robothell | (no subject)

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spinister | triggerhappycopter

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Who: Spinister and anyone who has the misfortune of dropping by the Autobot clinic
Where: The Autobot clinic!
When: Before the medics are rescued!
What: Spinister is re-arranging everything.
Warnings: You might possibly get hissed at.

The whole clinic was a bit of a mess.

An extremely tidy, perfectly cataloged mess, because Spinister was the kind of mech who liked his workspace organized down to the last teeny, tiny screw. But, well, things weren't where they used to be anymore and where they were going was still up in the air right now since he's still figuring out where everything is. It was new territory!

And a lot bigger than the cramped spaces he was normally used to, too, so he's not entirely sure what to do with all this space.

Also, the medical drone was now purple.

Feel free to come drop by and say hi to the new temporary head of the clinic. No guarantees he's going to say 'hi' back though.

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"Nice paint job, Ambulon." Nautica greeted the redecorated drone with a pat on what could be approximated as its head, then almost tripped over a crate of soldering wire that really shouldn't have been in the middle of the hallway. Neither should that fuel pressure monitor or plating saw.

"Um." This did not seem like the kind of thing Ratchet would tolerate, much less the extremely organized Red Alert.

"Megatron?" she called. "Why is there a bunch of stuff in the--" Nautica stopped short as she entered the exam room to see even more bunches of stuff Spinister had pulled out of storage in his reorganization efforts. "Good grief."

Now this was a much more logical place for the medical scanners and not all the way over by the-

A voice?

Spinister stops in the middle of trying to find the most efficient way to pack the scanners into the drawer. He freezes mid-turn when someone very purple walks into the room, a scanner still in hand, expression somewhat similar to a nitrodeer caught in someone's headlights.

And then he kind of sinks down behind one of the medical berths until he was nothing more than chevrons and suspiciously squinting optics.

"Hello," he says warily.

"...Hello?" She waved, wearing a dubious but not unfriendly expression. "Why are you hiding?"

Aside from the fact that he seemed to be trashing the clinic in a very methodical way, but Nautica knew she wasn't the least bit threatening. Even if he was worried about getting into trouble, hiding from her made no sense.

Edited 2015-05-09 04:23 (UTC)

"'M not hiding." He's glancing off to the side in the direction of the exit though, so, you know, take the words with a grain of salt.

The optics eventually turn back on Nautica after a moment, a tad squinter than before.

"So, uh. Did you need something?"

Nautica politely didn't correct him on the fact that yes, actually, he was totally hiding. She repressed the urge to try to coax him out from behind the berth like someone's skittish pet.

"I dropped in to see Megatron." Who was not in evidence, and she suspected he wasn't there at all. She doubted he'd tolerate someone pulling everything out of storage. "Do you know if he's around?"

"He's around." The mention of Megatron seems to make Spinister relax marginally at least, his rotor blades doing a loose, slow spin. After a moment more of hesitance, he eases up from behind the berth

"Not here though. I don't think." Because that helps, right? "What do you need? I think I can probably help since I'm kind of in charge of this place right now. Still gotta figure out where half the stuff is though. Autobot medical organizational standards don't make a lick of sense to me!"

"I was going to see if he wanted to get a drink. It'll keep." She dismissed her errand with a wave of her hand. Megatron would turn up sooner or later. He couldn't spend all his time herding Decepticons.

Nautica was an eternal optimist.

"Uh. You're a medic?" In her experience, medics weren't usually so...squirrelly. Or so Decepticon, at least in an Autobot facility run by Red Alert, though he seemed harmless.

"Megatron said I was head of the clinic until Red Alert and her folks got back." Cue shrugging. "Basically because I'm the second to last medic around right now asides from Pharma and no one seems to like Pharma."

"But yeah, I'm just sorting out this disorganized mess of a place. They put the tube clamps next to the scalpels here, can you believe it?" What a travesty! "That is not where clamps are supposed to be at all."

"I'll take your word for it," Nautica said, looking around at the chaos caused by Hurricane Spinister. "But once Red Alert gets back, you might want to steer clear of her for a million years or so."

Haha it's funny because that's not comically overblown exaggeration.

"My name's Nautica, by the way." She wound a path around the mess to where Spinister was glaring at the tube clamps so she could offer a handshake. If Megatron had left him in charge of the clinic, he couldn't be that bad.

"Only a million?" Spinister hums thoughtfully as he picks a clamp up and inspects it. "No, no, that's pretty reasonable, I think." A step up from a gunfight, certainly.

"I'm Spinister!" he says, holding out the clamp for a handshake. He realizes it after a second and then hastily puts the tool away before actually offering his hand.

"You're a really cool shade of purple. It's neat looking."

He has no reason to be there. None at all. By all rights, he should have stayed on the edges of the city, far, far away from contact. That was where a shadow belonged. Where someone who used someone belonged.

But with fuel levels starting to drop, he doesn't have much of a choice. He's been watching it for a while, and, for the moment, it doesn't seem busy. Maybe the best time to sneak in, and see if he can locate anything.

