| abstract
| - Arcee has a 'chick-bot' drink. Something blue and sparkly. She sips at it slowly, savoring the intriguing flavor. She gazes around the room, trying to see if she can spot anyone familiar. Goa is not familiar, but he's certainly there, guzzling high-grade like a champ. It'd been a rough few cycles -- time to redeem those extra energon credits he'd saved up. Rascal pushes the bar doors open with a bit of gusto. The mech has a large grin plastered on his face along with a fake optic band and some awful orange paint. He makes his way to the bar and orders a spiced energon. "Keep the change." he says flipping out a few extra credits. The sound of laughing can be heard, the frequency and shrill pitch barely making it above the din of the establishment. There is a pause, and then the inaudible sound of talking. Finally the doors part as a smallish femme enters the room, calling back over her shoulder. "Don't worry, it will be done by this time next cycle! Have a niiiiice day!" The small femme finally enters the fray, a spring in her step, and her movements heavily animated in defiance of the thick gloom that hangs around these parts. Goa takes pause in his chugging to look over his shoulder at the influx from the doors. He could've sworn he heard Torque a nanosec, but there was no bubbly mechanic there. Though the orange-spackled mech looked a little familiar ... that thought has the Decepticon absently scratching at his beard, staring at both on their way in. Rascal scoops up his glass and notices the pink Autobot. His grin fades a bit as he collects himself some. Slipping his way thru the crowd and up to an empty seat next to said femme Rascal asks, "This seat taken ma'am?" he's oblivious to the mech who might have spotted him. Arcee wonders if the little mech standing there is familiar. "It's not taken," she said, "You can sit here if you wish. What's your name?" she asks. She continues to sip at her drink. Swivel arrives at the actual bar, not too long after Rascal claims a seat next to the pink Autobot. By a simple matter of random choice making, perhaps a game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo with the available stools, she ends up sitting the seat over from Rascal. She glances at the drink Arcee is having, and it looking so very appealing at the moment, she points at her and says "I'll have what that pink femme is having!" when asked for an order... although 'ask' is a euphemism for the moody 'whaddya want' from the tender. Rascal takes a seat with the femme giving the new arrival a nod as well. He probably does look familiar to Arcee and Goa. Rascal was a bit drunk tonight and besides the orange paint he got for a "steal" he's used these optics before and his frame is usually about the same. Extending a hand in greeting he replies, "Rotate....and yourself?" Goa is already turned aside in his seat, and Swivel fills the last seat in front of him, 'Rotate' occupying the next spot over. He snorts softly in the femme's general direction, and takes another swig of his drink. At this state of inebriation, he's content to observe. Fresh game, maybe -- speaking of game ... he tilts his antennae forward to pick up on any errant current-events that slip out. Arcee passes out suddenly. Someone cyber-roofied her drink? Rascal's fake green optics dart to the side as his hand floats mid-air still. "I haven't even slipped her anything yet..." he thinks to himself. Quickly he turns said hand to Swivel, "Rotate's the name.....and yours?" He grins again. Swivel blinks her optics a few times as the femme goes down. She quickly gets the bar tender's attention. "On second thought, maybe I won't have what she's drinking!" she says. Before she can think of what to order instead, the mech one stool over had quickly turned his attention to her. "Oh...." she looks at the extended hand and then accepts it, squeezing it firmly as she shakes it. "Hello Rotate, I'm Swivel." She blinks a few times. If she were more intelligent, she made have made a joke about synonymous names, but lacking the wit she just laughs a little. Goa savors the last few drops of fuel from his mug and then sets it aside on the bar with a clank before motioning for another. "Gimme something with kick." He's not dissuaded by the far femme's fit of narcolepsy, it would appear. Swivel blinks a few times more. A simple introduction, and already someone is fleeing the fort. Idly Swivel looks about herself to see if she might have been the reason, and then finally shrugs. She curls her feet under her stool and glances around. She's tempted to reach over