| abstract
| - 2.0.2 Quiet Maze of Tunnels "And then.... a left here.... that makes a full circle... which means..." are the mutterings of a small femme who is scurrying through the tunnels, holding an LED pad out in front of her as she does so, occasionally looking up from it to orient herself. She is walking quickly, not having any desire to dawdle in the acidic fumes of the eerily quiet tunnels. "Aha.... the exit!" she exclaims with relief and quickens her pace, tucking away the pad as she does so. "There's no way no one's gonna..." The lights flicker and dim, before steadying. A typical thing to happen in this part of Cybertron. First Aid is looking for a quiet place to brood, I mean think, after the craziness of the last two days. Some place that is not Lifeline's shop, where things seem to keep getting busy every time he has a spare minute, or anywhere else with many people. The tunnels are a maze, and definitely not safe, but he's not going to go in far, or stay for very long. On a hunt for a few bits of scrap and other things for Lifeline, Metro-X is stalking in his three headed turbo-wolf form. Moving fairly quietly for a mechanism so large, the law keeper has the left and right heads down, snuffling about while the center head keeps a look out. "...find..... eh?" Swivel stops short as she is on her way out of the tunnel when she sees movement! Not just any movement, but distinctly broody mech shaped movement! Swivel instantly straightens up in surprise, having not expected to encounter much else out there, and remembering herself, instantly unstraightens herself into a slouch and narrows one optic, while keeping the other wide. She pauses for a moment, before quietly approaching First Aid, having not yet noticed the polyheaded canine thing. She waits until she's relatively close before flailing her arms and belting, "Oy! You thar! Wocha doin' inner this sorter place!?" First Aid jumps and turns around- he really didn't think anyone else was there, but he probably should have been paying more attention to his surroundings than just making sure he could retrace his steps to get back. "Nothing? I was just looking for someplace quiet." Metro-X's heads all turn to look to the source of noise and he stalks in that direction, ears all swiveling around while each head swaps through various vision modes. Swivel blinks her optics a few times. She had completely disregarded the dimming of lights - it was, after all, not that strange. Certainly not a harbinger of anything ominous that could happen to a few mechs alone in a place plagued with acidic fog and uncharacteristic stillness and quiet in an otherwise noisy, war-torn planet. After just staring at First Aid dumbly for a few moments, she beams and laughs, quite loudly one might add, and moves in to try and give First Aid a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Weller, this sure is a quiet sorter place, yessiree! Na'much gonner move bouts these places. This place is fer ther crazy or ther desp'rit! Wit one er ya? Ha ha ha, no, dun answer, jus' makin fun. So ya need a quiet place, eh? Gotter lot on yer mind, er jus runnin' way from somsot?" Despite being loud and seemingly preoccupied, Swivel's head suddenly jerks to the side, her optics searching about. Perhaps she noticed something else moving? However, after doing this, she looks back at First Aid with her same bright grin as if nothing had interrupted her focus on him, an expectant look on her face. First Aid takes a minute to decipher the other's odd speech. "Maybe a little of both, not that it's any of your business. Excuse me." First Aid ducks the pat on the shoulder and moves to one side of the tunnel, looking down towards the other end to see where it leads. Metro-X lumbers into view once he recognizes voices ahead of him, all of his opticals focused on the pair. "Curious to find you two down here, I have to say." his left head intones while the right scouts the area and the central head sniffs at the ground. "Well tha's alri...." Swivel trails off, having began to speak before First Aid had quite finished. Yet, upon being avoided and then dismissed the small femme stands in a perfect stupor, her mouth agape and her optics wide. It isn't until the watch dog speaks that she seems to recover, half of her grin fighting its way back onto her face as she looks up to greet the source of the new voice. "Wellum look'ere!" She rolls her shoulders and stands straight, losing the slouch. "Tha's jus' what I was sayin'! Kinner curious for one mech ter be down bouts 'ere, but two? Wellum... three nows I s'pose! SO WEIRD!" First Aid looks back behind him, even as he tries to squeeze past the odd femme and deeper into the tunnel without getting too close. "Hello Metro," he says politely. Metro-X bobs his central head to First Aid, "Greetings cir, the left intones to the mech while the right speaks to Swivel. "I was looking for scrap and things to help with Lifeline... my usual work when not on patrol." Swivel places her arms behind her back and rolls onto the balls of her heels, only to rock forward onto her tippy toes, adding the illusion of a few more inches to her poor height. "Aaaaah, Lifeline! She dun do wonders