No Time Like The Future

[Kup]

Kup has commandeered the meeting room on the office/meeting/lounge floor, the floor above medical and below the roof. The door, an old-fashioned hinge door (motion-sensitive 'swish' doors are a luxury they haven't had time to build for themselves yet) is currently shut, and on it a sign saying, "Knock First!" in readable-but-slightly-sloppy Cybertronian has been hung. Kup himself is sitting in one of the chairs, his feet propped up on the table, looking thoughtfully over a map of the city that's been hung on one wall.

From his whole casual attitude, one wouldn't get the impression that he's waiting, or even that he's a bit wary about the talk to come, but so he is.

[Oracle]

Having been slightly intrigued by Kup's radio call, by the time Oracle arrives at the room where she was told to meet him, her curiosity has been roused about what he wants to talk to her about.

Then she sees the sign on the door and can't quite prevent the annoyed curling of her lip. Even if she doesn't have anyone to blame but herself for the current situation, focusing enough to read something static like that sign is a pain in the aft. After a moment though, she parses it well enough to follow directions, and raising a hand, knocks on the door.

Hearing Kup's voice from inside telling her to enter, she opens the door and lets herself into the meeting room, then stands slightly uncertainly looking at him. She's not entirely sure if she should seat herself or stay standing, and waiting for an indication one way or the other seems the safer bet. She doesn't know how long she's going to be here anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

---

OOC: Posing of Kup with permission of player.

[Kup]

Kup keeps his feet propped up casually and nods his head towards the door. "Shut the door behind you," he says, tone calm and mellow, as it sometimes is, but phrased in a manner that makes it clear: he is not making a request.

Once the door is shut, Kup gestures to one of the other seats and says, "You can sit down if you want to." Unlike the door thing, that is an option being offered, not an order. Sit or stand, Kup looks up to study the Autobot near-Seeker, brows knitted in consideration but expression otherwise neutral.

[Oracle]

As occasionally oblivious as Oracle can be, she doesn't miss the order wrapped in Kup's statement, and obediently she moved to close the door behind her. On the other hand this does cause a bit of tension to creep through her. Whatever Kup had called her here for was apparently not something he wanted overheard, and that made her take in the situation with a greater amount of wariness. Closing off the exit didn't make her all that happy either, but since at the moment she wasn't expecting a fight, she could deal with that.

Moving back toward the table she does opt to perch on one of the other seats, and perch is a much better word for what she is doing then sit might have been. "You said you needed to go over something with me, so I came. What did you need?" Being studied wasn't making her any more comfortable, but this whole situation just seemed slightly off kilter, and some of that emotion came out in the clipped nature of her inquiry.

[Kup]

Kup doesn't answer Oracle's question. At least not directly. Instead, he swings his legs off of where they're propped on the table and sits more upright, forearms rested on the table in front of him, hands lightly clasped, though only for a moment.

Then he moves right to the point.

His right hand lifts and gestures vaguely towards her as he speaks. "So... I'm hearing that your alternate from the newcomers' reality is some sort of precog or psychic or something. Whaddaya make of that?" Kup's voice is almost conversational, but his gaze remains firmly on Oracle, waiting for a reaction.

[Oracle]

For a moment there isn't a reaction at all, unless you count being frozen in indecision. Instinct said he obviously knew too much, and she should take him down and run, while logic was rather loudly rebutting that deliberately attacking your commanding officer was a little different then punching them out when overcharged at a party. If(when) she got caught it wasn't likely to be trash detail she was put on as a result. Well that and she probably wouldn't last long as an independent on an unfamiliar world, and when all was said she would rather deal with the situation here then run into the Decepticons on her own.

That didn't make her feel any less trapped by the situation though, nor help her reign in the responses that had developed over a long time of hiding, so she wasn't at all surprised to find she had automatically activated the command to extend her claws. Outwardly that was the only sign of her racing thoughts besides a slight shift in posture and a minor slip of her mask as her defensive routines kicked in and she automatically sized him up as a potential threat.

