fire between enemies? Singe is on Kup's shoulder right, now, though, and Spinister doesn't want to deal with the Autobot starting whining about Spinister's guns again.
So he just tries to hand his datapad over to Kup. Here, Kup. You're almost as good at breaking things as a Dinobot. Go to town. Spinister doesn't want to use up any of the laser bullets in his Synth & Westron right now.
Still in Cybertronian, Spinister replies mildly, "Wouldn't over-use it." Any code can be cracked, and this isn't even a code, just a language that probably isn't known here. "Which dialects do you know?" Spinister wouldn't put it past Kup to even know something like guttermouth Darkmount. Switching between dialects will at least screw up anyone looking at the patterns and repetition. "One moment. Need to listen to someone."
He tries to press ahead Kup and go track down Hairsplitter. The plainsclothes wants to speak to him, and it's only polite. Hairsplitter reports, "He's coming now."
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Post by Kup on Mar 27, 2010 23:16:11 GMT -5
"Oh, 'Sigma!" Kup exclaims when he's asked which dialects he knows. He smashes Spinister's datapad against the wall, once more damaging the wall a little, and then starts counting off, "There's Ancient Autobot, crumb Iaconian, guttermouth Darkmount, Crash..." he continues on for at least another minute, naming off assorted Cybertronian dialects. Then he rubs the back of his head and admits, "but I'm kind of rusty on a few of 'em."
"That phone number you got. We better try and figure out where it goes to, but callin' it, or even doing electronic searches is liable to be traced." He pauses and looks around. "Not that this is the place to do the talking about it. We could jump through the hoops and check out the stairways for 'em, but I say we hightail it outta here." Then he frowns at Spinister. "Wait." He points to the little man standing on his shoulder. "Don't you got two of these? Where's the other one?"
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 28, 2010 10:38:48 GMT -5
The old man glances over at Hairsplitter. "Please son, use the sense whatever god made you gave you. I could give a tinker's damn about yet another rookie getting in over his head. It's all about this damned case and the fact that some people don't know when to let well enough alone."
"Besides, a three-for-one deal like you all are, that's an asset to the force. They shouldn't be wasting you on sending a message. Plan'chard's an idiot."
The cop stretches his legs out and relaxes a bit more on the bench, and his eyes scan the opposite rooftops. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a thin, metal cigarette case. After selecting a smoke, he offers the tin to Hairsplitter.
"You smoke? I can cut it down for you."
After the Nebulan either accepts or declines the offer, he puts away the case and waits for Spinister's arrival.*
*on Spinister's next post? If that works for you?
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Post by Spinister on Mar 28, 2010 12:04:21 GMT -5
Kup knows a heck of a lot more dialects than Spinister does, but that was only to be expected. Spinister knows a few Kup doesn't, but he's guessing they flat-out don't exist in Kup's reality. Still. That's a nice list of common dialects they'll be able to cycle through.
Spinister suggests, "Phonebook?" Might be an unlisted number, but paging through a phonebook is a lot harder to tracer than an electronic search. 'Phonebook' is actually really hard to say in modern mainline Cybertronian. They don’t have those. It probably comes more across as 'thin sheets of dried and compressed organic plant product bound together and painted in thin ink with the contact numbers of the people who live in an area, also containing advertisements'. (Any future translation issues will probably not be detailed, for the sake of linguistic sanity.)
Singe spits out, voice fairly a snarl, "We're a Double Targetmaster. I'm a Nebulan. My name is Singe." Well, probably not really, but he was Singe when he signed on with the Decepticons, and he'll be Singe until the day he dies, he figures. He's a bit bitter about that. He's also a bit bitter about being lumped in as 'two of these'. "And Hairsplitter was out front before we got that cute little message. Spinister's going to pick him up. You can follow Spinister, or you can head off with me."
Because Spinister has to come back for Singe sometime, doesn't he?
For a cold case, an awful lot of people seem to care about it and are going to rather great extents. Perhaps the case is not so much dead as it is kicking and screaming as people try to nail the coffin shut.
Sending a message? What kind of message would that be, exactly? 'We don't care about this case; here, have an expendable rookie'? The bit about Plan'chard being an idiot is interesting, however. There is always friction in any organization. Usually, the friction is named something like 'Starscream'.
Hairsplitter looks just a bit peaky, and his hands go to his chest, as he stammers, "Ah, thanks, sir, but no thanks. Uhm. Actually, I'm not sure if I even have lungs anymore." He looks down at his chest dubiously. A lot of organs have to come out of a Nebulan to turn him into a gun! Hairsplitter should really check up on Spinister's notes on the procedure someday.
But there's Spinister, rounding the corner of the alley, right then, whether or not Kup has decided to follow him or scram. Spinister doesn't say anything at all and simply approaches the bench, lightly resting his hands on the bench back, where they can be seen. He's just being polite. He does not make the assumption that this fellow has his best interests in mind. That would be foolish.
Spinister's killed plenty of his own rookies in his day, after all.