and prod the femme, but decides to just let it be and push it out of her mind. People pass out all of the time in dives like this. Finally, she remembered that she cancelled her drink, and therefore, has none. She stares at the emptiness before her, and then waves enthusiastically to catch the barkeep's optic. "Hellooooo I made up my mind! Just give me what he's having!" she says, pointing to Goa. After all, he's still erect, and that has to be a good sign. Once served up some fuel she happily begins to chug it back with abandon. Foz-E slides Goa's drink into the Con's exanimate hand -- He's distracted peering at the departure as well. Maybe Rotate recognized him too. Eventually, he does feel there's something there, and closes his fingers around the mug to take a brief swig. Whatever it is, it's crackling electricity off his faceplate quietly. "Swivel?" He notes, before looking back over at her. "From these parts?" It might seem a little slow on his part, but a genuine question -- he'd like to think he was familiar with all the creepily-cheery femmes Cubi had to offer. Full of surprises, this hive. Swivel raises her optic ridges at the mech as he calls her by name. Of course, she couldn't say something dumb like how he knew her name, since she said it quite clearly. She sets down her mug and she smiles. "Oh no, I'm not from any one part of Cybertron," she says, wiping the back of her hand across her chin. "I haven't been in these parts in... long while I guess. Um..." she continues to smile, but she lets one optic ridge furrow, while keeping the other elevated. Likewise, half of her smile falters, leaving a lopsided grin on her face. "You got a name?" "Maybe," Goa chuckles as he offers a hand. More formally, his body distanced, less enthusiastic than Rotate. Though his digits are just as orange. "Goa. Got a bit in common, then." The mech glances over his shoulder momentarily, then over at Arcee, and finally back in front of himself. "Don't get the stuff with kerosene in. The tanks in the back are getting rusty lately..." Swivel reaches across the way to take the offered hand and offer a handshake, her optic ridge, which had lowered prior, rising up to join its partner once more as she listens to his advice. She then gives a wink. "Gotcha," she says. Her hands instantly go back around the mug, although it only takes one to hold it, and she stares into the mug for a quiet moment. Then she looks back and smiles again. "I saw just the strangest thing today... okay maybe not that strange. I see a lot of strange things... and while I’m sober too! So I saw a sorta strange thing, or rather, met an interesting fella..." she trails off her optics intently looking at Goa to see if he is showing any sign of interest in her rambling. Goa's antennae -- orange slats above his optics -- are still observantly angled. He's listening alright, between gulps, anyway... though he interprets the pause as an opportunity to butt in. "Hmmmmmmmm." The red points of his optics stare down the cone over his nose, then he smirks. "Do strange things usually sneeze fire at you? If you get around. Just askin'." Another chug, though this is more of a sip. "Or try to weld 'emselves to your arms? 'Cause that, that's a Cubicron thing. That's normal." This is the part where he starts getting a little unintelligible. Swivel tilts her head to the side and continues to smile, even laugh a little. "No... it wasn't a creepy or threatening kind of strange person... but now that I think about it, I'd been deep out of it on some, er, errands, and when getting back to, uh, I guess you could call this 'normality' I guess anything I see as strange might just be common knowledge now." She sighs a little, but her smile does not depart. She idly takes a dainty sip from her drink, not seeing the need, now that she had gotten to talking, to gulp the rest down. "He was walking down the middle of a busy highway just to make people yell cuss words at him. Anything that hit him turned him into liquid and then regrouped. Do you know the guy I'm talking about?" Goa snorts bubbles into his drink, bursting out with a squawky laugh before he can clear the mug from his face. "Slag ... yeah, I suppose I do," he replies, through giggles. "Ye're lucky Depth didn't try to teach you some silly lesson about weird, or somethin'." He rolls his optics sarcastically, "Last I saw him, he was tellin' me I'm bad at my job, which I am, then thought that was a good point to leave me alone with a nasty beast on." Goa's free hand skitters through the air to describe Depth's precise wandering-away path. Swivel