Meanwhile, elsewhere...
*The Decepticons' old underwater base had been rather quiet as of late. With the truce in place, everyone seemed to prefer hanging around in Autobot City or some other such location. For his part, Echoshift saw no reason to leave behind a perfectly good set of personal quarters and go through the bother of moving all his assorted belongings to an
( Read more... )
*He picks out a point to restart from and first stabilizes the areas flashing red on the onscreen diagram, rerouting power through different areas where needed to prevent anything from overloading again. This doesn't solve the problem of the power being out in a number of locations, however, and he figures that those areas will probably therefore need to be physically inspected and repaired before power will agree to flow again. He then inputs the relevant commands to make the computer answer primarily to him, giving himself authorization over what happens where. Then he frames out the various security levels and lists himself as having access to all of them. He also locks down certain areas so that anybody going in or out of the base through the elevator would require both him knowing about it first and also his authorization.*
*Basics done with, Echoshift uses the excuse for a break and exits the command center to wander over to his quarters. As expected, the door to his quarters is now unlocked -- as well as the doors to most of the other rooms in the entire base. The controls have all been reset. Pleased with this, he busies himself with inputing the new security code into the control panel of both his own quarters and the other room further down the corridor where he'd stuffed some of his belongings earlier. He then heads for Snowcat and Demolisher's room (they'd left Autobot City and moved in earlier) to let them know why they'd just had a powercut.*
*By the time Skywarp bypasses the new security settings by simply teleporting straight through, Echoshift's back in the command center tinkering with the controls again. Alone there as he is, he isn't actually aware that the other Seeker has come back yet...*
Reply
*Oh, all right. And Snowkitty too*
*He looks up as the power goes off* The heck? *the power returns, and Demolishor continues demolishing*
Reply
Duskwing drops by the old base every so often out of habit. It's the last place he lived on Earth. Sometimes he absent-mindedly forgets he doesn't live there anymore--or anywhere else, for that matter.
Someone has moved into his old room--someone with quite a pile of stuff. Duskwing looks it over, trying to puzzle something about his new roommate. Finally he shrugs; his roommate, whoever he is, has stuff. Lots of it. He picks up what looks like a ruby crystal cylinder and looks it over, noting the hairline flaw near one end.
Why would someone keep a busted pulse laser module around? Duskwing sets it back down again, somewhere else in the pile of stuff.
The power flickers and then goes dark suddenly; Duskwing looks up with a puzzled scowl. About that time, it goes back on.
What the slag is going on here? This place spring a leak in the main generator?
He drifts up through the ceiling, intangible and invisible.
Reply
Reply
Duskwing regards the gray Seeker with a certain amount of puzzlement. Who was this guy? He didn't remember him from before, and his lines were different--not an F-15, Duskwing was pretty sure. He watches Echoshift invisibly for some time, finally sorting out that the other Seeker is fixing whatever went wrong with the base systems.
The dark blue and purple Seeker materializes just behind Echoshift, fully opaque.
"Hey, what happened? Did you get seawater in the works or somethin'?"
Reply
What the-- where'd you come from?
Reply
"I was just gonna ask you that. Ain't seen you here before." His voice is heavy with the not-so-lyrical accent of the Bronx, New York City. "Who are you, anyway?"
Reply
Well it's not like I've seen you around here before either, and I've been here for a while. *he leans back a bit against the console, offering the other Seeker a look of friendly curiosity* So. Who're you and what're you doing sneaking up on me for, hmm?
Reply
He scowls, optics brightening under the shadowed cowl.
Reply
I'm Echoshift. Call me Shifter if you wanna. I don't know how long ago you turned up, Duskwing, but as far as I knew before you managed to sneak in here this whole base was currently empty save for me and a coupla others. It's been empty for ages. High Command disappeared months, maybe even years ago, and no-one's been doing much more than just hanging around ever since. After a while I guess they figured this place might as well be left unused since, you know, what with the truce and all going on these days we don't really even need the space here any more. Me and guys like Skywarp chose to stay, but I haven't seen Skywarp in ages either. *a shrug* So seeing as no-one else was around I figured someone ought to do something about the state this place is in. I mean, it's a huge empty space and I've practically got it to myself as it is. What else was I gonna do?
*taps the console behind him* I guess you could say I kinda adopted this place as my own. *quirks a smile* And that powercut you were asking about was me rewiring the computer. *glances at the console* And before you ask, yes I know there're still places that don't have power. I'm working on it, just lemme get there. At least the sector where everybody's quarters are seems to be okay, so you should be fine. *pause* Though if you haven't already done so you might wanna re-input the security code for your quarters into the access control panel. The computer reset everything when the power went out.
Reply
"What's my rank got to do with wantin' to know why you're re-programming the main computer? You ain't Megatron or Soundwave or the Air Commander-- 'less you the new Air Commander, so I'm natural-like gonna ask questions, see?"
He relaxes a bit. "Yeah, okay, I'll go reset my lock. Be stupid to be locked out of my own room." The dark blue and purple Seeker turns and strides toward the door leading in the general direction of quarters.
Reply
*gives the other a slightly puzzled look as he turns to go* Say, which room're you in again? And I still don't get when you turned up exactly. Are you new?
Reply
"C-134, why? An' I was on the Nemesis with Megatron. When did you get here?"
Reply
Reply
"You must have come in with those new guys when they opened the space bridge! Yeah, I got transferred out around then, too. An' I noticed I got a roommmate. His junk is all over the fraggin' place. Real slob. Hope he straightens it out himself, 'cause I sure the slag ain't. Just pile it all on his recharge berth and let him sleep on it." Duskwing smirks and wanders on out.
Reply
Meh. Guess I'll just either have to move it someplace else, or get him to switch rooms. And gee, thanks for the compliment, Duskers...
*grumbling a little, he turns his attention back to the console. After a while a thought occurs to him, and he makes a note to repair the connections between one of the memory bank units and the main console (which would then let him access the personnel records and dig up the file on Duskwing to read through for curiosity's sake) after he's done with... well, whatever he's doing right now.*
Reply
Leave a comment