Sad Junkion in TeeVee Lounge

[Pee-Dee]

Space III: Day 4. Open thread.

Sharknado plays on the teevee. Beautiful, high-definition sharks flying through the air, eating humans in messy sprays of blood. The sound's cranked up so the less-than-good plot can be discerned down the hall in either direction.

Pee-Dee sits squarely in front of the teevee, but her attention's on her leg. She's taken it off at the knee and has it laid across her lap while she listlessly pokes around in it. Now and then, something gets re-arranged, but it's more moving parts around than actually changing any functionality.

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus has earned a short break, he thinks. What with being one of the few Autobots not to become human, he's been running around like a cyber-fowl with its head cut off lately. He can take a few time-parts to relax before rewriting the Elite Guard training schedule again. He was heading for his quarters to try and take a quick stasis nap, but changed his mind when he heard the movie in the hall.

He pokes his head in the door, then comes in and looks around, raising a hand to greet the Junkion and suppressing a shudder. There's just something about seeing a 'bot dismembering herself. "Hi, Pee-Dee. Is there something wrong with your leg?"

[Pee-Dee]

"Problem is between chair and keyboard." Pee-Dee digs seemingly random bits of metal out of her leg and spreads them out on the floor. Then she puts them back into herself, one at a time, in a different way than how they came out. "ET can't phone home, and she needs some well-meant, good advice."

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus has been to Earth and he still can't always parse Junkion. "What do you need advice about?" he ventures, pulling up a chair and taking a seat across from Pee-Dee, trying not to stare as she performs repairs on herself. It looks like it should hurt!

[Pee-Dee]

"Where are we? Where are the Transformers?" She reaches up to touch her throat. "The stories are all missing, the books all empty of words. Null-signal, no broadcast."

[Optimus Prime]

The little Prime hunches forward in his chair, hands on his lap, trying to first parse what Pee-Dee is saying and then come up with an answer. "Well, we're trying to find out the fate of Cybertron, if it even exists here. And the Decepticons are still out there, and they're a threat to anyone they meet wherever they go.  So we have a duty to protect others from them, since we're the ones best-equipped to fight them.  Even if we can't get back to the homes we came from, we can still make a new home in this universe," he ventures, looking down at his knees. He looks up to regard the rust-red fembot. "Er, was that helpful? It sounds like you're feeling like we don't have a clear goal right now, but I don't really 'talk teevee'." Optimus finds himself missing Bumblebee. The little motormouth would have no problem communicating with a Junkion.

[Pee-Dee]

The thing about being a Junkion is you're pretty used to miscommunicating. They aren't that great with communicating with each other, much less with aliens. Besides, sometimes miscommunications lead to better answers than the ones you were actually searching for.

She smiles brightly. "Thank you for the attitude readjustment, Optimus Prime. Info assimilated!¹" Then she reaches out to pat his knee. "Is Elly all right? I haven't seen him in a little while."





1. Demolition Man

[Optimus Prime]

The universe exists specifically to torture Primes from Optimus's universe, doesn't it?

"She- I mean he- uh, well . . .see, since sh-I mean he! Is kind of a zombie now. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that, some of my best friends are zombies, Impactor is a zombie. Uh, not that I'm close friends with Impactor, I mean I am good friends with Elita-1. I mean Sentinel Prime. In Elita-1's mangled undead body, as distinct from her mangled technorganic body. I mean, not, like, good good friends, but I wouldn't say we were enemies anymore. We sort of were for a while? It was complex. I mean, uh . . ."

Optimus takes a moment to think of what he is going to say. "We haven't spoken much lately."

[Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh]

Something relatively small, orange, and half-naked-looking - as is the way of his people - suddenly vaults itself onto the back of Optimus's chair, looming like some miniscule, goofy-looking bird. Because personal space is for chumps.

"What's up, chummy-knuts?!"

Whirligig has probably not earned a break, given that he spent most of his time as a human doing what he loves: blowing stuff up! Both illegally and legally. However, he is taking a break anyway, and no-one can stop him, haha!<sup>1




1</sup>Yes, they can.

[Pee-Dee]

Pee-Dee shrugs. "I haven't checked lately, Whirlibird. Ooh, wait, new scientist! There is a new scientist out there somewhere. Slingshot doesn't like him. But Slingshot doesn't like most people, so that probably means he's an okay guy."

I mean, come on, Slingshot doesn't like Swindle, and Swindle's a swell guy!

She then gives Optimus a quick little hug on his leg. "You know, sometimes words have no meaning.¹ Putting up with irrationality is the foundation for every relationship.²"


1. "Stairway to Heaven", Led Zeppelin
2. House

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus flinches as Whirligig attacks from above like a spindly spider. The rotor blades look like legs when you only get a glimpse in your peripheral vision. When the young Prime relaxes his grip, there's indentations on the arms of the chair.

"Hi, Whirligig," he says with a sigh. Then he can't help but laugh when Pee-Dee chimes in. "You just summed this conversation up perfectly! Talking about words having no meaning and you're a Junkion and then Whirligig pops in and he's irrational. Heh. Uh, no offense," he says, attempting to remove his foot from his mouth and nervously rubbing the back of his head.

[Whirligig/Wednesday Gilgamesh]

"Irrational? Me?" Whirligig grins at Optimus, ignoring his moment of panic. He flops backwards off of the chair into a handstand and walks around to the front on his palms. "I have no idea what you're talkin' about."

Settling down on his forearms, he steeples his fingers and rests his feet on his head. "New scientist, you say? They crazy?"

[Pee-Dee]

That's not really what Pee-Dee meant at all. She just pats Optimus's knee. He's having a rough time of it.

She tilts her head up to look at Whirligig, then blinks her optics deliberately. "We're all mad here.¹"


1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

[Optimus Prime]

Optimus shakes his head. "Sometimes I wonder, Pee-Dee. Maybe all this is just some sort of hallucination. But you could say that about reality as a whole, so it's best to just treat it as real." He gives a heavy sigh and makes a deliberate decision not to be a downer.

"So, anything good on?" he asks, gesturing at the viewscreen. This is probably not the best question to ask a Junkion if you have anywhere to be in the next . . . ever.

[Ultra Magnus]

The noise from the television carries remarkably well through empty corridors. Well enough to bring Ultra Magnus investigating, though he hangs back in the doorway, uncertain, when he sees there are others here. He shifts his weight with almost painful unease as his gaze falls on Optimus.

"I didn't mean to intrude," he murmurs by way of apology and takes a step back.