nods her head, her purple optics lighting up. "Yeah, Depth, that's him. Oh, but he tried to teach me silly lessons. He has some weird ideas about Cybertronians, and used some terms I didn't quite understand." She finished her drink and set the mug aside. One drink was really all she wanted for now. "So... he left you in danger to prove you ain't good at your job? Well... ah.... he didn't seem that sort of nasty to me, but then, maybe that's because I'm just hard to be mean to." Goa waves his hand in an exaggerated way. "Nah, he knew I could handle it. Don't look scorched to you, do I?" He shrugs and gets a far-off look in his optics, raising his drink to his mouth again now that he's calmed down enough to get a little in without choking on it. "Come ta think of it ... Skystalker and Rogue would've messed me up pretty bad if he didn't do that ... shield-morphy-thingy." Staring into space, he tries to lace his fingers together to make a shield like that with his hands. Doesn't really work for his brittle, non-liquid fingers. "Oh." His optics snap back to Swivel. Surely, the names in the Decepticon command structure don't mean anything to her. Or DID they? No. They probably didn't. Goa giggles to himself again, then resumes gesturing with his hands, this time an aerofoil. "Couple a'seekers. Prissy, wanna shoot everything, you know the sort. I think Sky has it out for me." He leans in close and whispers, glancing around the bar, "I swear to Primus, he should'a been a mob driver down here." Snapping back upright, with a hand tapping his beard again, "Or a janitor." Swivel watches Goa intently, never failing to smile or laugh at just the right moments. And it isn't a polite smile, or fake enjoyment... nor is it over the top. She just seems to easily find enjoyment in socializing. She seems especially amused by the quieter comments of just what he thought about the other seekers. She bobs her head enthusiastically. "You think that low of him, eh?" She shifts her weight a little on the stool, the tires sticking out from her lower back just barely hanging off the ends so that her rear could be firmly planted on the circular structure. "Say... this Depth person... you wouldn't happen to know where he's from, would you? Because he wouldn't tell me..." Goa's finger is still on his chin as his optic ridges flatten out and his voice gets monotone. "He was my boss a few decacycles, and he still won't leave my sister alone. So yeah, I do." He sees you shift and decides to take a moment to mime the gesture, perching his ankle tires up against the legs of his stool and bracing his hands on the edge of the seat, between his legs. Then he breaks the whole stoic episode and smiles, sharpened dental plates gleaming. "Well... actually..." He starts to waffle, stumbling over his sentences, "Sorta. I dunno. Whatever planet it was, he said it got eaten." Goa's optics don't waver the slightest bit at this, like it's the most normal thing ever. "I don't remember if he told me not to tell you that. He told Shred though. Shred's crazy." Goa starts giggling again. "Slaggin' cray-zeee ... Anyway, there's only a couple of him left. Him- ... aliens, I guess." He slouches a little, muttering, "... wonder what he'd even do about it if I wasn't supposed'ta. I hope he doesn't merge into my arm again." Swivel gives an honest-to-primus sour look, in an attempt to be sympathetic, as Goa explains why he dislikes this Skystalker. Then she returns to her regular, smiling face. She leans one elbow on the table, resting the side of her head on her open palm as she continues to watch and listen. "Well I won't tell him you told me that. All he'd say is that he didn't have a home to go to.... so he tried to meld with your arm, yeah? Okay... he said something about putting his liquid in a mech's head to get information and offered to show me a demonstration, but I politely declined of course. I'm not sure I'd want a guy I just met doing that to me... but I imagine he didn't give you much choice." She swings her legs a little. "So tell me about this Shred! Crazy people are ALWAYS fun to talk about." Talk about. Yes, he considered in a moment of clarity, he was talking about. Talking about a lot. But slag it, he's got to make up for a thousand vorns of silence at some point. Besides, it's not like Goa was BLACKOUT overcharged -- he certainly wouldn't let something stupid slip like last time. He straightens up, expression darkening a little as he does so much thinking. Slag thinking. He hunches back over, grinning, his shoulder tires taller than his helmet from the