...Guess who's back. >:)
~~~~~~~~~
"Do you really have to do that?"
"Do what?"
"Make out while we're on a mission? No one wants to see that."
::Guys, come on. I-::
"Shh, Bee. Don't worry about ol' Crosshairs. He's just jealous."
"Jealous? Jealous of what?! That I'm not making out with an ex-con?!"
::Cross, stop it. It's not that big of a deal. Barricade and I can just-::
"No, your prissy boyfriend is just trying to rub it in my face that he has someone to love and I don't."
"Prissy?! Excuse me, who are you calling prissy?! You're the one in the flamboyant overcoat!"
"It's a jacket and for your information, I could get anyone I want to make out with me."
"Really, Cross? Like who?"
"Um... Drift?"
"No, thank you."
"Wow, aren't you alone. Almost makes me feel sad for you, bud."
"Shut it, Hound! No one asked you!"
"BOYS!!"
Everyone froze as Dorothy looked up from the spot she was perched on with a set of binoculars. The three bots all looked at the woman as she glared at them with tired eyes. This was not her ideal morning. She didn't want to be up at six o'clock in the morning watching as people were in and out of KSI Industries with a bunch of sparklings, but she really didn't have a choice. She watched as Barricade stuck his glossa out at the paratrooper before walking away with Bumblebee smooshed in his arm against his chestplates. Crosshairs soon got the gist and walked away as well. She was so lucky that they were concealed in an abandoned tunnel about 100 km away from the warehouse.
She turned back to watching the facility with her supped up binoculars before a familiar semi-truck pulled up next to her. She sighed, still grumpy and side-eyed him. "Do you need something, Optimus?" she asked, trying to focus again.
"I want you to talk to Bumblebee and Barricade for me." he replied, which drew the woman away from her task again.
"What?" she asked, clearly confused. She quirked a brow and tried to joke for a moment. "Did Barricade and Bumblebee pester you this morning about going out on a drive? Frankly, I'm happy for them. They're a perfect match and they seem to be happy with each other. I mean, they could have told us earlier, but I understand their fears of you all finding out. They just have really, really bad timing."
There was an air of silence after a while, just a bunch of background noise from the other bots as the woman and the truck sat there facing the KSI Industries warehouse and building. Neither of them said a word before Optimus started the conversation up again.
"They made a mistake." he said, bluntly.
This made Dorothy put down her binoculars. She looked back at the boys, her boys, and watched as they were happily sitting near the back of the cave and waiting for the all-clear from the front. She furrowed her brows together and didn't look down at the truck. "You didn't seem to have a problem with Bumblebee dating him before. What changed? Them bonding?"
"Bumblebee is putting himself as risk."
"He's big mech. He can take care of himself, Optimus. He's not a sparkling anymore and can make his own decisions."
"Sometimes those decisions are wrong."
Dorothy finally turned to look at the semi with an angered expression on her face. "You knew this would happen at some point and only now you mention this? After what? Almost ten plus years of them being together have gone by and you haven't said one thing to them or me, for that matter. You were find with it in the beginning, all the way back when they first started dating and now you think it was a mistake? What, after losing Ratchet and Ironhide, did your impulse control disappear as well?"
Okay, maybe she was being a little harsh, but this was unfair. Barricade and Bumblebee clearly loved each other and now the only father-figure that Bumblebee had in his life was now thinking that maybe he shouldn't be with Barricade anymore? That was not fair to Bee and Barricade, who had to spend most of his relationship away from each other because of the war and it wasn't fair to Dorothy, who also had a relationship with a Decepticon, bonded and had children with.
Optimus's engine growled, taking the offense to spark a bit. "I am thinking about Bumblebee's-"
"No! No, you aren't!" she yelled, cross with the Autobot leader. "Because if you were, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now!"
Everyone turned to look at them, especially Bumblebee, who heard his name mentioned. ::Dorothy? Is everything okay?:: he asked. ::Am I in trouble?:: He still sounded a little weak this morning, after he had fainted the previous night.