For the most part Oracle managed to keep herself in check vocally as well, even if her voice was slightly tight when she spoke. "What do you want from me Kup." She didn't answer his question either, but from what reactions she hadn't managed to suppress, she probably didn't have to.

[Kup]

Bingo.

Kup leans back in his seat, straightening his legs out beneath the table, and absently wraps the knuckles of index and middle fingers of his left hand against the surface. He looks right at the activated claws, but says nothing. Indeed, when the focus of his gaze is combined with the increased relaxation of his pose, it seems to imply that he is intentionally overlooking them.

"What do I want? Well, the truth'd be nice. Look, it'd be nice to tell you that your personal business is just that and that I'm not here to pry, but y'know what? I'm the chief of security. It's my job to pry. And it's my job to make sure other folks don't get hurt through not knowing about their teammates. And right now, with us facing our own duplicates, it's an even bigger issue."

Kup shakes his head. "I'm not saying you need to go blabbing every talent, skill, or whatever else you got to everyone here right now because of it, but I do need you to think about what might happen to someone going up against that other you if they're missing certain details."

[Oracle]

Perhaps it was strange for her to react that way, but Kup's blatant ignoring of her mostly inadvertent threat with her claws had Oracle relaxing for a moment, before what he had to say got her keyed up again. Still that relaxing does briefly get it together enough to wrap at least the illusion of being fully calm around herself, sliding her claws away and deliberately easing back down from her more combative posture.

"I told you the truth when I got here, I just didn't tell you all of it." And if it hadn't been for him finding out some other way, she would have had no intention of telling him any of the rest at all either. "This whole situation has rather taken the decision out of my hands though, and I can understand why you need information now, even if I don't like it." She didn't like it at all in fact, but stalling, dodging the question or lying could actually get someone else hurt at this point and for little gain if any to her.

For a moment Oracle just sat quietly, trying to organize her thoughts. "Unless it is something of tactical value, I would ask you keep what I tell you to yourself. Not the fact I can anticipate the future a short while ahead, since if this alternate Swerve is right and it is common knowledge what my alternate can do, then keeping that secret would do more harm then good. The details of it and anything else I disclose on the other hand..." If he couldn't give her at least that much, while she would still answer his questions she wasn't going to volunteer anything if she could help it, and she certainly wasn't going to tell him what else she was hiding. If he found that out later, she'd deal with it then no matter how annoyed he might be she hadn't said anything now.

[Kup]

"Unless it is something of tactical value, then all right. I'll try to keep it to myself. But if it looks like someone else - or even you, for that matter - is gonna get hurt over the right person not knowing, they're going to know."

The Veteran shrugs, and drums the tips of his right fingers on the table twice. "That's the best I can offer."

"You anticipating the future, though... that's gotta go to Xaaron and Prime, and the others are going to need to hear. Someone fighting your alternate's going to need to know about that. Now, I've got to make the report to the higher-ups, but you may want to think about letting everyone else know yourself."

[Oracle]

Since what Kup was agreeing to had been about the most leeway she had expected to get, Oracle just nodded slightly, though she did have to wonder what situation he could possibly have in mind where someone else not knowing might get her hurt. That currently didn't really matter much, so she simply tucked it in the back of her mind to pick apart later.

"That will have to do then, and I had fully expected you to tell both Xaaron and Prime about my ability. Telling the others though..." Oracle broke off and shook her head. "I understand why it needs to be done by someone, but I don't know if I can do it." She was having a hard enough time dealing with talking about this with Kup now, telling the other Autobots herself? She didn't think she had that much willpower.

Nervously flexing her fingers a few times, she tried to figure out where to start with what he probably wanted to know. "I can't say for certain if things are exactly the same obviously, but if my counterpart's Sight works the same way she's going to be hard to hit, but she also probably has the same light armor I do because of that. Additionally, don't let her lure anyone off into a one on one battle either. Mass combat decreases the ability to predict things, so multiple opponents are also a potential way to counter her. She probably also burns through fuel at the same rate I do in combat, which means you might be able to wear her down if things go on long enough. I wouldn't recommend that though."