slouch. "Shredder is crazy," he repeats, drawing an open hand over his left cheek. "See the weld seams?" From the cheek support strut halfway down to his jaw line, that side of his faceplate does, indeed, have minute seaming on it, the area a shade brighter than the rest of his face. Fresh replacement. "Shredder is crazy." Goa sits back up, chuckling at himself. "She's a good medic. Just a little ... meh." Something distasteful seems to enter the mech's mind -- he frowns a nanosec. "Paranoid. Tried to kill me, and my-- somebody else. Right there in the med bay, layin' on the irony. Then she out-flies me, just to rub it in. Hmm..." One of his tires starts bouncing against the side of the stool. "'n numbers, I think she's either witnessed or caused more'a my injuries than anybody else. Since I've been on Cybertron, I mean." If the small femme notices the subtle darkening of countenance, she does nothing to show it. Instead she continues to seem keenly interested in anything, and everything, the antennaed mech has to say. She leans closer, staring at his face intently, taking note of the seams once brought to her attention, and giving an affirmative nod. "Paranoid... medics must keep you on your feet. Yet despite the danger she seems to cause, you seem quite fond of her.... or maybe all this laughter is you just being nervous. It's okay. I do the same thing. I've had to deal with some crazy medics in my time, some of which can be a bit threatening when they're having a bad day... but I'm always careful to be plenty nice to the people fixing me! Though sometimes they think I'm being smug or something... ha ha ha.... so why do you think Shred tried to kill you?" "Yeah. On my feet." Goa shakes a little, but finishing off his drink in one go stops that quickly enough. "Slag, understatement of the vorn," He shakes his helmet blearily, trying to force the overcharge away from it, maybe. "I'm fond of 'er, sure. That's another story, though. This story, it's 'cause she's less dangerous than the other medic--" Goa brakes mid-word, almost. "Hmmmm. Not really. Both tried'ta kill us. She's just less of a skid plate ... face. When you try talking to 'er." He tilts his helmet. What, repair drama wasn't endemic to the Decepticons' repair academy? ... Oh, wait. "I take if you've met Lifeline then." He snickers. "Shredder tried to kill us because her neurals was broken. CPU problem. No more, no less. She shoulda been off duty 'til she had a full checkout." His optics widen slightly, looking soberer. "... Megatron di'n't agree." Swivel blinks her optics a few more times as she listens to Goa continue to talk. "The other medic?" she inquired. "Are all the medics, uh, there, uh, dangerous?" She asked. She listened a little more. "Oooooh... she's crazy because she was rerouted, then, yes? I can't imagine having my mind tampered with.... And she should not have been on duty if she wasn't functioning right, right? I mean, a medic for crying out loud should not be doing their pokey, healing, fixing things when they ain't sound! Your Megatron must be some kinda..." she stopped her sentence abruptly. "Oh, but it ain't nice to say things I know nothing about." She sits up straight and puts her hands in her lap. "Tell me about the skid plate-face medic!" Goa manages to lean backwards just such that his armored 'cape' hits the leg of the stool, making a surface for him to relax against. He grins contentedly. "Yes. Yesss... they are." Asked about Shred's condition, he shrugs. "Not a medic. I just seen enough net damage to know it." In reality, he's just too inebriated to recall precisely what he /does/ know. There was a lot there, and his databanks are sort of slipping out of the grip of his processor threads, at the moment. But Swivel picks up for him anyway. The femme's hesitation makes his faceplate recollect and smirk. "Say what you want, Swivel. I ain't on duty." The mech's helm turns aside slightly. "Shouldn't badmouth Psykeout. He talks to folks down here. Can tell you the slagger's wordy, though, not wordy like I'm being. Long-wordy." Swivel watches as he leans back, grimacing a little, expecting him to fall... only not to. She lets out a little light chuckle and reaches an arm back over to the bar, thumping her fingers upon it in a short cadence. "Well, thing is, I ain't got nothing to say about Megatron. Not because I'm afraid, but because regardless of all the bad or the good someone does, or supposedly is behind, I just ain't got the right to suppose anything! Ya never know when something is not what it seems." She reaches up and strokes her chin for a moment. "Yes... can't go 'round just repeating everyone else's opinions... but I ain't in a rush to form my own just yet. Keep my head down and keep living my life, that's all I want." She crosses one leg over the other. "I know what you mean by long wordy. I ain't ever seen anyone by the name of Psykeout here, but then I only come in when I have work here, and I try an' keep that to the min. Though not sure I'd want someone named Psykeout putting ME back together. 