"No, sweetspark! You're fine!" she called back in a more chipper voice. She chuckled nervously before glaring icy daggers at the truck next to her. "If you want to be a stick in the mud, then you can go back to the warehouse and hang out with Ravage and the kids. I will not have you make Bumblebee feel unwanted when he is already doubting his decision on bonding with Barricade. I do not need you making him feel self-conscious on this mission. So keep your trap shut."
Optimus backed off, still anger at the woman, but knew better than to get into a full-fledged argument with her before they were about to go on this mission.
A couple minutes go by and she sees that everything is clear. She calls all the bots and ran through the plan with them again. Cade and Bumblebee were going to go in through the loading bay since KSI was taking in vintage cars for scanning. Dorothy was going through the front as a scientist, a recently hired one, and checking out the tech they were making with the remains of Autobots and Decepticons. Everyone else was to wait on top of the nearest parking garage until she gave the all clear to break into the facility. Of course, that meant that they would destroy it, but she would get everything she needed before that would happened. Little trick she learned from her spark mate.
The hardest part of this mission wasn't trying to sneak in. She could do that with ease. The real task was getting in and not getting kicked out. Last night, with the help of Starscream and Ravage, the three of them made Dorothy another fake ID, claiming that she was a program writer that was coming in from California to help them with their technological advances, recently hired. Her picture on the ID was her old one from high school, when see still had long hair. She also had a paler face back then from living up north, so she did her makeup and her costume inside Drift, who offered to drive her up to the front of the building. At least one of the bots was being a gentleman.
The electric blue Bugatti pulled up to the KSI building and out stepped "Rebecca Nodela", who had long brunette hair and a pair of frameless glasses shifting on her face as she walked up to the building. Dorothy was hating the high heels she was wearing at the moment, but knew they would help keep up the appearance that she was from Cali'. The woman walked inside, work attire and all and scanned her ID against the turnstiles. The light showed up green and she walked through with ease. Phase one: completed.
::Guys, I'm in.:: she commed the others before turning off her comm. She smiled, finding her way to the main desk and up to the attendant. "Excuse me?"
The woman at the desk looked over her monitor and smiled. "Good morning. Welcome to KSI Industries. How may I help you this morning?"
Dorothy felt shivers down her back, remembering all the years she spent in retail or hosting at restaurants in college. "Hi, my name is Rebecca Nodela. I am the new program writer that Mr. Joyce had requested? I was wondering where I was supposed to meet him."
The lady at the desk nodded and typed in a few things on the computer she had in front of her. Ravage had spent all night finding job openings that had recently closed for KSI. One of them was a program writer. Someone else was selected for the job, but since the feline was just a talented hacker as his sire was, he switched some things around so that it seemed that they had hired Dorothy instead under her alias. The woman popped back up with a smile, a forced customer service one no doubt. "Yes, Ms. Nodela. Mr. Joyce will see you in Warehouse No. 5. Have a good day."
She nodded and walked off, following the signs. Dorothy had never had such déjà vu in her life. This was the life she could have had if she decided to be an engineer instead of a police officer. All these men in stuffy suits, multiple meetings every day and ugh, cafeteria food unless she made her own. Moving the bangs of her wig out of her face, she continued walking towards the warehouse. She arrived to see a bunch of people in suits and in the middle, Mr. Joshua Joyce himself.
"...and now that we had all this technology from the Decepticons, we can move towards the future with the safety of mankind in mind." he finished saying before the crowd rose an applause for him.
Dorothy glared, losing character for a second knowing that she would have to deal with this man for an hour or so. She sighed, took a deep breath in and regained her happy composer. "Mr. Joyce?" she called out, moving towards the front of the group. "Mr. Joyce!
The CEO turned, searching for the voice between his eyes landed on the woman calling at him. He smiled, waltzing over and chuckling. "I know you're moved, but please wait until after the tour."
"No, you must be mistaken. My name is Rebecca Nodela. You hired me to be a new program writer for your company a few days ago."
He stared at her, not remembering this woman's face at any of the interviews. Joyce checked his phone, scanning through his emails before seeing that an email was sent to him from his secretary that the new program writer for the government project was starting today. He chuckled and placed a hand on "Rebecca's" shoulder. "Ah, yes. I'm so sorry to keep you waiting. I had a tour this morning and completely lost track of time. If you would like, I will send one of my associates to guide you through the place you will be working and then I will meet you later."
