[OPEN, in progress] the hard life of an officer

[great_tests]

Characters: Cordelia Naismith, open to anyone in Valora
Setting/Location: anywhere public in the Valora base, except the chemical spill area
Date & Time: afternoon/evening of the 3rd day
Warnings: None, I think... (Sideswipe? crazy people?)
Briefing: Your friendly local officer is walking around the base, talking to people, keeping an eye on things

Comments

[stabbywheelfeet]

This place was worse than Egypt. Granted, there was no sand to get in his gears, but he would have preferred the minor irritation to the major one.

They wouldn't stop. No matter how much he tried to explain things, no matter how much he threatened, they persisted in calling him "machine", or "robot". There was only one human on earth allowed to use that title - and the boy was a special case. Even NEST referred to them as "Autobots".

And then there were the living arrangements. Human living arrangements. Nothing to speak of for Autobots. He hadn't been here very long, but coming off of the battlefield, being forced into this situation... it was tiring. All he wanted was a proper recharge cycle.

Instead, he stood in his normal form, leaning outside the entrance to the living quarters. Every so often, he flicked one blade down the length of the other, producing a squeal of metal on metal. A nervous, agitated habit he'd picked up.

[great_tests]

That was a very unpleasant noise. Cordelia had a sinking feeling she knew who the large - robot? no, there was some other word he wanted them to use... - was, and would much rather not have to talk to him again, but she knew she'd have to eventually. Talking to the people in this base and solving their problems was pretty much her job, and the fact that most of the other officers interpreted their job description differently only meant it was more important for her to do what they didn't.

She did stop to look up his name - and the correct species designation - before approaching the Autobot. He was acting rather strange... Or at least she hoped it was strange, because living with that unpleasant noise in the back of her head for the foreseeable future wasn't a pleasant prospect. Could mechanical beings be affected by the chemical spill? Well, there had to be some chemistry involved, but it was unlikely to be close enough to human to give similar reactions, so that probably wasn't it. Then again, who knew

[stabbywheelfeet]

While it was entirely likely that his kind could be affected--seeing as he knew from experience that both Ratchet and Ironhide possessed scent receptors--Sideswipe, being younger, being built with only war in mind, lacked them. The supposed smell was only annoying because the humans refused to stop complaining about it.

He did look up, however, when the female approached. His optics narrowed. Wasn't it obvious that he wasn't "all right"? No one here should be "all right". His systems were lagging, he had sand in his gears, he was being called a "robot", and he was expected to fight for someone who was not Optimus Prime while another kept mistaking him for someone else.

"No," he said, shortly. "I'm not. Any other stupid questions you want to ask?"

[great_tests]

Some people managed to be all right in all kinds of difficult circumstances - but this one clearly wasn't one of them. Not that she was expecting anything different.

"Yes, actually." Cordelia already knew both sympathy and annoyance, the natural human reactions to someone sounding this upset, weren't going to do her any good here, so she tried for calm. She was good at calm, as evidenced by the fact that she was still walking around outside and in her right mind. "Has anyone worked out the problem with your living arrangements yet?" Determined to keep up his misery as he seemed, maybe dealing with some of the practical issues would help his disposition.

[afro_wunderkind]

There wasn't much to do at the end of the day apart from relaxing, chemical spill zone or not. Lash was tempering with a few pieces of metal and a blowtorch, trying to make herself some sort of makeshift weapons test. It...really bothered her that the Loxias had such a glaring weakness. Back at home, Drake could have taken care of them easily with his tsunami attack. A horde of robots potentially beaten by a fat guy who could barely fit into his pants. Intolerable. There just had to be a way, short of making them umbrellas or something.

She was so into her work she barely noticed the figure passing behind her.

Ahahaha I love your writing! LOL ...umbrellas!!

[great_tests]

Lash, on the other hand, was not the kind of person one could 'barely notice'. Not after the first time you saw one of her signature surprise explosions, at least. Noticing Lash was practically a survival skill.

...Cordelia wasn't in this for survival. So, seeing Lash with a blowtorch, she ignored the (rather faint by this point) voice of her better judgement and walked over to see what the girl was doing. She did, however, make note of the nearest objects she could hide behind if necessary.

"What are you working on?" she asked mildly, with genuine interest. She had enough scientific training to at least understand the concepts, and she knew it was likely to be something useful - the explosions were just a somewhat-unintentional side effect. Most of the time.

[ooc: sorry about going overboard with the explosion thing, just couldn't help myself! LOL
/needs to get some food and sleep and stop being silly, but it's HARD! And that bit about umbrellas really didn't help!! XDDD]

I am terrible.

[afro_wunderkind]

Oh Cordelia! Lash didn't mind the woman most of the time. She reminded her of Jess in some odd way. For a few seconds she found it ironic that she was glad to be here since it meant she was free from being a prisoner of war, yet how she sometimes utterly miss the old gang. The feeling passed quickly, thankfully.

She put down the blow torch moving it mere inches near her hair and took of her mask before speaking to her.

"Trying to tinker with the Loxias some more. I'm trying to see if I can make their heating coils tolerate high humidity. I'm working on a small scale model since I don't want to mess up the real things. Back at home I had nearly unlimited resources but you gotta make with what you have here, tee hee hee."

Yes you are. <3

[great_tests]

"Oh, that's good." If her answer was a bit half-hearted, it was because Cordelia wasn't at all sure she wanted her side to win the war - and not sure she didn't, either. It was hard to choose between what seemed like equally violent alternatives. And the Loxias... A war waged by robots just felt that much more pointless, if less bloody. Too easy an answer. It took people to make a war end.

But none of those thoughts were doing her any good right now, and she waved them away, choosing to concentrate on the present. "Why do they have heating coils, anyway?" she wondered, drawn in by the scientific questions - so much simpler than the moral ones, even if the Valoran technology level was endlessly baffling to her.

"And on the subject of local resources - have you met Sideswipe yet?" She might be able to get Lash interested in figuring out this recharge berth issue. Smart as the girl was, that was likely to be faster than asking the technicians, if it worked - and the Autobot seemed sturdy enough to survive Lash's attention.