Bring Out Yer Dead!

[Nightbeat]

Takes Place on Day Four of the Small Plots, after Rodimus and Botanica have left the Proverbial Shed

Well. Even for him, this was a new one. Nightbeat is quite used to seeing dead bodies when someone who looks just like the deceased is still around. Long lost twins, facsimile constructs, make-up, even a fresh paint job in the case of certain body-type sharing Transformers.

But now, here in medical, he's looking himself right in the face. Or a corpse of himself. Or a duplicate. Or something. This alternate reality mumbo-jumbo is almost as insane as the Time Wars files.

This should probably have been done by one of their medical officers. But they didn't have his crime scene expertise. (Committing crimes to solve other crimes totally counted)

He cracks his knuckles. "You," he says, "are gonna tell me all your secrets. And I don't even have to get you drunk first."

[Rodimus Prime]

"Talking to yourself, Nightbeat?" Rodimus asks almost cheerfully, gallows humor in full effect as he drives into the 'spare parts bin' through the secondary passage. You know, the one that's out of the way, hard to get to, and rarely used? Hmmm.

"I would say something about being worried if you answered yourself, but that's kind of the point this time, isn't it?" As he speaks he lowers the ramp on his trailer-section so as to allow the occupant - and what she's carrying - the chance to leave.

[Shanodin]

Botanica exits Rodimus, carefully cradling the dead Xaaron. She crosses over to an empty table and places the body gently down.

At least he no longer seems so doused in Eau de Light God anymore. It's still there- just a bit more subtle.

She hadn't expected Nightbeat to be present, but while he can be a bit grating, he isn't the type to go gossiping about either.

"Just keep in mind that we may need some of those parts later, Nightbeat. Though if there's anything particular to your model that is hard to replace, you might want to squirrel the extras away, just in case."

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat smiles as well. "Hey, some days, it's the only intelligent conversation I get," he chuckles.

The body of Emirate Xaaron, however, suggests certain other possibilities. He immediately discounts the possibility that Rodimus and Botanica killed the Emirate and are preparing to embark upon a life of crime.

He also rules out suicide. Xaaron doesn't fit the personality profile for that type.

He does not rule out the possibility of outright murder and assassination. Xaaron has no end of enemies here, starting with Starscream and working the way down the Decepticon ranks. And possibly himself, if sufficiently drunk and Pee-Dee is in the room. Lousy dames. Always have their ways of getting into your head.

On the other hand, there were no signs of battle damage. No blaster marks or anything so regular looking as the slice of an energo-sword.

"That looks like... some kind of accident?"

[Rodimus Prime]

"I doubt it very much," Rodimus answers Nightbeat as the Prime transforms. "But I wouldn't know what happened, besides the fact that he arrived here practically stinking of Creation energy." He looks towards Nightbeat. "The meteor rocks - the ones from the crater? This body suddenly appeared among them while I was talking with our own very much alive Emirate Xaaron."

He pauses and considers. "And for now, this doesn't go past this room or the medics, all right?"

[Shanodin]

"Not so much stinking now. Just a subtle perfume," she murmurs, tone a shade grim. "It's worrisome."

She nods at Rodimus' caution, agreeing with it. "I will let those who need to know we've another body for resources, but will not go into details about how that body was found. Wedge can decide who gets to know the full truth for purposes of experimentation."

She rests one hand lightly on the body's chest, basking for a moment in the feel of home. "I'll get my kit. Rodimus, do you wish to assist?"

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat strokes his chin thoughtfully. Curiouser and curiouser, this was.

"Live people I understand," he says after a moment. "Because we've got that big ol' Unicron out there and probably not much left of Cybertron. So I'm thinking we're a Plan B for the Plan B. Can't use your own Transformers to fight Unicron, call in someone else's. Shifty and manipulative to say the least."

Of course, this was the first time he'd stretched his particular theories this far, but his mind was purposefully designed to go off in not necessarily logical directions. It usually led him down the right path.

"But if we're bringing out the dead too, it's harder to think there's any kind of intelligence behind this."

[Rodimus Prime]

"He wasn't quite dead when he arrived here, but it was so close that he might as well have been," Rodimus answers Nightbeat's theories. "We're not positive anyone's been dead on arrival, because we're generally not there for the arrivals of the dead ones. This is the only one so far," he gestures towards Xaaron's body. "Although Jazz was arguably pretty close."

Rodimus smiles at Botanica. "Sure, I'll help," he answers her, removing his own small repair kit from subspace. "This is the first chance I've had to figure out what the heck Emirate Xaaron's alternate mode is, after all," he adds, tone entirely too cheerful for the task ahead of them.

[Shanodin]

"It's a valid enough theory you have, Nightbeat," Botanica says as she brings her kit over and opens it. She takes out a tool which should make removing that shiny armour a bit easier. No point in cutting up the material unless necessary.

"But we've no proof of a Cybertron in ruins." Her voice sound rather determined, as if she's grasping to that fact. "We should not assume it is so. That a Unicron passed this way and that we have found a fragment of this plane's Cybertron could be unconnected. There are any number of thinsg which could set a fragment of a planet to hurtling through space."