"That sound perfect. Thank you, sir." she replied, keeping up that bubbly personality.
"GILL!" Joyce yelled, "Rebecca" flinching as he did. Soon, a man more on the chubbier side came walking, morel like running, over. The CEO chuckled. "Hello. Gill, this is Ms. Rebecca Nodela. She is our new coder on the government project. Go show her around."
"Um, yes sir." he replied and walked towards the doors to the warehouse. Dorothy followed and chuckled a bit. She walked behind him until they were in the main area. "This is the Galvatron coding center, where we transfer the code from the transformers to our own model."
The woman stopped. Dorothy looked up at the face of Megatron staring back at her. She looked over out of the corner of her eye to see the decapitated head of Megatron laying on a table with cables stringing out of it. She looked back up at the robot they were making and finally understood why they kept saying "Decepticon".
They were making a new Megatron. Starscream would not be happy about that.
"It looks really menacing." was all she could say at the moment while she was having "nam" flashback of Chicago five years ago. All the fighting and all the bots they had lost that year. She almost lost her kids and sparkmate because of that battle and it was not something she really wanted to see again.
"We know." Gill replied, seeming kinda bummed about it. "We keep trying to program it to look like Optimus Prime, but we haven't been successful so far."
"Well, I think it works the same way as genetics in organic life. You copy the material from the source, it's gonna adapt to look like to source because of how it's programmed."
"True, true." the man replied before stretching a bit. "Well, nothing big is happening today so everyone is taking it slow."
"Great." "Rebecca" replied. "So, where is my desktop?"
Gill walked over towards the rows of desks in front of the Galvatron hanging from the walls and showed her where her desk was. It was a decent sized computer, but it was on the last row in the last spot. "Here you go. Ask your neighbors if you have questions." The scientist walked away after that, seeming really down and tired.
Dorothy watched with wide eyes before sitting down in her chair, staring at her screen before looking around. She caught the glimmer of glass next to her and looked up to see a metal tube with a viewing port. The woman stood up and had to do a double take, after seeing a tiny bot inside with a broken leg. She suddenly had flashbacks from what Frenzy had told her and shivered, not wanting that for anyone else.
The tiny bot suddenly woke up, sitting up and making Dorothy jump for a moment. The two of them stared at each other for a moment before she finally knew who it was.
Brains hit his leg against the glass and growled. "What 'cha looking at?!" he yelled, making the woman back off and sit back down. For a second, the woman flipped the collar of her suit jacket up and closed her eyes for a second. She must have been wearing contacts of something, since it looked like her eyes started to glow blue.
"Brains!" the voice called, coming out of nowhere and scaring the daylights out of the tiny bot. He fell over onto his aft before the voice spoke again. "Opps, sorry."
"Who are you?!" he yelled out loud.
"Yesh, little guy. Not so loud. I can hear you just fine from where I'm sitting."
The tiny bot looked around to see the woman who was standing in front of him looking at him with glowing blue eyes and a smile on her face. "Oh." he whispered.
"You know who I am?"
"Not really. I've neva' met a human with glowin' blue optics."
The woman chuckled as she acted as if she was working. "I'm that human from NEST that Wheelie always talked about being Primus."
"Oh, you that lady that bonded with that Soundcreep guy."
The woman side glared at him, raising a brow. "Yeah, sure. Anyways, I came here to figure out what the hell was going on. Seems like they are making Buckethead 2.0."
"It's creepy. Having all his brain running through me. He had some disturbing thoughts."
"I could imagine. So, what do you know?"
The tiny bot tapped his digit to his chin and hummed. "Well, I do know that those Cemetery guys captured some people. Some they didn't smelt. One guy said they were keeping them whole in storage. I also know that they plan to make an army of these guys."
"Oh, yay. An army of knock off bucketheads. Just what I needed." Dorothy replied, sighing and looking at her computer for a second. "Hey, you wanna help me mess up some coding while I go look for those storage mechs?"
"What's in it for me?"
"I let you out when I bust out of her later and you get to electrocute Shiny over there."
"Oooooo, count me in, femme!"