He doesn't expect to see the mess.

It stops him in his tracks -- his quiet, sneaking tracks.

Spinister's freakish ability to just appear out of thin air manifests itself right about then. Suddenly! Big Decepticon medic to the right!

He looks decidedly rather bemused at this new person.

"You," he says, nabbing the small flier by his wings and dragging him off. "Need a serious shower."

He's not used to being spontaneously detected like that. He jumps. And starts to back away, but Spinister is too quick for him.

He's grabbed by the wings, despite the struggle he puts up, or the squawk of alarm, and fights like a wet cat.

Despite Kagerou's most valiant wet cat fighting, Spinister tucks the youngster under and arm and marches them right to the showers. He is very used to handling uncooperative tantrum throwing patient sorts at this point, so Kagerou wasn't such a handful.

"Look, you can go off and do whatever you leaking want to, but I'm not tolerating this much muck on mech coming into my workspace!"

"I didn't -- Let go! I'll leave! I'll leave! I'm sorry!"

Because the encounter with Sixshot and his unintentional error is fresh in his head. He really hadn't meant to cause a problem. He kicks and twists. His whole body jerks. Even going so far as to try and bite at Spin's arm.

"You can stay!" Spinister huffs, twisting to dodge the bite with the grace of a mech who has had waaayyy too much practice. He plonks Kagerou down in the shower, feet first. "You just need to wash first!"

At which point, the surgeon turns the shower on and grabs a scrubber.

What is even happening here.

His feet kick in futile motions when he's put down, looking around wildly for some sort of escape and finding nothing. Is this some kind of punishment? For what he was accused of?

"Who are you!"

If there were anything to jump up and cling onto, he would have.

"I'm Spinister!" he declares, squeezing a good dollop of cleaning agent onto the brush and then going to scrubbing the heck out of everything he can reach on poor Kagerou. "Who are you? I haven't seen or heard of you before."

Honestly, it's like trying to bathe a cat. He's never really had it happen before, given he was kept indoors his entire life -- before breaking out, and coming here. It doesn't hurt though. So he eventually settles for squirming and fidgeting and staring accusingly up at the helicopter.

"Kagerou," he grumbles. "I don't like to be seen. I'm a shadow. Nothing more."

"Oh, cool," Spinister says in reply to the bout of broody dramatics. Of course now that Kagerou was looking at him, it was clearly the time to brush his face.

"So what did you need? Most folks don't come in here just for a shower!"

"Cool--"

He doesn't get the word out before there's a brush in his face, and he's sputtering and shuddering. It's impossible to talk with that thing rubbing over his face. He turns away from it as best he can, trying to get a word out.

"I-- stop! I was -- I need gasoline--!"

"Gasoline?" Fortunately, Spinister does stop, mostly so he can land the full force of his confused expression on Kagerou's foam covered face.

"What is this... 'gasoline'?"

He starts to answer, but then he has to spit foam out of his mouth. Looking up at the helicopter accusingly. Though it comes off more like a sullen teenager than anything.

"Fuel," he manages, finally. "It's fuel. I need it."

"Well, that's going to be a problem because I don't know about any kind of gasoline source around here at all."

He taps his chin with the scrub thoughtfully though, looking Kagerou up and down. "But I can give you a powerplant that runs on energon?"

"That's why I was looking."

He says it as though that should be obvious. Like this bot invading his space should just know what he's talking about.

"... how does that help?"

"Well, you wouldn't need to rely on an exotic and hard to find fuel source."

Even if there was some of this 'gasoline' on Cybertron, it was probably going to be a finite source.

"Exotic...? But everyone uses it."

At least, that's what he thought. He never thought these other robots would need anything... other than what he used.

"I've never met anyone who used anything like that. Aliens maybe?" Shaking his head, he goes back to scrubbing Kagerou over. "Aliens've got some pretty weird energy sources. Like, there's apparently this one organic race that just freaking digs up old dead organic stuff. Not even fresh dead organic stuff, but dead stuff that's been in the ground for a few billion years- and they use it for fuel!"

"Like, wow, how inefficient is that, huh? And they were right next to a perfectly good star too!"

"Alie--"

He doesn't get a chance to really speak. Or finish his question. There's another scrub brush in his face. He has to spit out a few mouthfuls of bubbles. And flick it off his wings, swatting Spinister with them when the brush touches them.

"Be careful with those!"

And then he adds: "I don't know what you're talking about. I only know what my systems need."

"That's because you're an alien, duh." Obviously!

Spinister is only marginally more careful with Kageou's wings as he was with his face, sorry mate.

"Basically, if you don't get some kind of energon related work around, you're kind of screwed out here. Or you... go into stasis lock? Are you built with a stasis lock thing?"

"No, you are."

Duh, Spin. But he seems more mollified by the careful treatment of his wings, though he still scowls. Sulking, really.

"I don't know what that is."

"That's probably a 'no'." Figures since the kid was a weird alien sort. "Basically, we shut down as a fuel saving measure or in cases of bad injuries. Some people can stay in stasis for decades."