"What worries me more is that we have no representatives of this reality. At all. The planet obviously exists, but what if evolution took a different turn, and things did not evolve as Primus expected? What if His plans were interrupted?"

She looks down at the body, trying to figure out the best approach, "He'd have one of those brain modules, I suppose. Start with that then? she asks, slanting her gaze up at Rodimus. He knows more about these bodies than she.

[Nightbeat]

"It's a good question," Nightbeat agrees. He's fatalistic enough to think that this universe's Cybertron is gone, but he won't voice that opinion right now.

"Lots of questions still, really. Why have we never witnessed an arrival? And more..."

He gestures to the two bodies before them. "We've identified some major clusters for arrival points. And a few statistical anomolies like Goldbug and Bumblebee, who aren't the same person in the same way, say, you, Rodimus, and the Rodimus of Kup and Arcee's universe would be. But... where, then, do these guys come from?"

[Rodimus Prime]

Rodimus nods towards Botanica. "That's right. Brain modules. Some in the head, some in the chest..." he removes Emirate Xaaron's from the head, since he's already done that once. "Already checked the serial numbers. As for where these guys come from, Nightbeat, this one comes from... a few hours, maybe a day at most... later than the one we already have. That could have just been a hot moment in time."

"That reminds me," he adds, gesturing towards the Nightbeat, "you get the datestamp from that one?"

"Either way, we don't know what happened to his plans, we don't know what happened to the local Cybertron... but every arrival point on this planet points to the center of the pattern, and the center of the pattern points to home. If we want answers, we need to go there instead of waiting for them to arrive here."

"As for why we've never witnessed arrivals... we have, really. They generally seem to happen just when you're not looking, except... I was looking in the direction of the live Emirate Xaaron and the meteor rocks when this one appeared behind him. I had to have seen it, but I don't remember seeing it arrive. One moment the spot was empty, next, a dying Xaaron was there like it had always belonged."

He shakes his head, then leans forward towards the torso, pulling apart the shattered bits of armor to get at the transformation gears.

[Shanodin]

Botanica decides to let Rodimus take lead on this dismantling, bowing to his superior knowledge of the form. She'll hold, pull, or pry as he needs. Besides, she wants to know what Xaaron transforms into, as well!

"It's as if all this..." she waves one of her secondary hands, is some sort of holding pattern, a depository of some such. It makes sense on the theoretical level that if we exist, then there must also exist some reality in which we do not. If this body, if we all seem to 'belong' here then what does that say for the realities we left behind? Are we truly removed, and our fellows missing us, or are we mere reflections of self, copies, echoes regurgitated from the Quantum Sea? Life imitating life, as it were?" She spies a particularly useful bit within Xaaron's chest and begins to carefully remove it.

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat nods. "Another worthwhile question, plant-lady," he says.

He shakes his head. "Still doing data-stripping," he tells Rodimus. He checks the computer he was using for that. Download was about 87% complete. Made sense. He knows he stores a considerable amount of data in his head. His counterpart should likewise.

"That's the other thing, too. Arcee's from earlier in her timeline than Kup, for example, but Kup never mentions Arcee going missing. So what does that tell us? And that's not even getting into the why's of it. What--assuming there's an intelligence behind this, makes it important for her to be from that particular then, compared to when he's from?

"It definitely makes your theory sound more right, Botanica."

[Rodimus Prime]

"It could be that we were each just removed from slightly different variant realities," Rodimus answers. As a veteran time travel, he's a bit more used to dealing with alternate realities than he likes, anyway. He holds back to allow Botanica to remove the bit of Xaaron that she had spotted, then continues, both speaking and working.

"As for whether or not we're really us... well, we do all have lifeforce. Every Transformer has at least small flicker of, well, what makes the Matrix the Matrix. I can't sense it reliably, but the sense comes and goes, and so far it's been true of every reality represented, even those from realities like Kup's, where we were apparently built as products."

The Prime frowns as he uncovers what looks to be a cannon. He carefully removes other parts, shattered and broken, out of the way, slicing some with a small medical knife. After a moment, he goes on, "Now, that doesn't mean we're not somehow copies, since life... that's what life does, is create more life." He looks up, and narrows his optics. "I'm... inclined to think the duplicate thing is... no, that doesn't really add up." He shakes his head and goes back to work, not taking the time to explain why it doesn't add up.

[Shanodin]

"I'd be interested in why you think it doesn't 'add up.' You do have a bit more experience with time manipulation than the standard individual," Botanica says, as she takes a look at the cannon-like part Rodimus removed. She mutters, "Odd," then continues on her work.

"Timelines can fracture off the smallest of things. Turning left instead of right at a specific time, for example, can change the world. If not for the crew of the Axalon, Earth's entire evolution- and our place in it- would have changed."

"I'm more inclined to doubt the living construct idea, if only because so many do arrive dead or near death. This does not make it an less valid of a theory, however. And mayhap there is no rhyme or reason to the selection at all, Nightbeat. Butterfly effect, ripples in time...perhaps something significant happened in this timeline that caused a multi-dimensional ripple, and our displacements are merely our own timelines attempt to compensate for that disturbance."