OPEN - The Littlest Hobo

[candidcamerabot]

Who: Spy Shot and YOU
Where: Everywhere
When: Everywhen
What: Wandering camera encounters people
Warnings: None?


Getting around isn't easy when you're six inches tall. Journeys that would take humans hours, and Transformers minutes (seconds even, if they're a jet) take him days. He doesn't let it stop him, though. He's got a big beautiful city to discover and he plans to explore every bit of it, even if it takes forever!

Which isn't to say he doesn't have time for distractions. If he spots somebody nearby, he has a habit of waving and giving a big, "Hello!"

He can manage quite a bit if volume for a little guy.

Comments

[ashandrust]

Sentinel is terrible at being social. These are not his comrades, this is not his Cybertron, so mustering a care for the goings-on in their lives is beyond him. Not when he can study and explore. He spends much of his time alone on the outskirts of the city where he has a clear view of the skies, trying to map by stars at night and landmarks in the day. It's quiet here. He doesn't mind.

So he is very surprised indeed to feel the sense that someone else is out here. It's vague and weak, but present, and he looks away from the horizon back to the city.

And then a voice from seemingly nowhere pipes a clear greeting. Sentinel blinks and steps down awkwardly from his perch, startled by the sound when he sees no-one– but then a glint of light off glass, on the ground where there was none before. He looks down to see the tiniest thing waving its arm at him.

Fascinating.

"Greetings," he offers in return, careful of his footing as he settles himself more evenly, lest he step on this little one. "And who might you be?"

[candidcamerabot]

"I am Spy Shot 6," he answers, peering way, way up as he must do with the majority of people on this planet. Being the size of a bug compared to most of the populace can be slightly awkward! Luckily he doesn't get cricks in his neck.

"What is your name?"

[ashandrust]

Not a name he recognises, and in a strange format. Sentinel Prime does not bend for a closer look, but filaments whir and gleam as he zooms his vision in more tightly.

"I am Sentinel Prime," he says. Spy Shot 6 is minuscule, larger perhaps than some scouting drones but small enough to sit in Sentinel Prime's hand with space to spare. So Sentinel does him the immense favour of lowering himself onto one knee to afford the tiny robot less strain in their conversation. "Tell me, Spy Shot 6," he goes on, "how did you come by such a name?"

[candidcamerabot]

It's a nice gesture. Not quite as nice as a hand or shoulder to sit on, but Spy Shot appreciates it anyway.

"I've always had it," he answers. He lifts up a tiny leg, showing off a panel along it in which is printed the words 'Spy Shot 6'.

[ashandrust]

"You…" Sentinel peers more closely at that tampograph, brow furrowed with increasing confusion. "Why would you wear your name on your plating as such?" It seems so unnecessary.

[candidcamerabot]

"It was there when I woke up," Spy Shot answers with a shrug. "Humans like to put names on things."

[ashandrust]

Sentinel's expression darkens immediately at mention of humans, and he scowls – not at Spy Shot, but at some point to the tiny thing's right. Disgust twists his entire face.

"And what right had those humans," he says the word as though it tastes foul in his mouth, "to brand you with a name of their choosing?"

[candidcamerabot]

Goodness, what a sour looking face! Spy Shot just gives another little shrug. "They built me. Most human-built cameras have names on them."

Honestly, he never minded, so there's really no reason to get upset about it. Humans gave names to humans, too.

[ashandrust]

"They–" Incredulity. Sheer bafflement. Sentinel turns his confusion on Spy Shot with a vaguely suspicious but mostly disbelieving tilt to his optics. "How could humans construct something like you?" he asks, leaning closer now in curiosity. Spy Shot is small and delicate, yet intelligent enough to hold a conversation, and self-aware. Not something Sentinel would expect from a race that insists on calling his kind mere machines.

No, he thinks, this is far beyond human capability as he knows it. He looks Spy Shot over again, trying to sort out what he's seeing. The blocky shapes that make up the tiny robot are odd to his examining eye.

"Hm?" he hums, prompting.

[candidcamerabot]

"I'm a camera," he says, as if that explains everything. He evens transforms just as a demonstration, before flipping back into robot mode so he can look up at Sentinel again. "Humans construct lots of cameras."

He tilts his head a little to one side. "Then the Cube woke me up."

[ashandrust]

Sentinel stops just short of physically touching Spy Shot and stares, silent, wide-eyed, as the tiny thing transforms for him. He can feel his spark turning wildly in its chamber as he processes those few simple words over and over again, running them through one filter after another in case of some mistranslation or lexical confusion.

"You said," he begins slowly, voice suddenly dry, "the Cube." His hand shakes ever so slightly as he starts to pick Spy Shot up, then stops again. "Do you, perchance, mean… the AllSpark cube?"

[candidcamerabot]

"I don't know," Spy Shot answers honestly, scratching his head. There's really a lot he never learned about the Cube, its origins, or the NBEs of his universe. It's hard being a small camera in a large, mysterious world.

"Does an Allspark cube look like this?" Turning around, he turns on the tiny screen in his back and shows a picture of the Cube in Sector Seven, massive and bedecked with catwalks.

[ashandrust]

Seeing the image of the Allspark is almost as heavy as a physical blow; Sentinel has to steady himself with one hand on his knee. He had no idea it survived – he had his suspicions, oh certainly, but no proof, and then no chance to search.

Yet here seems to be proof. Here in this image, in this impossibly small being. This impossibly small Cybertronian.

Joy like Sentinel hasn't known in far too long wells up from some corner of his spark he assumed dead and he scoops Spy Shot into his hand with the utmost of care. And he laughs as he stands straight, his tasks forgotten for the moment so he can revel in the proof of a future sitting in his palm.

"You!" he cries, voice ragged in his laughter. "You were born of the Allspark!" Maybe there is hope for his world after all.

[candidcamerabot]

"Oh, okay," Spy Shot says, unperturbed by being picked up. He's used to it. "I didn't know that."

It was good to know more about the Cube. No-one he'd met here yet seemed to know about it, and neither had anyone he'd known back home.

He sits in Sentinel's palm and asks, "Can you tell me about the Allspark? I've never met an NBE from my world in person before."

[ashandrust]

"…NBE?" The unfamiliar term briefly staggers Sentinel's happiness and he pauses, peering at Spy Shot in bemusement. "I do not recognise that term. Explain." He thinks about his words then and, this once, weighs them and finds them perhaps a touch heavy for one so small. "Tell me, and I will tell you of the Allspark and of Cybertron. I will tell you of our home."

He looks up to the sky, around at the terrain nearby, and disdain tugs at the corners of his mouth.

"Our true home," he adds. "Not this… this sad imitation."