'Course that ain't fair to say either." A small, bemused smile crosses Goa's lips while Swivel explains her reasoning. "Don't rush into things, then. Good. Good for you. Pro'lly be kickin' long after my aft's rustin' in a pit somewhere." The mech takes in a deep sigh through his ventral fans, his optics dimming in turn, then brightening again. "Don't be so sure livin's all you want, Swivel. Try it, alone, jillion vorns. Wears..." He rubs two fingers together, "Thin." Those fingers join in a steepled gesture in his lap, and his optic shutters blink lazily a couple times, then he spins back to joviality. Right about the same time as he tries to think of Psykeout coming HERE. No, he's got some other ways. Scavengers and such. That was just too funny-- "Well, I owe 'im my chassis. And he owes me his chassis for not rippin' him in half when I had the chance. So it works out." He hums as he muses... "Maybe that's why the docs hate me." Goa's motors spin back from their half-power down, and he sits hunched forward again. "What about you? I been talkin' clicks and clacks, what brings you to beautiful Cubie-cron?" He had been talking a lot. Just now starting to get the feeling he might regret getting so loose-lipped next cycle... Swivel beams at being complimented for her good sense. It was not something she often received praise for, and it was written plain across her face that it made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. Well perhaps not fuzzy, as the concept is probably far from Robot reckoning, but nonetheless, there is evidence of a flicker of pride... until Goa begins to fall into a more doleful tone. Her smile wavers for a moment, but does not completely fade. "Well, I plan on not just surviving, but REALLY living my little core out when things get a lil more stable, if yanno what I mean. And if the planet explodes before then, well, gee, it ain't so bad if everyone dies with me! No one is left behind! In fact, everyone dying at once is perhaps the nicest way to go.... just.... everything's fine, then BAM! Gone. No suffering... no loneliness..." even her face, for a moment seems to reach a morose conclusion as her optics fade a little, "...not that I'd be leaving anyone behind when my numbers up...." but this shift in mood is temporary as she buoys herself up again. "Sounds like you get on well with your medical staff, ah ha ha ha..." She reaches to the back of her neck and rubs a hand along it. "Yes, ha ha... as for me, I'm here because I'm on a job, and came in for a relaxer. I do this or that, whatever I can earn some creds doing. And by whatever, I mean just small little tasks... mostly as a courier.... when I said 'whatever it takes' to that Depth fella, he got all... I don't know... looked like he thought I was saying more than what I was saying, but all I meant was what I said. He seemed to be listening on two channels to almost everything I said, though. People like that perplex me some! I just figure best to take things for what they are and play the fool than to assume double meanings and then act on it and end up in some embarrassing, or dangerous, mess... yanno?" Goa's optics brighten a little when Swivel starts talking about stable. When things get more stable. After the war -- he nods as she speaks. Plenty of CPU cycles devoted to that idea. "... wish we could go back to being all Cybertronians. And remember how to make good booze," he mutters, licking his lips, remembering what concoctions he'd enjoyed earlier in the war, mixtures now apparently extinct. Well, unless the Autobots were hoarding them. But when she mentions 'courier', his optics grow even brighter and redder. "How's that workin' out for you? They still make you install a tracker when you move goods, or did they stop doing that with the military some such?" He straightens out, antennae turning to hear this. "Toldja Depth was weird. He asked for my blessin' about my sis once..." One hand runs over his face. "Everything's pretty weird, come'ta think of it. Shay..." Goa's oddly shaped dental plates accelerate his speech slurring. "You still lookin' for side work?" Swivel begins