For a moment Oracle got quiet again, and when she spoke her voice was low and reluctant. "She also has the same issues with blindness I would guess, so light based attacks aren't going to do much after the initial blast." That would be the other thing she failed to mention in her initial interview, and apparently it was something the other Oracle kept quiet about too or the other Swerve would probably have said something.

[Kup]

Kup nods once. "Thank you. That'll be important to know. And if you can't tell the hard-to-hit bit, I will."

He narrows his optics as he studies the Autobot Seeker, lips pursed in thought. Finally, he asks, "But why all the secrecy, Oracle? I can see wanting to keep this as a surprise against the Decepticons, but why keep it from the Autobots?"

[Oracle]

"If you would do that please? This whole situation is hard enough." Oracle had a funny feeling she was going to be as jumpy as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs for a while. There was a small core of panic in her that she was trying very hard to squash, but her efforts weren't totally working.

Kup's question provokes a slightly weary smile. "The fewer people that know a secret, the more of a chance it stays secret. I wasn't hiding things for any tactical advantage they might bring, but trying to stay under the radar is how I lasted as long as I did as a Neutral. I attract enough attention as a Seeker not belonging to the Decepticons, I didn't need anything else unique singling me out." Something she knew would likely make scientists curious no less.

[Kup]

Kup doesn't try to hide his expression of distaste as Oracle brings up her past as a neutral. His mind does not even dignify that word with a capital letter. There's no grand stand of choice in being a neutral. Being neutral is what happens when you don't chose. That Oracle picked the winning side after they became the winning side and after she was flushed out and forced into a choice is something of a sore point with Kup. Could have just as easily ent up a Decepticon that way. Kup does reflect that this, more than anything else, explains her inability to trust her own side - when one isn't worthy of trust, one tends to assume the same of those around them.

The elder shrugs it off, but his countenance is still a shade darker than it was before. Oracle is one to watch closely, to Kup's mind, but not due to her special abilities. "All right," he says, waving the issue off for the moment. "Well, that about takes care of things for the moment, then. Unless you got anything else for me, I've got work to get back to."

[Oracle]

Kup's reaction to her past not being at all unusual, Oracle pretty much let his distaste roll off of her. Considering how unwilling she was to speak of her motivations for not joining the Autobots sooner then she did, she was used to catching a lot of flak from those that had been fighting since the beginning of the War. Though if Kup ever mentioned his thoughts about how easily Oracle could have become a Decepticon instead, she would rather vehemently deny it. If she hadn't been able to hide on Cybertron anymore and the only other option was to become a Decepticon, she would have left or gotten herself scrapped trying. But she hadn't, and wouldn't say any of that to him, so Kup was perhaps rightfully suspicious. Likely he would have been even if she had told him that, but that was part of his job as far as she saw it.

At what was basically a dismissal, Oracle shook her head as she stood. "No, unless there's something I am unaware I know, I don't have anything else. Nor do I have anything to say on another subject." In fact she was quite happy to be leaving. With an abbreviated bowing of her head, she turned and headed for the door, and unless he called her back she pulled it open and made a quick exit before making a beeline for outside. After that she wanted to be in the air where she didn't fell trapped and some time to recenter herself sounded good too.

[Kup]

No, a verbal denial of Kup's supicions wouldn't have convinced the Veteran. It's not that Kup is utterly unable to accept a change of heart - heck, he's seen Decepticons go Autobot, and, over the years, even called some of them 'friend.' It's just that words alone don't speak loud enough in cases like this. It takes something louder.

Kup dips his head when she gives her answer, the final and most formal dismissal that she'll get. Then, when she leaves, he sighs and shakes his head. He's got some reports to make, even before the public one. Kup's pose remains relaxed as he looks towards the ceiling and activates his radio.