"Turn around a bit- don't worry, I already got your face."

"... No. I don't do that. I just die."

Which is terrifying. And that fear probably shows in the way his voice hitches on that last word. He hasn't... really thought about it. He's been too busy trying to keep his metaphoric feet under him in this strange place.

But now it's hitting him. And he just sort of numbly stares at the wall while Spinister works, turning mechanically when asked.

"I don't want to die."

"... So they made you self aware, but they didn't give anyone a way to reboot you without killing you?"

... What?

What???

How did they even do software upgrades then?

"... I'm just a prototype. I wasn't meant to live at all."

Ouch.

There's a lot of bitterness in the words, but they're the truth. The entire truth.

"Actually, if you're a prototype then you ought to have been made to reboot or shut down well," Spinister scrubs at the back of Kagerou's knees. "Otherwise, the system engineers would have had a nightmare just trying to install new software if it just resets every single time they need to shut down."

"Which probably means your systems makers are a bunch of knobs and hacks."

"What does it matter what you call it?"

Somehow, he can't make it come out angrily. Or aggressively. He just ends up sounding tired as he's shoved around by Spinister's brush. This is a conversation he's had many times in his own head. And once when it actually mattered.

"No matter what they install. If they reformat me, it's death, all the same."

"Not if you kill them first, huh?" Spinister says, grinning and patting Kagerou's shoulder. "That's how we Decepticons solved our problems! We destroyed the senate by killing all the politicians in it. I mean, it started a million other problems and Megatron started going a biiiiit power crazy, but you know, one step at a time."

"Admittedly, I think a UPS might be better in your case," he says, flicking the shower off and dumping a towel on top of Kagerou's head.

"Kill them?" He just stares at Spinister, like that never occurred to him -- outside of using the girl as a shield. That was all he'd tried. And then that stare continues. "You... kill people?"

Who is this guy even. Why is he rubbing things all over him. Should he be concerned?

"A wha--"

And then it's dark. And he goes quiet. You know, like birds do under blankets.

"Yep! Killing people is part of the whole Decepticon soldier job description," he answers cheerfully.

"And a UPS is an uninterrupted power supply. We don't exactly have a battery ready for strapping onto you yet, so you're kinda stuck on a cord until I get scramble something together."

"You up for that?" He turns back to Kagerou and stares expectantly at the towel covered figure for a moment. When the waiting inspires no answer, he reaches out and carefully pulls the towel up.

"Hello?"

"Why?"

He really doesn't understand. Not in the least. Why would it be someone's job to kill people?

But for a while, he stays quiet under the blanket. Whether he's thinking, or just feels safe under there, who can say. As the towel lifts, he peeks out, cautiously. Blinking wide-eyed at Spinister.

"Hello." A beat. "Yes. I... am."

Spy Shot doesn't enter by the door. It's more than a little too large for him to handle, and as a generally high-traffic area in a room he, hanging around it is more likely to get him stepped on.

Instead he uses a small crack in one of the walls, that's probably not even large enough for a glitch mouse.

He draws to a halt at the end of the crack, however, because the medibay has changed since he last saw it. Fascinating!

Sticking low and along the base of the walls, the camera-bot simply watches for awhile as Spinister rearranges things. Then he climbs his way onto a counter and greets, "You're new."

Spinister stops dead.

In the span of about half a second, the helicopter goes from work- right to looming up in front of the tiny camera bot. He stares narrowly at this peculiar little invader

"I was working somewhere else," the heli answers once he'd decided that Spy Shot was not some kind of horrific pest or threat of any manner. "Did you work here before?"

Spy Shot stares back, optics as round and expressionless as ever, unconcerned by the fact that the guy he's having a staring contest with could crush him with his pinky.

"Oh," he says understandingly. "I do not work here. Where did you work before?"

"I was working at the Decepticon base!" Spinister answers with a sage nod. "It wasn't really a base though, and we were kind of just bumming in a derelict apartment place. Thing."

"Why are you so tiny?" he wonders very, very gently nudging at Spy Shot's side with a finger.

Spy Shot tilts his head at that. He's not especially familiar with Decepticons beyond what people have told him. He does know they're all trying to get along now, though.

"You were a squatter?" he asks. That's what you're called when you live in abandoned places, right?

"I am small because you are large," he answers, unconcerned by the poke even as it almost topples him over. It's all relative Spinister! He's not tiny compared to, like, ants.

"Also I am a camera." This explains everything.

"It's not squatting if you're doing it for a military purpose though. Kind of." Spinister pauses, musing over it for a few seconds. "Actually, never mind, it was totally squatting. But it's not like the property belongs to anyone at this point?"

Rubbing his chevron in confusion, he finally just puffs, "This political stuff is giving me a headache. What are you here for anyways? I gotta work!"

Spy Shot nods in understanding. Don't worry, Spinister! He wasn't judging you for being a squatter, he just likes to be clear about these things.

He's not too clear on what politics has to do with anything they're talking about, though, so he just stares at Spinister for awhile.

Then he answers, "I like to visit here sometimes. I am not stopping you from working."

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