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Post by Kup on Mar 28, 2010 21:13:03 GMT -5
In fact, Kup's decided to scram. "Phonebook, right," he mutters in Cybertronian, which means that he actually uses a very poor equivilent to 'phonebook' the way Spinister had. "You guys can talk to each other, right?" he asks Singe as he high-tails it up the street in a different direction. "You can tell him where we're going when we get there."
That should make them harder to track as well.
OOC: Out of thread.
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 28, 2010 22:01:43 GMT -5
The old man tilts his head back and to the side to look up at Spinister.
"Well, you didn't take too long, I suppose. I'm not going to keep you long, but just wanted to make sure you knew what you were walking into."
He takes a long drag on his cigarette, then exhales, "There's a couple snipers on the rooftops. Department employed snipers. You got told to try and keep the stinkbug alive, I imagine. But see, this mess? It's been going on a lot longer than the bug's been the contact. No one wants it coming out in the open."
"I've always stayed out of it. But the one thing that sticks in my craw is cops screwing over other cops."
The he shakes out his mane and growls softly before standing up.
"So, I've stuck my nose in. Just wanted to make sure you knew if you followed your 'assignment,' you'd have to worry about your back more than normal." He tips his hat at Spinister. "Good luck son. Beat feet, because once I'm out of sight, they won't have a reason not to follow their orders."
The leonine cop melts into the crowd and heads toward the far street corner, unless Spinister stops him.
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Post by Spinister on Mar 28, 2010 22:36:04 GMT -5
"We 'talk'. Yeah," Singe admits. On some level, he is Spinister, after the binary bond, but Singe doesn't want to talk about that. He just hopes Kup won't ask how secure the transmission is.
The leonine cop is basically implying that if Spinister sticks around, he's going to get shot.
But that's just the implication.
It does sound a bit dumb. Assign a rookie to the case. There's a quarter chance that rookie is already corrupt and will do nothing, a quarter chance that he'll be too inept to even get this far, a quarter chance that he'll be too plain lazy to get this far... and a quarter chance that he's some shining-eyed youngster who thinks he can really make a difference. One out of four rookies are going to get shot!
Maybe the snipers weren't meant for him. Maybe they were meant for, oh, that blonde reptile. Would explain all that blood spray... the stuff falling from the roof...
But if they are meant for him, if they're there at all, Spinister can't take a risk like that. He says softly, "And if I don't follow it, it's a sacking for dereliction of duty. Thanks, sir."
Either way, he loses, but one way, he gets to keep tabs on what Kup is doing, and if he keeps tabs on what Kup is doing, he can at least warn his fellow Decepticons before Kup stoves their heads in. (The same might be said of Kup watching Spinister, he's well aware.) But the other way certainly loses him the shiny 'send people to jail free' badge.
Hmm. Chase the leonine cop through a crowd and... give the reporter more time to die. Try running. These are not the options of a Decepticon.
Jamming Hairsplitter into his cockpit, Spinister transforms quickly - remember all those weird cuts and folds in his uniform? He takes flight, gunning his rotors as quickly as he can to reach that maximum speed of 520 MPH - that's 8.67 miles per minute - a whole mile in 6.9 seconds. Spinister has a permit for flight!
Spinister still braces himself. He could make that shot, and there's always someone better out there.
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Post by SceneMod on Mar 30, 2010 20:15:10 GMT -5
The truth is, it doesn't matter how industrious the rookie is. He's going to get shot anyway. That way, the department can put paid to the attempt to push the case, while at the same time sending a message to those who were doing the pushing.
Which is why the snipers on the roof to take those shots.
They are very, very good snipers. But they were not expecting their target to suddenly transform into a helicopter and rise straight up into the air.
They don't attempt a second round of shots. Instead, the two snipers scatter.
They know better than to stay so exposed.
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Post by Spinister on Mar 30, 2010 21:01:38 GMT -5
They missed.
But Spinister can tell those would have been good shots if he wasn't freakishly fast for a helicopter. Good, as in, would have hit him. He's not sure where. Could have been going for either lethal or nonlethal, but... rookies are expendable...
What in the dickens is going on here!?
It is tempting to think that the message to take the back door and the shots at him are connected. Take the back door, so some sicko has more time to play with him and the games aren't ended too soon. Spinister's already pretty sure that any information the department has on him is compromised, anyway, based off prior events, but is he just seeing what he wants to see?
Ugh, so frustrating!
They could be other snipers. The leonine cop could be lying. But as little as Spinister likes knife fights, Occam's razor would suggest that, yes, the department really was intending on shooting a rookie today, to... probably stop Plan'chard from messing with the case? Probably assigned him elsewhere, too, to try to keep him from messing around. Would fit with the leonine cop calling Plan'chard stupid, if it was something the leonine cop didn't want to get messed up with.
But that's all just a house of cards.
A more easily-angered Decepticon would just drop a remote control-guided fusion bomb right about now.
Spinister just doesn't want people tracing the trajectory back to him. After hitting his service ceiling in a few seconds, he promptly starts to dive back down to another district, where he transforms and hits the road on his feet. Once he knows where Kup's going to be, he'll take flight again - and keep under roof-level.
Out of thread.
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