fer Cubicron! Canna help but look up ter her... splendid, splendid femme." Swivel pauses for a moment, tilting her head to the side. "I.... dun think she likes me much." She eases back onto the flats of her feet. "Wonder why..." Swivel murmurs. She turns and looks after First Aid, who seems determined to avoid people... and that just gives Swivel the urge to give chase. "Oy, ya sure ya wanner gwon in thar? D'ya got a map? Cuz, people kin get REAL lost in thar an 'en rust ter death! Well mebbe not DEATH, but ya get me meanin!" "Why wouldn't I want to go in there?" First Aid stops and looks back, just in case the femme knows something he doesn't. He's pretty sure that there's nothing down here THAT dangerous or people would talk about it, but still. Metro-X's one head continues to follow First Aid, commenting almost too cassualy. "Steel eatting giant turbo-rats... Acid leeches, sulfer pits... You know, fun stuff like that. Nothing -too- dangerous." the center head grinning. Swivel slants her optics slightly as her grin broadens, looking almost impish as she lowers her chin. "Well, yeah, those sorter thins...." she adds to Metro's comment, offering a little shrug of her shoulders. "An... ever wunner WHY this place IS so quiet? Think 'bout that fer a few..." she gestures towards the depths beyond the mouth of the tunnel. "Wit der acid haze 'n all, it gets inner yer thinkin' circuits an' yer navi ders first ter go... den you slowly go mad if ya dun know yer limits..." She hunches her shoulders forward as she speaks, and brings up her hands, wiggling her fingers as she says the words 'go mad'. She laughs and shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "Kin ya look me straight inner face an' say der haze hasn't already gotten ter me? CAN YOU?" First Aid steps back against the wall as the femme's hands come up. "No... definitely can't say that." He edges back towards Metro and the exit of the tunnels. Metro-X's heads all look to Swivel as she apparently has her own delightful bout of Crazy Time. The center head blinking momentarily, "Mayhap you need a cognitive circuitry inspection yourself miss... It would appear you might be suffering from adverse conditional modifiers to your behaviorals." Swivel throws her head back and belts out a shrill cackle. She lets it die down part way through Metro-X's observation and turns her head to stare at him, her optics darting between each head. She goes suddenly quiet and still, going so far as to drop her smile. Then she offers up a shrug. "Mebbe.... if sommer wot ya said made any sorter se- YA HAVE TER CATCH ME FIRST!" throwing her arms up into the air, Swivel abruptly turns and dashes away, only to run face first into a wall with a loud CLUNK. First Aid doesn't turn around as Swivel starts talking again and has nearly reached Metro when he hears a crash behind him. "Do I want to know?" He asks. Metro-X 's heads take turns blinking, staring at Swivel. "She crashed into a wall... I think she may have gone fully crazy." the right one stats, the central moving down and towards the Femme, sniffing. That would be a no, not really, but she might be hurt. First Aid turns and follows Metro back. It would stand to reason that an action would have an equal and opposite reaction, and therefor Swivel would have fallen back after colliding with the wall. However, she just stays there, up against the wall, a moment or two after impact. Twitch. Slowly the femme's elbows stick out back as she places the palms of her hands against the wall her face and chest seem to be flattened against. She makes a few muffled comments, but they are so removed from any recognizable word that her previous speech would sound polished in comparison. First Aid asks "Are you okay?" Metro-X's heads jerk back at crazy-pants mcginty here, and he looks to First Aid with his right head again, giving a slight look for that particular question about Swivel before his attention turns back. TIMBER! After giving a forceful push against the wall, Swivel pitches backwards and lands squarely on the large tires positioned upon her ample aft. She bounces once, skips twice, and ends up flat on her back - as flat as she can be considering the lack of flatness her backside has, and her legs sticking straight up in the air. Her bewildered purple optics are flickering rapidly, and there is certainly some scratches and dents on her face and chest. "Huurrrrrrrr................... I dun had worse." First Aid steps back. "Um, okay then." Another step. "Nice to see you, Metro." Another takes him past Metro and he heads to the exit, having definitely reached his full quota of crazy for the day. Metro-X nods as First Aid starts to go, backing away from Swivel and heading for the exits as well, one head keeping an eye out over his shoulder... Swivel remains on the ground, hearing both mechs shuffling off. When she feels she's adequately alone she sits up and smiles. She slowly gets to her feet and stretches, then glances down at herself. "Hrmm... maybe I over did it.... ah well..." She whips out the pad she had prior, makes a few notes, tucks it away, and heads out of the tunnels whistling.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)