tapping her fingers lightly on the bar again, not annoyed, but just because she seems to have an aversion to being perfectly still. "Hmmmm yes... booze of the good old days.... not that I remember that far back to be honest. I'm a relatively young femme, and i don't mind saying so," she said, wearing on her smile. Her large purple optics were a testimony to her youth... for if she were old and jaded, she might keep them narrowed in a scowl. "I don't do military missions really, least, not exclusively. I take what work I can get, unless it's beyond my capabilities. I ain't a battle-ready femme." She tilts her head to the side thinking about Depth a moment. "Yes... strange... kept saying something about all Cybertronians being virgins, and I didn't understand the term... not really... and he seemed to have a hard time explaining it, always trailing off and giving me them 'I'm saying something yufa... yufem... well I'm saying something in a way so not to really say what I'm saying but hoping you'll get my meanin' looks." She reaches up and scratches her cheek. "I'm always looking for work. Gotta a job you want to offer me?" Goa soaks in Swivel's responses, in turn becoming just a little more aware of his own age. He had no illusions of being ancient, but he remembered things the younger mechs'd never heard of ... suffice it to say, if he had been able to serve the Decepticons from the cycle he was inducted, he'd be a veteran by now. Veteran civilian. Maybe through the academy... Or dead. "Don't," he butts in when she mentions military work. "Like a loan shark from the Pit. It'll follow you around." He keeps listening afterward, nodding with a knowing grin when Depth's antics come back up. "Make shense in his language, I reckon..." But when Swivel extends the offer, Goa's steepled fingers lock clasped, and he takes a long look around the El Sleazo. Long enough to be a full-spectrum scan, even. He looks back over to the femme with an apologetic smile on, leaning close, side of his back plate bumping the bar. "There's'n Autobot I need to rendezvous with." He slips a data chip from over his shoulder, he must've had it stashed in his cab, and offers it-- "Name is Shark. 'Bout my size, sharper teeth. Regular here. You run into him, give him this. He'll know." The chip is, indecipherably for now, loaded with the data Goa got from his black market contacts -- schedules, routes, contents in some cases -- under an old Autobot encryption codec. Along with Goa's private comm frequency. "Owe you whatever you want. A favor, if that'sh your liking. Could show you the old shipping shortcuts my company used. Cubicron to Tarn, jusht like that." Swivel widens her optics for a millisecond when Goa firmly brings down the word 'don't'. However she understands. In all absolute truth, she understands. She sits on her stool, actually still for a moment or two, but a smile still playing lightly on her lips. One might begin to wonder if a smile weren't the natural state of her lips for all the time she spends doing it. She leans into him after he looks around very carefully, her audio receptors prickled to listen. She looks at the data chip, and nods her head as she listens. Finally she takes the chip casually and tucks it away in a compartment of her chassis nonchalantly. "Shark you say? Got it. I'll get it to him, no worries. However, I'll assess what the task is worth once it is done, if you don't mind." She offers up a different smile, one that is almost sly and subtle. "I hate being underpaid when a simple job ends up with... complications." Also one might notice her words more carefully annunciated and her vocabulary a little more refined. Then she leans back on her stool, hanging precariously for a moment as her hands go out to steady herself on the bar. "'s fine. I'll be around, unles'shomebody breaks my legs again." Goa starts moving to stand up. It's a slow, tedious process. Even when he gets to his feet, though, he's a little wobbly on them. "... thanks, Swivel," he strains to pronounce quite clearly. "Thash why you don't take military work. You wanna talk to somebody, it'sha tedious thing," Goa chuckles, looking down now. He is nowhere near as tall as his long arms and legs made him out to be -- half a head or so short for a typical car-alt mode transformer. "Shee you 'round." He stumbles his way outside, smacking a couple of other regulars on the shoulders as he leaves. Aside, it seems the Decepticon left a generous sum of credits with the bar tab at some point when Swivel wasn't looking.
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